Hands-on Review: Fujitsu's Killer Tablet, the LifeBook T2010

Tablet PCs have had a rocky life to date, but leave it to Fujitsu to produce a device that might just breathe new life into the category. Put simply, the LifeBook T2010 is probably the best tablet I've ever seen. It might be the first tablet PC that I'd consider using on a daily basis, especially if my handwriting was better.

The 3.9-pound, 12.1-inch machine features all the latest goodies: 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, 100GB hard drive, and one of the brightest screens on the market (nearly three times brighter than my current laptop). It bears no resemblance to the grainy, fuzzy tablets of the past, and the swivel is also unique: It can go left or right, giving you more flexibility in using it as a presentation device.

Performance-wise, I've seen better from other laptops and tablets, but it's on par with the competition (and even passed my Quake 4 test with 12.7 frames per second). The battery, though, is where the T2010 shines. I got 4 hours, 14 minutes of life during a looped MPEG playback, nearly a record among machines that I've tested in 2007. For what it's worth, Fujitsu claims that if you throttle down the screen and CPU and use the PC more frugally, you can get up to 11 hours of running time on a charge. Not bad for a sub-four-pound machine. It would almost be tragic to dim this awesome screen, but on a transatlantic flight, I can understand the need.

Fujitsu calls the display an "inside/outside" LCD, and in the shade, the T2010 does indeed look pretty good. Alas, in direct sunlight, the T2010 can't hang in there and looks pretty much the same as any other laptop stuck in the sun. You need a real transflective display if you want to work in direct sunlight.

Aside from one bizarre error where the T2010 shut down, claiming the battery was dying (when in fact it had a full charge), and a desire for more than two USB ports, I haven't had any issues with the machine. It's light, easy to use, types well, and integrates well with Vista. (You can even get it with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition if you prefer.)

As a final word, be advised the $1,599 pricetag (you'll see it everywhere) is the absolute bare bones cost. The one I tested runs $2,279 as configured, and I'd be hard-pressed to recommend going with a lower cost configuration. Still, for a tablet, that's not terribly out of line, but remember that a killer computer doesn't come cheap.