Sony VAIO TZ Series Review

If you go to your local electronics store, you’ll find most laptops are of the 15.4″ or 17″ variety. These sizes are fantastic if you plan on using your computer mostly at home. However for those who already have a desktop, 15.4″ or 17″ can get tiresome to carry around because they tend to weigh a lot.

For those looking for something smaller there are also 14″, 13″ and even 12″ laptops. While there are some exceptions, 12-14″ laptops typically start at 4lbs. If that’s still too heavy there is the Sony’s TZ series.

The TZ has a 11.1″ LED backlit display, built-in EVDO, built-in DVD burner and tips the scales at an airy 2.8lbs. There are smaller laptops out there but the TZ in my opinion is about as small as you can get without seriously compromising usability.

I’m going to be reviewing the TZ170. It’s actually a slightly older model but the only real differences between it and the newer ones are extra RAM and slightly faster processors.

First Impressions:

Here are some of the TZ170s specs. This list is just whats off the top of my head since you can just go to Sony’s website to read them:

• 1.06Ghz Core 2 Duo
• 11.1″ 1366×768 LED backlit display
• 1GB RAM (I upgraded this to 2GB)
• 2.8lbs (according to my scale)
• 100GB 4200RPM HD
• Built-in Webcam
• 100mbps Network
• 802.11abg
• Bluetooth
• Stereo speakers
• VGA out
• External DVD player buttons
• SD card slot
• Memory stick slot
• Headphone/microphone out
• IEEE 1394 (firewire) slot
• Modem
• EVDO modem
• 2 USB slots
• Windows Vista Business

The TZ150 actually comes with 1GB of RAM. After booting it up for the first time and seeing how much crapware was preloaded I ran out and replaced it with 2GB.

Let’s take a tour:

On the left we have 2 USB ports, laptop lock slot and network, modem and firewire connectors behind a cover.

The front has the microphone/headphone jack, SD card reader, MS reader along with some DVD player buttons (more on that later).

The right has the DVD burner, VGA port and power button. The power button glows green when the TZ is on.

The back is all battery. The TZ comes with a battery which sticks out which isn’t a bad thing since it gives you something to hold onto.

The screen lid stays shut with magnets.

One of the TZ’s main selling points is it’s very thin screen - indeed it is really thin. To make it so thin, Sony made the bezel around the screen completely flat which looks cool but means the screen is some what flexible. My only complaint is that the screen and lid are so light that they ‘bounce’ when you open the screen so it feels flimsy. It doesn’t affect the usage of the TZ but it doesn’t instill confidence.

When closed, the TZ feels fairly solid. It’s also solid when you open it with the exception of the screen.

The keyboard is smaller than standard. I don’t have any problems using it but those with thicker fingers may disagree. The fingerprint reader is inconveniently placed between the 2 left and right touchpad buttons. This wouldn’t be a problem but every time you brush your finger on it, a fingerprint dialog window pops up.

There are some DVD player buttons on the front of the TZ. My wife hates them because she keeps accidentally ejecting the optical drive. The DVD player buttons allow you to watch DVD’s listen to music and view pictures that are stored on the hard drive without having to boot into Windows. I tried doing this with media stored on a memory card but the TZ doesn’t see them.

The SD and Memory stick slots. They don’t cause the CPU utilization to go nuts when you use them.

Sony includes a pretty large battery that’s located at the back. Battery life is excellent. I found you can get around 4.5 to 5hrs with the included battery.

The power adapter is similar in size to other manufacturer’s 65watt models. It comes with a piece of attached velcro to help you organize the cables. There’s a LED that lights up when the power adapter is plugged into the wall. It doesn’t matter if it’s plugged into the laptop. If you unplug the adapter from the wall, the LED will stay lit for a while. I was hoping it would be like the Apple adapter which tells you if the laptop is actually being charged.

Underneath there are no important ventilation holes so you can leave the TZ on a bed all day and it won’t overheat - mind you the left side of the TZ gets pretty hot when you’re using it.

The screen measures 11.1″, has a resolution of 1366×768 and is backlit with LED’s. It’s reflective like most consumer laptops. The screen is really bright and works well when it’s sunny outside.

One thing which surprised me is how the TZ has decent speakers given it’s relatively small size - good stuff.

