The good: Reasonably rugged; affordable; middle mouse button; quick function buttons on the tablet.

The bad: No Express Card; only two USB ports; no optical drive; uses thumbstick; poor mouse buttons.

The bottom line: The LifeBook T2010 qualifies as a middle-of-the-road offering from Fujitsu. It'll do the job, but you'll want to poke around at its competitors first.

Read full review of the Fujitsu LifeBook T2010 »

By Craig Simms, CNET.com.au
Oct 10, 2007

One of the last truly Japanese brands left on the market, Fujitsu has produced this latest entry into the tablet world. Tablets have come a long way since their initial introduction, with Windows Vista in particular making tablet use a joy.

Editors' note : This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com.au. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some of other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia. Please check directly with your local distributor for details.

Design

The T2010 is quite rugged and business-like, with a rotating glossy monitor that will happily flip left or right. When the monitor is turned around and laid down flush against the keyboard (so the screen is facing outward), the display flips to a portrait orientation and switches from a 1,280 x 800 to 800 x 1,280 screen--although this can be changed in software. A fingerprint scanner is situated on the bottom left of the screen, while five buttons (page up, page down, screen rotate, fn, alt, all of which act as buttons for a security pin as well) and a power button are positioned on the right.

Apart from the obvious pen (which is stored in the bottom right), navigation is performed via thumbstick which is also vastly annoying. It displays a propensity to move the cursor after you've lifted your hand off it and is considerably less accurate compared to a trackpad. The latter was removed so the battery can be stuck at the front of the machine rather than the rear. The left and right mouse buttons are a pain to push, quite likely due to being sloped upward and being the same moulded piece of plastic. In an uncommon but welcome addition, a middle mouse button is included.

A tiny mono speaker is situated on the bottom right, meaning the already weedy audio disappears whenever you touch the keyboard, muffling the sound.

Features

While Fujitsu gets points for the combined SD/Memory Stick reader and its dedication to security through Smart Card, BIOS/hard drive lock, fingerprint and Lifebook lock, it loses out on the mono speaker and lack of optical-drive. The latter features are present in Sony's smaller, yet admittedly more consumer focused, VGN-TZ17GN. An older but corporate-friendly PCMCIA Type II slot is present rather than the newer ExpressCard standard, with the smart card slot situated below that.

An anemic two USB ports are offered and a VGA port is hidden behind a panel that will likely shear free after a few years of use. A Firewire port and headphone/microphone port are supplied--and that's it as far as connectivity is concerned.

Using the notebook as a tablet is a pretty standard affair and is pleasing enough. However despite our best efforts we couldn't find an option to increase the sensitivity of the screen, as it felt that sometimes we had to press a little hard to get the response we wanted.

Performance And Battery Life

This is certainly a business laptop, with the Intel GMA X3100 making sure that games are a no-no, and the low 3DMark06 score of 435 and average PCMark05 score of 2835 attesting to this.

Not having an optical drive made the battery test a little more difficult than usual as we play back a DVD with all power-saving features turned off, and screen brightness and performance set to maximum. To overcome this we transferred an image of the DVD to the hard drive and played off that, with the notebook lasting 2 hours 12 minutes before succumbing to blackness.

The LifeBook T2010 qualifies as a middle-of-the-road offering from Fujitsu. It'll do the job, but you'll want to poke around at its competitors like the updated version of Toshiba's Portege M400 before deciding first.

Service And Support

Fujitsu LifeBook has a one-year international warranty with second-year and third-year local warranty. At Fujitsu's support Web site, LifeBook owners can register their warranty online as well as download the latest drivers. For simple problems, the company offers a helpline and email address for troubleshooting. Should the unit require further diagnosis or repair, the customer will have to send the unit to any service center worldwide during the first year. Subsequently, Fujitsu will honor the notebook's warranty only for the subsequent two years at the original country of purchase. For users who use their laptops for time-critical work with no margin for downtime, it must be noted that most Fujitsu service centers in Asia Pacific operate only during office hours. There is no option to upgrade the warranty terms.

Rate It Now

Rating guidelines

Fujitsu LifeBook T2010 (Core 2 Duo U7600 Processor 1.2GHZ, 1GB RAM)

Rate this product:
1 - Abysmal 2 - Terrible 3 - Poor 4 - Mediocre 5 - Average 6 - Good 7 - Very good 8 - Excellent 9 - Spectacular 10 - Perfect

Need help? Read our guidelines for what each number rating represents.

Submit your opinion

User Reviews

More Products To Consider

User Discussion

 

• Most Popular

• Upcoming

Latest Downloads

 

What's Hot