Fujitsu Tablet PC - review, pretty sweet! (long post)

Just got my Fujitsu Stylistic 3500s in the mail today, took a few shots and played around a bit. So far, I'm really really pleased with it! Some photos;


Shot of the unit itself. The stylus stores in a slot on the left top of the machine.


Closer image of stylus.


This thing really does have a beautiful display - this is the desktop as I got it from the eBay seller (other than I did add Firefox to it)


Here is a side-by-side with my MP789 folded as flat as it can get. The tablet is just a hare shorter than the MP as you can see (dimensions are approx. 8 1/2" x 11" x 1".


Another side-by-side. I'll go into specs on this thing further down.


Closer image of the screen. Not really sure what site's homepage it's showing?


Ports on the right hand side - from left to right, power, serial, usb, floppy and pccard slot (with 802.11g card in it)


More ports on the top - from left to right power, reset switch, mic, headphones, IR and modem


The included "keyboard"!


My car I'm going to put it in. Yea, I know, why the car shot... it was there, plus I'm getting my windows tinted next week and wanted a before and after shot!

Specs;
500 mhz Celeron
256 mb Ram
15gb Hard drive
10.4" tft svga screen (800 x 600)
usb, sound, IR, pccard, modem, sylus


Impressions;

This thing is really pretty cool. It came preloaded with Windows 2000 (that is how it came from the factory) and it suspends and reactivates pretty quickly (i.e. you hit the power button and it takes 2 secs to go to off state, 10-12 to on state). As far as I can tell, this state still uses power so you have to be careful you don't crash it due to battery drain. It can do a full hibernate to off, but that takes much longer to come back up.

The screen works quite well with the included stylus and you can also use your finger, however, it takes quite a bit more punch to operate than the MP. By that I mean you have to tap much harder to have things activate. Of course being an active matrix tft screen - it is also a bit brighter than the MP. The additional screen real estate is nice and it came with software that allows rotation of the screen image, so you can go 600x800 if you like.

I found a site where they talk about car computers and they have customized launchers for things like Sat nav, MP3, Movies, In car diagnostics, etc. Plan is to use this with my GPS software (Delorme) and tie it into my deck for MP3 playback to start. When I get really wonky I'll add in a newsreader and some text to speech software and see if I can get it to read me the news. I wrote a little vb app last year that pulled down the weather forecast and then read it back to me in the mornings as I got ready for work, so that shouldn't be too hard to make work. I'm thinking how cool that would be on long trips, pull into a Burger King or elsewhere with free wifi, hit the "sync" button to pull in all the latest headlines, eat, back out and hit the road with a new batch of news to listen too. Or, hear a song you can't live without, again pull into a BK and buy it from iTunes (or your "other" music sources).

The other cool thing is it does have a serial and a usb connection - so if you like, you could sync your CE device to it! The really lacking factor is a keyboard, so I'm digging around for a small usb keyboard to attach to it when needed.

Anyway, got mine from eBay and so far I really recommend it. Seller I bought from had a bunch listed out there and still does now. In my mind, your bang-for-the-buck value is quite high at $266 delivered.

-Cyberstorm

Nice one Cyberstorm. It is indeed a pretty good value.

Can the RAM be upgraded? Would love to be able to use XP on it (maybe even Tablet PC... somehow ).

Unfortunately no, 256meg is the max for this one. Some people have had sucess with installing XP others haven't. Drivers were never made for XP for this, so you have to force install the Windows 2000 ones. I guess there were motherboard differences or something so its anybodys guess if you can get XP running correctly or not. It does come with handwritting recognition software but I haven't tried that yet - no real need to for how I'm planning to use it.

That's an excellent price for a Tablet PC. Let us know what kind of battery life it gets (for both normal tasks and using wifi and/or watching movies/mp3s). I might be interested in picking one up if the battery is decent enough (hoping so, since it's just a 500mhz celery).

Congrats on your excellent buy! Guy a slim usb keyboard of the same width, velcro both the tablet and keyboard to a leather case, and you have a nifty "UMPC" to boot! And perhaps you can parade it down Redmond, Microsoft Way and show them what "UMPC" $266 can get!

Thanks! As far as keyboards go, I'm thinking about getting this keyboard since I plan to use it in the car, and hopefully wont really need to use it that often. The interesting part will be trying to fab some kind of mount for it - haven't done any metal working since 8th grade shop class, so maybe I'll just velcro it to the steering wheel! <-Kidding!