Like I was saying before, the TZ is a pretty small laptop. Here it is next to a Macbook. In case you don’t know the Macbook has a 13.3″ display.

The biggest difference between the two (from a size perspective) is that the Macbook has a regular sized keyboard and the TZ doesn’t.

Software:

Software-wise my first impressions were shock at how much stuff is preloaded on the TZ. The Uninstall Program has a zillion entries that start with “VAIO”.

Most useful software:

• WinDVD
• HDD protection

Mildly useful software:

• Click to DVD (software to create DVD’s)
• Instant Mode
• LAN setting utility
• Protector Suite
• Roxio Easy CD Creator
• Setting utility series
• SmartWi
• Vaio Status Monitor
• Vaio
• Instant Mode
• AV mode launcher
• Camera Capture Utility
• Vaio Video and Photo Suite
• If you use any of these:
  • MS Works
  • MS Office 2007 60 day trial
  • Norton Internet Security 60 day trial

Less useful software:

• Location Free Player (useful if you own a Location Free TV, I’m guessing you don’t)
• Sonic Stage

After playing with it a bit, some of the stuff they included is mildly useful but there are just so many different little programs. For example; why are the “VAIO Power Management View” and “Battery Care Function” separate? The VAIO central program ties a lot of the utility type programs together.

SmartWi let’s you switch between the built-in EVDO modem and WiFi. If you don’t want to use this program you can just create a dial up connection to the internet and start it whenever you want to use EVDO.

Speaking of the EVDO the built in modem is a Novatel USB model. It’s probably very similar to my U720 Novatel USB EVDO modem. Speed and signal are also comparable to my U720.

This TZ is from Sony Canada so you can only activate it on Bell. I don’t think you can activate it on Telus. If you got it from the US you can only activate it on Sprint.

There is Bluetooth support. Sony includes Toshiba’s Bluetooth stack.

Performance:

While the TZ is fast enough that I found it useful for everyday tasks, it’s 1.06Ghz processor and glacial 4200rpm hard drive aren’t going to make for pretty benchmarks. Just remember, the TZ’s a small laptop so don’t expect big scores.

You can actually set the speed of the RAM. You can either run it at 400 or 533Mhz. There is an increase in performance at the expense of battery life. The increase is very mild, I didn’t notice it in day to day usage.

Benchmarks are run with 2GB of RAM installed. Given the TZ’s relatively high price and the low price of RAM, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that this will be a popular configuration. I’m testing against a Lenovo Thinkpad T60 (Windows XP, Intel T2500 Core Duo 2Ghz, 2GB PC5300 RAM, 100GB 5400RPM hard drive), Lenovo Thinkpad x300 (Windows Vista Business 32bit, Intel T7600 Core 2 Duo 1.2Ghz, 4GB PC5300 RAM, 64GB SSD), and my desktop (Vista Ultimate 64bit, Intel QX6700 Core 2 Quad 2.66Ghz, 8GB PC6400 RAM, 3×150GB 10000RPM hard drives RAID 5 with Areca 1210 RAID controller).

Here’s the Vista score. Click to see the original image.

The first test is how long it takes to turn the system on and see the Windows login screen. This includes the time it takes to POST (POST time is in the brackets).

1. Sony TZ170 31secs (12 seconds)
2. Thinkpad X300 40secs (15 seconds)
3. Thinkpad T60 62secs (12 seconds)
4. Desktop 75 seconds (45 seconds)

Despite its slow hard drive, the TZ boots in a very fast 31 seconds. Just keep in mind it takes a while to load all the stuff that’s loaded on the TZ AFTER you login.

Time to create rar files for a Linux ISO. In this case, CentOS 4.6 32bit which is about 2.3GB in size. This tests the CPU mostly and can take advantage of multicore processors although it doesn’t scale well after 2 cores. It doesn’t use much RAM or tax the disk too much. I issued the command:

rar a -v20000 CentOS-4.6-i386-binDVD.iso.rar CentOS-4.6-i386-binDVD.iso

1. Sony TZ170 44mins 30secs
2. Thinkpad X300 35mins 40secs
3. Thinkpad T60 34mins 45secs
4. Desktop 19mins 36secs

No surprises here.

