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Contents 
Introduction
Fujitsu Stylistic T4020C
Lenovo ThinkPad X41
Acer TravelMate C310
Toshiba Portege M200
Hewlett-Packard TC4200
How we tested
Specifications
Editor's choice
About RMIT |
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The Fujitsu Stylistic T4020C is quite a small and compact tablet weighing in at only 2.16kg -- not bad for a tablet which has a built in optical drive. The Acer was the only other tablet to feature an integrated optical drive, but it did weigh some 700 grams more and had a much larger footprint.
The Fujitsu was equipped with an Intel Pentium M 1.86GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, Intel 915 graphics, and a 60GB hard disk drive. The contrast on the 12.1-inch screen was excellent and the clarity was quite good, our only complaint was speckle across the screen. The reflective screen can also be somewhat annoying.
The Fujitsu featured a combo optical drive. It wasn't a DVD burner, just a DVD-ROM and CD burner. But you can upgrade to a DVD burner or you can replace it with a second battery.
As for communications and connectivity, this tablet scores highly. It offers gigabit Ethernet, supports a, b and g wireless networks, Bluetooth, the most common input output connectors, and a Sony memory slot as well.
Holding the tablet in "tablet mode" is fairly comfortable but it favours a right-handed person. Your left hand would rest over the felt that covers the memory and optical drive so it would give a right-handed person a better grip. A left-handed person would find where they rest their hand a bit slippery and they would be covering the grills where most of the heat is exhausted.
To use the finger scanner you have to first launch the OmniPass software and add a new user. You then enter your Windows account information like your username, domain and password, and choose the finger you want to "enroll".
The sensor is located where you would typically find it on a standard notebook, just below the slide pad. If, however, you were using the tablet in the convertible mode, you wouldn't be able to access the sensor without lifting the LCD. The IBM's sensor is located in a much more convenient location -- on the screen.
The Fujitsu performed well in the speed tests clocking the third-fastest time in Winstone. There wasn't really much between it and the Toshiba -- consider them equal in speed. The test results indicate that the graphics processor affects its overall score in Winstone. The Intel graphics is just not quite up to the performance of the nVidia processors, which resulted in the lower score for the Fujitsu, but it was still equal second fastest and by no means slow.
In the battery run-down test the Fujitsu recorded a score of three hours and 13 minutes, which wasn't a bad effort but we expected better.
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When it comes to high resolution (ie DPI, not total pixel dimensions) LCDs, I fail to see the problem. Just turn up the font size, or inform Windows that it has a high resolution display in the display control panel.
This should be done automatically by any OEM with half a brain. I would think that enabling "large fonts" is simply not that big a deal.
With that setting, you can get lots of screen "working area", plus readable, smooth, clean looking text.
There are a few broken apps out there that can't cope with non-default font sizes (this appalls me) but they're not that common, really. The worst problem with Windows its self seems to be somewhat ugly quicklaunch icons and the XP Pro login screen background image being too small for the dialog. An OEM could trivially fix both of these.
I'm one of the frustrated community of users who /want/ high res LCDs, because I like smooth readable text and the option to fit lots on the screen when I need to. It's frustrating to see reviews like this panning a laptop for having a good display.
I'd be happy to hear from you if you have any particular views on this - craig@postnewspapers.com.au .