I'll see what kind of battery life I get - informally I did a bit of wifi surfing last night and I'm thinking between 1 and 2 hours there. I'll try to find some laptop battery profiling software and see what that tells us.

Edited by Cyberstorm 2006-03-14 10:01 AM

The battery in it is 3100mAh, and unless it's a really used battery that doesn't charge to full capacity anymore, i'm surprised (with a 500mhz celeron cpu) that it doesn't get excellent battery life. I guess the wifi can even really suck the power out of a machine like that (depending).

Too bad I don't have the money to buy one myself right now

I recently bought a Fujitsu Stylistic LT C-500. Same specs, 500 Celeron, 256 ram, 14 gig hd, Win 2000 Pro SP4.
The 500 is slightly smaller, 9.6"x 6.3" and has a TFT indoor / outdoor screen. I got the folding case that has the factory IR keyboard and easel built-in. For off and on use wifi and LAN some Gps I get 2.5- 3.5 hours per battery. I also got the docking station , as well.

C-500 next to my J720;

Cool, it also looks like it has quite a few more buttons on the side of it. Looks like a numeric keypad and arrow keys? What else is there? Mine has buttons for screen brightness, audio volume and a couple others I haven't figured out yet.

Would any IR keyboard work with these, or is it Fujistu specific? I was thinking a USB keyboard here, but then I may have to get a usb hub as well since there is only one port and the gps is going to be hooked up as well. I'm kinda torn on that point as I also don't want to pull the keyboard out and then have dead batteries in it. I may have to just get a hub I think.

There is a docking station and keyboard for the 3500 as well. Yours has the IR port on the front. The hotpad has sound, right click, brightness, and hover keys. The coursor arrows are just like on a keyboard, the esc. key mimics ctrl-alt-delete and there is a lock key as well. There is a ps2 mouse that will work on Ebay now.

The dock is great, usb, lan, printer port, serial port, floppy port, power in, ps2 mouse, ps2 keyboard and vga out. I use a little $10.00 usb hub with mine.

I put a 40 gig drive in this afternoon and I'm installing XPLITE, as I'm typing this. Streets and trips 2006 looks great on these units.

Cyberstorm, I have that exact same mini keyboard. I just saw it at a video game store and went like "what the heck" and got one. I figured a tiny USB thumbboard is a pretty cool gadget in its own right, regardless of its usefulness. Oh well it was another $15 thrown into storage

I think I smell a sale here! Do you want to get rid of it? I haven't ordered one yet so shoot me a price if you're interested in parting with it.

Nah, it's too cheap to sell it away, plus it is a cool gadget! I suggest you just search for the cheapest sale, or go local EB Games stores and ask.
http://www.dealtime.com/xPO-Minikey_USB_Keyboard_For_Playstation_2

Got one on the way. Thanks for the link - about 1/2 the price of the link I shared earlier.

Cyberstorm,

Welcome to the Stylistic club!

I actually posted a reply to your comment in the web browsing experience thread, but have included it below:

The 3500 is a much more advanced model than my lowly LT!

My LT sits on the coffee table at home running Newsmap as an active desktop, so I constantly get newsfeeds on it. I also use it for Skype (can't quite handle smooth video but voice is fine), and as I mentioned, couch surfing e.g. IMDB when I'm watching a film.

And when docked - and I strongly recommend the dock which is really useful and includes VGA, serial, parallel and PS/2 ports - and hooked up to speakers it makes a passable internet radio and mp3 player. Hey - it is the original UMPC!

As you mentioned using it to control your home entertainment system, you might want to check out Moe's Realm where Moe used an LT to control his HTPC using Netremote.

My version of the Stylistic uses a passive digitizer which is not as sensitive as the more modern tablets. That said, the pen extensions for use with the built-in apps work fine for me, and I use the on-screen keyboard only when the program does not support it (e.g. Firefox, unfortunately). I think you will lose these extensions if you upgrade to XP.

If you haven't already, I'd suggest having a look at the Stylistic Yahoo! Group for some really great ideas for innovative ways of using your tablet, software and support from other Stylistic users. You'd be surprised at how versatile it can be - have a look at this crazy mod!

Enjoy!

P.S. And I certainly would NOT leave it in the car!