Next I unpack the rar files I just created. This is disk intensive, somewhat CPU intensive and doesn’t use much RAM.

unrar e CentOS-4.6-i386-binDVD.iso.part001.rar

1. Sony TZ170 334 seconds
2. Thinkpad X300 154 seconds
3. Thinkpad T60 310 seconds
4. Desktop 96 seconds

Despite it’s slow 4200RPM hard drive, the TZ is just slightly slower than the Thinkpad with it’s faster CPU and hard drive.

I didn’t bother testing the video card. If you want to game, get a laptop with dedicated graphics card. It seems to run Aero Glass fine. The 1.06Ghz Core 2 duo isn’t fast enough to view a 15Mbps AVCHD files from my high definition camcorder.

The hard drive is slow. Most of the time I was okay with the speed. The only time I really noticed how slow it was was when I was removing all the crapware from the TZ.

Conclusion:

If you forget about it’s high price, the TZ’s a lot nicer than I thought it would be. The bouncy screen makes a horrible first impression but it’s more a symptom of a thin screen and a very strong hinge. Actually, the TZ is a pretty solid laptop.

It’s really light and extremely portable. The screen is really bright and works ok outdoors when it’s bright.

The external DVD player is mildly useful. If you don’t mind having wireless access on one computer only then the built-in EVDO is also useful.

Like I said before, the only real catch is the high price. Then again, compared to other 11.1″ laptops, the TZ is in the same ballpark as them so it’s the price you pay for extreme portability.

Howard Chui
04.13.2008

Add comment April 13th, 2008

Lenovo Thinkpad x300 Review

Ever since I got my first Thinkpad I’ve been a fan of them. My first one was a T41p. It was powerful, fully featured, had a 14.1″1400×1050 display and at 4.5 lb was pretty light for what it was. Next up was a T60. It was similar to the T41p but more powerful and about 0.5 lb heavier. I was looking to replace my T60 with a T61 14″wide screen but when I checked one out, I thought it was a little heavy and thick for my liking.

I contemplated getting a X series many times but the T60 only comes with a 1024×768 display, while the T61 tablet is too deep. Then along came the X300.

13.3″ 1440×900 display, SSD, 3 lb weight, the X300’s got the features I want. Now that it’s here, let’s see how it is.

First Impressions:

Here are some of the X300’s specs. I’m doing this off the top of my head since you can just go to Lenovo’s website to read them:

• 1.2Ghz Core 2 duo
• 13.3″ 1440×900 LED backlit display
• Up to 4GB PC5300 RAM (You can order whatever amount you want)
• 64GB Samsung SSD HD
• 1000mbps network
• Integrated graphics (Intel x3100)
• 3 USB ports (2 on the left, 1 on the back)
• DVD RW drive
• 6 cell extended battery
• Headphone/microphone jacks
• Fingerprint reader
• Touchpad
• Trackpoint (the red eraser head pointing device)
• Webcam
• Thinklight (an LED which shines on the keyboard when it’s dark)
• Stereo speakers

I actually ordered a X300 with 1GB of RAM and Vista Business 32bit. When I received the X300, I promptly removed the 1GB of RAM and stuck 4GB in. Since I’m running Vista 32bit, the operating system can only see 3GB of RAM. I would have ordered 64bit Vista which would have been able to use all my RAM but it wasn’t an option on Lenovo’s Canada site at launch.

Let’s take a tour of the X300.

On the left you get: 2 USB ports, some sort of cover (I’m guessing there’s a hard drive behind it), headphone and microphone jacks.

In front there’s the switch to open the screen.

The right side has the DVD writer - you can swap this with a second battery, and a laptop lock connector.

The back has a VGA port, power plug (the same one found on the T60 and other Lenovo era Thinkpads), network connector, wireless on/off switch, other USB port.

There are 2 SODIMM slots behind a door underneath. There’s also 2 mini PCI Express slots.

As someone who’s owned a couple of Thinkpads (T41p and T60), the first thing that I noticed was just how light the X300 is. Of course the T series are bigger and heavier but with its 13.3″ screen, the X300 isn’t that much smaller yet it’s almost 1.5 to 2 lbs lighter.

Actually, my first impression was that the X300 came in the same box as my T60. It even says T series on it.

