The Force isn’t quite with you
Jenneth Orantia29 February 2008, 4:11 PM
Affectionately dubbed ‘the Stormtrooper’ due to its distinctive black-on-white colouring, the LifeBook U1010 is the first UMPC to use a convertible tablet design.
As far as input goes, having a keyboard built-in is more convenient than fussing around with the stylus, but you’re better off using it as an over-sized thumbboard, as the keys are too small for touch-typing.
We’re sure that Intel had a grand vision when launching the Intel Ultra Mobile Platform 2007 — a chipset designed specifically for Mobile Internet Devices and UMPCs — but pairing it with Vista (in this case Home Premium) seems a poor choice. The U1010’s 800MHz A110 processor coped with having one application open at a time, but it struggled with multi-tasking and even launching a Flash-heavy web site would consume most of the system’s resources.
Fujitsu has opted for an ultra-high 1,024 x 600-pixel resolution for the 5.6in screen, which has its good sides and bad. On the plus side, text and images are incredibly sharp, and you can use most applications and web sites without having to pan around the screen.
The downside is that working at such a high resolution becomes a strain on the eyes, and there’s no option to lower it to a more comfortable pixel count.