Fujitsu's Santa Rosa-based Lifebook T4220 tablet hits the FCC

As you've no doubt noticed, we're hardly lacking for Santa Rosa-based laptops these days, but Santa Rosa-based tablet PCs have so far been a fair bit harder to come by. That looks like it's about to change, however, with one of the first now coming to us from Fujitsu by way of the FCC. Like the company's other T4000 series tablets, this one boasts a 12.1-inch display along with built-in Bluetooth and 802.11a/b/g WiFi, and it gets its processor upgraded to a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo T7700 (other specs are still a bit light). As with most of these other Santa Rosa leaks, however, there's no official word on pricing or availability, although we don't expect we'll have to wait too long for that.

[Via PC Joint]

[Standingfast @ May 8th 2007 11:50AM]

I have used these before. With good handwriting recognition software, these tablet PC's can recognize accurately even VERY sloppy handwriting (like mine! ^_^).

[Zadillo @ May 8th 2007 11:51AM]

John Paul, which Tablets have you tried? The big difference usually comes between Tablets with passive digitizers (essentially where it is completely dependent on the pressure you put on the screen with the stylus, like a regular PDA), and active digitizers (where it is more like a Wacom tablet, with an active digitizer that knows where the pen is, can automatically detect when you're writing, etc.). The active digitizer screens are usually much better and easier to use.

[Elais @ May 8th 2007 11:52AM]

You'd think Fujitsu would try to not make their santa rosa tablet look like every other tablet before it...

[Aaron Walker @ May 8th 2007 11:52AM]

Yes, people actually use these, I've had one for two years and use it daily. It allows me three out of four ways to interact with my computer (keyboard, voice and writing or "inking"), the only one missing is touch but that will happen when I upgrade to one of the newer models.

Sorry to hear about your bad tablet pc experience but there are some of us who could never go back to a laptop that is limited to keyboard only.

[CarrotAndStick @ May 8th 2007 1:06PM]

Does this lappy take the old PCMCIA cards? Plus, what type of touchscreen does it have? Active or passive?


Thanks in advance!

[Vinay @ May 8th 2007 1:09PM]

Also, what's the experience with Fuji in terms of build quality?

[trev @ May 8th 2007 1:43PM]

Fujitsu uses the wacom active digitiser, so does almost everyone except Gateway (with the exception of Gateways latest tablet).

Fujitsu make some of the most reliable tablets out there, thier 4215 has met with alot of praise for its build quality and high res display.

check out the forums on www.tabletpcreview.com

[Daryl Herbert @ May 8th 2007 4:31PM]

Actually, some of the smaller tablets (less than 10" screens) have passive digitizers.

MSFT used to require that all tablets have active digitizers before they were allowed to run XP Tablet Ed. but MSFT waived that requirement for small tablets.

I would definitely recommend getting active over passive if you have a choice. One advantage is that the active digitizer knows where the pen is when it's hovering over the screen, even before you press down at all. The second advantage is that the active digitizer can tell at what angle you've got the pen, and adjust the cursor accordingly. The third advantage is that you can rest your hand on the screen while writing. The fourth advantage is that you can hold a button down on the side of the active digitizer to "right-click"--I don't think you can do that on passive digitizer models.

[Stuhe @ May 8th 2007 3:13PM]

Their older build of this model is absolutely fantastic, a couple of my friends have it, and it absolutely blows away my aging TC1100, and while in my opinion, the TC1100 has far and away the best design of any tablet I've seen, I'm very tempted to pick one of these up at some point. It'll be nice to be able to actually boot OneNote 2007 in time to catch the first five minutes of class.

[BPM @ May 8th 2007 4:13PM]

Though I don't have a tablet, I have a Fujitsu laptop (LifeBook N6410). And the thing is solid.

If their tablet PCs are anything like their laptops, then they're well-built pieces of machinery.

[Ddaniel @ May 8th 2007 5:35PM]

fujitsu has great, well designed, reliable products with absolutely horrid customer service.

My laptop is two and a half years old, never given me a problem, and still runs like the first day I got it. Then again, I am planning on switching to a Mac soon...

[Chuckles McGee @ May 8th 2007 9:14PM]

Tablets are awesome. My handwriting is near-illegible, but Vista has learned to pick up every bit of it (aside from recognizing the occasional "1" as "l", which is understandable)


Still, this is such a fatty laptop. Drop a half inch, and then we'll talk.

[Ende @ May 9th 2007 12:59AM]

My experience is only in laptops but I'd say Fujitsu build-quality is top-notch. Actually, Japanese manufacturers, except Sony, make great laptops: take Panasonic for example.