My third impression was that the rubberized paint you normally find on the lid of the screen is also on the part that surrounds the keyboard. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, look at someone who owns a T or X series Thinkpad. You know all the fingerprints on the lid (probably from eating KFC while computing)? They actually wash off with soap and water. I’ll post something about how to do this later.

The battery is located under the unit (instead of at the back). This is good and bad - I’ve always hated how my extended batteries stick out the back because it makes them a pain to stick in a bag. I’ve always loved how my extended batteries stick out because it gives me something to hold when you’re walking around. I ordered my X300 with an extended battery. It sticks out a tiny bit on the bottom. I’m guessing the smaller one is flush.

Underneath there are no important ventilation holes so you can leave the X300 on a bed all day and it won’t overheat. There are some small holes that allow you to drain coffee out in case you spill it on your X300.

The T series are known to be tanks. Underneath their body shells are very solid metal frames which can take a beating. The X300 feels just as solid despite being so light.

Thinkpads are known for their awesome keyboards and the X300 maintains this heritage. The keyboard has an excellent feel to it. The keys are full sized and have the right amount of travel to them.

I was a little surprised to find out the X300’s keyboard has certain keys which light up. Specifically the power button, caps lock, Thinkvantage button (the blue button) and the mute button. Light up buttons are cool but what about the rest of the keys? If it’s too dark, you can press the function key and the <top right button> to activate a LED on the top part of the screen lid. It’s not the prettiest but it will light up the keyboard enough to see what your typing when its dark.

The trackpoint is pretty much the same as on my T41 and T60. It still drift occasionally but I love the trackpoint because you can use it to scroll by pressing the middle button (I think it’s called an UltraNav). The touchpad is almost flush with the rest of the wrist wrest.

As I mentioned before, the screen measures 13.3″, has a resolution of 1440×900 (most 13.3″ laptops have a resolution of 1280×800) and is backlit with LED’s instead of CCFL’s like most screens. It has a matte finish and isn’t reflective like a lot of other laptops. LED’s are supposed to be brighter and use less power.

Compared to my T60, the X300 is noticeably brighter. Both are plugged in and set at maximum brightness. Don’t pay attention to the colour accuracy in the picture.

The screen lid has two latches to stay shut. The switch you slide to open the laptop is located on the lower part, instead of being part of the screen.

You get two speakers which are located on top of the wrist rest. They’re not super loud but they don’t suck either.

If you’re right handed and use a wired mouse, it will pain you to hear that there are no USB ports on the right side of the device. There are two on the left and one on the back.

I normally carry my Thinkpads in either two ways. I leave it open and carry it with my finger, cradling it underneath and my thumb on the top left corner of the keyboard.

I also carry it by the top part of the screen while it’s open (yes, when I’m indoors I walk around like this and yes this makes me look like a moron but the laptop can take it). There isn’t that much space on the top left corner of the keyboard so I’ll either have to carry it the stupid way or by putting my entire hand underneath it.

Battery life is not bad but it’s also not as good as I thought it would be. Surfing the web I’d say you can get around 3.5 hrs with the extended battery.

One computer the x300 is often compared to is the Apple Macbook Air.

Really they’re totally different computers. The only similarities are that they both have displays that are about 13″, both weigh the same and both come with SSD’s (the Macbook can also come with a regular HD).

The Macbook Air is faster, more compact and it’s curved case is more striking. The x300 has more features.

The Macbook Air is thinner but slightly wider.

Software:

As far as software goes the X300 has some very useful programs and utilities along with some crapware. The “Uninstall or change a program” list is pretty huge but most of it is populated with driver related software. Here are some programs and my take on their usefulness. Please note I’m not listing everything, but what stuck out to me.

Most useful software:

• InterVideo WinDVD
• Access Connections.

Mildly useful software:

• PC Doctor
• Rescue and Recovery
• If you use any of these:
  • PC Doctor
  • Windows Live Toolbar
  • Picasa
  • MS Office 2007 60 day trial
  • Norton Internet Security 60 day trial

Less useful software:

• Disk keeper (I’m pretty sure there’s no point defragmenting a SSD HD, plus defragmenting a SSD probably helps wear it out faster)
• Lenovo Message center
• Active Protection Services (parks the hard drive head when the laptop is moved suddenly - also useless on a SSD).

Access Connections is a sort of connection manager. With it you create profiles for each place you connect to the net. You can specify specific network settings for each profile (such as ip address, what home page you want, whether you want the firewall up or down, etc) - it’s really useful.

Lenovo has some very nice fingerprint reader software. You can use it to log into Windows (most Biometric software let you do this) but you can also use it when your computer POSTS.

Performance:

I’ve never used a SSD equipped laptop till now. There are times when any computer bogs down because it’s waiting for the hard drive. The X300 is no different but instead of hearing the hard drive grind away, it’s silent. I must say it’s quite an eerie experience.

In terms of performance, an SSD’s greatest advantage is that it’s very fast when it comes to tasks such as booting up, opening programs and that sort of thing.

Benchmarks are run with 4GB of RAM install. Given the X300’s relatively high price and the low price of RAM, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that this will be a popular configuration. I’m testing against a Lenovo Thinkpad T60 (Windows XP, Intel T2500 Core Duo 2Ghz, 2GB PC5300 RAM, 100GB 5400RPM hard drive) and my desktop (Vista Ultimate 64bit, Intel QX6700 Core 2 Quad 2.66Ghz, 8GB PC6400 RAM, 3×150GB 10000RPM hard drives RAID 5 with Areca 1210 RAID controller).

Here’s the Vista score. Click to see the original image.

The first test is how long it takes to turn the system on and see the Windows login screen. This includes the time it takes to POST (POST time is in the brackets).

1. Thinkpad X300 40secs (15 seconds)
2. Thinkpad T60 62secs (12 seconds)
3. Desktop 75 seconds (45 seconds)

25 seconds from when the computer is done POSTing to when you get the Vista login screen is pretty impressive. It’s even faster than my desktop. The desktop has the slowest total boot time because it has an extra RAID card, other drive controller and a DVD in the DVD ROM (whoops).

Admittedly, the next tests aren’t very real world but it does give you a good idea of how fast the CPU, RAM and hard drives are.

Time to create rar files for a Linux ISO. In this case, CentOS 4.6 32bit which is about 2.3GB in size. This tests the CPU mostly and can take advantage of multicore processors although it doesn’t scale well after 2 cores. It doesn’t use much RAM or tax the disk too much. I issued the command:

rar a -v20000 CentOS-4.6-i386-binDVD.iso.rar CentOS-4.6-i386-binDVD.iso

1. Thinkpad X300 35mins 40secs
2. Thinkpad T60 34mins 45secs
3. Desktop 19mins 36secs

While the X300 has a measly 1.2Ghz Core 2 Duo, it’s almost as fast as the T60 with it’s 2.0Ghz Core Duo processor - impressive!

Next I unpack the rar files I just created. This is disk intensive, somewhat CPU intensive and doesn’t use much RAM.

unrar e CentOS-4.6-i386-binDVD.iso.part001.rar

1. Thinkpad X300 154 seconds
2. Thinkpad T60 310 seconds
3. Desktop 96 seconds

With it’s SSD, the X300 blows the T60 out of the water. While the desktop looks a lot faster, keep in mind that it has three 10000rpm hard drives plus a high end RAID controller.

I didn’t bother testing the video card. If you want to game, get a laptop with dedicated graphics card. It seems to run Aero Glass fine.

The X300 does well in my benchmarks but there are times where it could use more processing power (compared to the T60). The 1.2Ghz Core 2 duo isn’t fast enough to view a 15Mbps AVCHD files from my high definition camcorder.

Conclusion:

I really like the X300, it’s light, has a high res screen and has a SSD and most of the connections I need. The ergonomics are terrific. My only complaint is that I wish Lenovo had stuck a faster processor under the hood.

Howard Chui
04.01.2008

2 comments April 1st, 2008

Lenovo Thinkpad x300 in the house

Here’s a quick background about me and laptops; I love Thinkpads. I’ve owned a T40 and T60. The new T61’s are nice but a bit too porky for my tastes while you can only get a higher res panel on the heavier X61 tablet.

Then came along the X300. It’s screen is larger than the X61 and X61 tablet, it’s got a fairly high res screen, a built-in optical drive (which I’m indifferent about), it weighs slightly less than the X61 tablet and best of all it has a SSD instead of a conventional hard drive. Ever since I first heard about this laptop, I’ve been waiting impatiently to order one. I finally got the chance late last month and after the customary 3-4 week wait, it’s finally here:

It’s slightly wider, shorter and thinner than the Macbook (I’ll try to get a picture with a Macbook Air later).

It’s slightly wider than my T60 and quite a bit shorter. There’s nothing but the screen hinge in front.

The battery doesn’t stick out the back so Lenovo’s stuck the VGA out, network connector, wireless on/off switch and a USB port on the back. Like the T60, the X300 vents air out the side so you can leave it on something smooshy (like a bed) and it won’t overheat.

On the left there’s another vent, 2 USB ports, headphone out and microphone in.

The right side just has the optical drive (you can swap it out for a travel bezel to save weight or stick an optional battery for more runtime and the laptop lock slot.

My first thoughts were amazement at how light the X300 is given its size. I stuck it on the scale and it weighed 3.3lbs (X300 with optical drive and extended battery). Yes there are lighter laptops out there but most have smaller screens and less features.

I thought performance would suck because the X300 only comes with a 1.2Ghz dual core processor but actually it’s pretty snappy. If you use the X300 in a quiet room and the cpu fan isn’t running (it only turns on every now and then under normal usage) it’s eerily silent because the SSD doesn’t make any hard drive noises.

I’ll post more about the X300 later.

Howard Chui
03.26.2008

2 comments March 25th, 2008

Fujitsu u810 review

I love computers. While I love phones my first passion is computers. One of the best things about being the Howard in HowardForums is that I get to buy and test tons of computer equipment. Another plus of being me is that I always need to be connected. Phones are a great way to be connected to the ‘net but the best way is still using a computer. Because of this I have a soft spot for small laptops.

For the past couple of years I’ve been walking around with a Toshiba Libretto. It’s a terrific little computer that allows me to fix any problems that may arise on the site. Still, I’m always on the lookout for something better. I think I may have found it with the Fujitsu u810.

It’s got most of the features of my Libretto (the Libretto has a bigger hard drive, higher resolution display, slightly more battery life, a PC card slot, physically bigger than the u810, has CF and SD card slots) but it’s even more portable.

Oh yeah, the best thing about the u810 is its price. I paid just under $900 Canadian for the u810 compared with over 2 grand for the Libretto. $900 isn’t cheap for a laptop but it sure is considering what other similar computers cost.

First Impressions:

Here are the u810’s specs. I’m doing this off the top of my head since you can just go to Fujitsu’s website to read them:

• 800Mhz single core Intel A110 processor (apparently it’s similar to the Pentium M processor which Intel’s Core and Core 2 Duo are based on)
• 1GB PC4200 RAM (not upgradeable)
• 40GB 4200RPM hard drive (smaller than an iPod Classic)
• 100mbps/VGA out via an included dongle
• Compact flash slot
• SDHC card slot
• Swiveling 5.6″ 1024×600 LCD
• USB slot
• Headphone/microphone jacks
• Fingerprint reader
• Web cam

When you first pick the u810 up you can’t help but marvel at the size. Despite it’s diminutive proportions, there’s a (somewhat) proper keyboard and a twisting display. It’s a fairly solid unit because it’s so small. Here it is on top of a Macbook.

The screen measures 5.6″ and has a decent resolution of 1024×600. While it’s not foggy or anything it’s not the clearest or brightest display out there. I suspect this is the touch screen’s fault. It’s reflective but is hard to see in the sun because it’s not bright enough.

Despite the small size you actually get a couple of connectors and ports. Starting from the left side you get; wireless on/off switch, SD card slot (my 4gb SDHC worked fine in it), volume rocker switch, headphone out, microphone out.

In front there is a lone connector for the network cable/VGA dongle.

The right side has a Compact Flash slot (16GB CF card worked fine), a power switch and a USB port that’s hidden behind a cover.

The keyboard is tiny - unless you have really small hands forget about typing like you would on a regular keyboard. I actually have pretty small hands and can touch type on the u810 (barely) but found cradling the u810 with my fingers and typing with my thumbs to be the best arrangement. If you have a flat surface you can hunt and peck.

There are LEDs right above the keyboard that you can use when it’s dark. I found that they weren’t positioned in the right place/aren’t bright enough to be useful. You turn them on using the left button below the center of the display.

There are a couple of other horrible things about the keyboard; the direction keys, tab and page up/down, ‘f’ keys are all accessed via function button. I dunno if I’ll ever get used to this arrangement but sacrifices have to be made when the keyboard is so small.

There is a small joystick on the right by the screen while the left and right mouse buttons are on the left side. If you don’t want to use the pointing device, there’s a stylus located on the top right of the screen.

If you open the screen to 90 degrees, you can flip it around and use the u810 in tablet mode. I’m not crazy about tablet PC’s and used the u810 as a conventional laptop.

When the u810 is in tablet mode, you can still access the joystick, mouse buttons, up/down keys, function button, 2 special buttons and a screen rotation buttons.

The battery that comes with the u810 sticks out the back. I actually like how it sticks out because it gives you something to hold onto which is important given the u810’s size. It’s especially useful if you’re using it as a tablet. Battery life is a decent 3 to 4 hours on a full charge. Trust me, you don’t want to use the u810 any longer than that.

When you use the u810 for long periods of time, it gets warm but it’s never blazing hot - which is impressive given it’s small size. There’s microsuede on the bottom to keep it (I presume) cooler to the touch.

There’s a 65 watt power supply. It’s the same size as the one that comes with many other smaller, lower power laptops (like the Sony TZ series, Lenovo Thinkpad R series, Toshiba Libretto).

While Fujitsu includes a couple of extra programs with the u810, they didn’t load it up with crapware. The two most notable Fujitsu specific things they include are Fujitsu menu and a driver update utility. The menu program is really a sort of quick launch for when you’re in tablet mode. You can access it by pressing the function menu between the up/down buttons. It launched such things as a sound menu, LCD brightness, enable bluetooth, that sort of thing. You can add your own shortcuts to it.

There’s a finger print reader on the right side of the screen. You get Omnipass which is software that can log you into Windows and memorize website passwords. Omnipass is mildly useful - it has two drawbacks; Firstly, if you want to use it to enter your Windows password you’ll have to wait an extra 10 seconds for the Omnipass dialog to load when the Windows login screen shows up. Secondly it only seems to work with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Performance:

Performance is horrible. There are two problems with the u810, it has a really slow processor and a slower hard drive. There isn’t much RAM either but I’d say it’s enough to do basic tasks such as checking email and surfing the web. If you want to do more, the u810’s RAM is not user upgradeable - go buy a bigger laptop with a bigger keyboard and more RAM if you want to do more.

The u810 has a 40GB 4200rpm hard disk that takes forever to do anything. It only has 1GB of RAM which is barely enough to run Windows Vista.

When I first got the u810 I thought it would make a brilliant digital photographer’s tool because it’s small and has both SD and CF card slots. Unfortunately both slots are so slow they’re pretty much for show IMO. It takes forever to read/write to the cards which makes them virtually useless. They’re so slow I wouldn’t even bother using them for listening to music/watching video. Another problem is that the CPU maxes out when you’re using them.

There’s a saying; small speakers, small sound. The u810 has a tiny speaker. Let’s just leave it at that.

I was going to benchmark the u810 but to be honest, I thought the u810 was so slow there’s no point to it. Every time I pick it up, I end up watching the hard drive LED blink non stop for what seems an eternity. If something is so slow that it affects its usage what is a benchmark going to tell you? Like I said before, the u810 really needs a faster hard drive, followed by more RAM and then a faster or dual core CPU.

Conclusion:

I struggle when it comes to figuring out if I love or hate the u810. It can handle basic tasks of surfing the web, checking email, SSH, VPN/Remote Desktop but it does the other tasks so incredibly slowly. Tasks such as starting up, virus scanning, opening programs, etc. The horrible performance is balanced by it’s amazing portability. But the amazing portability is balanced by a keyboard which requires you to use the function key to access many important features (tab, up/down/left/right, etc). One thing is undeniable though, the u810 attracts a crowd where ever it makes an appearance. Most guys think it’s cool and most girl’s think it’s cute, everyone’s amazed at the price.

Before I got the u810, I really really wanted to love it. But in the end I’m speechless. I guess I’ll be keeping my Libretto a little longer.

Howard Chui
03.23.2008

1 comment March 24th, 2008