Hands-on with the Fujitsu u810 tablet

We were allowed a conjugal visit with the Fujitsu u810 UMPC and snapped some pics for you voyeurs out there. Pretty sure we've carried some cellphones heavier than this 1.56-pound flyweight industrial beauty. Drool on.

Gallery: Hands-on with the Fujitsu u810 tablet

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[Chebwa @ Jan 7th 2008 10:59AM]

Holy crap, that thing is all kinds of ugly.

[Erwos @ Jan 7th 2008 11:08AM]

It's not too bad in real life. My wife and I played with one in Microcenter, and found it to be OK.

[Ed @ Jan 7th 2008 5:35PM]

This thing has keyboard problems. Put backspace, plus, minus, tilde etc. back where they belong (or somewhere out of the way) and give it a normal spacebar, and we'll talk.

And the stickers? Come on. Haven't we gotten past that yet?

[MearWolf @ Jan 7th 2008 11:11AM]

It doesn't look brilliant but it doesn't look it will break the first time you swizzle that little joine (like some tablets)

[MearWolf @ Jan 7th 2008 11:13AM]

*joint

[Flashpoint @ Jan 7th 2008 11:13AM]

Its already world's better than the Eee PC.

[Richard Lai @ Jan 7th 2008 11:16AM]

It'll cost you half a world too.

[68newyorker @ Jan 7th 2008 11:29AM]

Fry's in Palo Alto, CA has one of these with an steel cage holding it in place. Although I couldn't full explore it due to that, the one thing I did decide is that the keyboard is entirely useless. It's to big for thumbs and to small to touch type. Frankly, the 5 to 6 inch range is probably only good for slates.

[Mike Klein @ Jan 7th 2008 11:57AM]

I agree...the keybd is useless. I find it easier to type on my PepperPad3 with chiclet 'split' keyboard than this. It's so small it (for me) is only useable as a thumb keyboard...but due to size this is unwieldy to do.

[nbourre @ Jan 7th 2008 11:41AM]

We bought two of these at my office. It's just awesome on the road. I developped a specific user interface for the U810 and the employees just love it. Can't say more!

[Mehdi Daoudi @ Jan 7th 2008 11:52AM]

do you know if they added an SSD drive?

[huh @ Jan 7th 2008 12:32PM]

Has there ever actually been a tablet that had a bad hinge? Everyone always looks at them and says "that hinge is going to be trouble" but I've never seen a problem.

[Aaron @ Jan 7th 2008 1:15PM]

People keep bringing that up. It may have been an issue years ago, but every tablet I've used in the last 3 years has been rock solid.

Weak hinges from a vendor would stand out in the tablet space and I'm sure reviewers/users would be very vocal about it.

[OneLove @ Jan 7th 2008 12:37PM]

Hudson! Run a bypass!

[Stickarm @ Jan 7th 2008 1:07PM]

That's hysterical. Too good of a comment to simply "vote up," a beautifully concise, funny and insightful comment. Well done.

[NinjaChurch @ Jan 7th 2008 12:57PM]

I ordered one of these for myself last month. I'm loving the portability. The only thing I find lacking is the HDD performance. Kinda wish it was SSD.

[ark_v2 @ Jan 7th 2008 1:04PM]

WTH is that?!
It's hideous.

[Mark @ Jan 7th 2008 1:33PM]

Does that thing have some driver/hardware requirement that mandates that it use Vista? I think an upgrade to XP would make it a little snappier. Can it even run alternate OSes?

[Lemmiwinks @ Jan 7th 2008 1:52PM]

I think I'd start to miss my "tab" key.

[Walt_Mink @ Jan 7th 2008 2:33PM]

The ears are new ... I wonder what they're for.

[Walt_Mink @ Jan 7th 2008 2:37PM]

Oh - HSUPA. Duh - nevermind.

[Paul @ Jan 7th 2008 4:30PM]

Drool on? That thang is FUGLY!

[Geoffrey @ Jan 7th 2008 10:24PM]

@Mark: The version that comes with Vista Business includes XP Tablet
2005 and rights to downgrade, which many of us have done. It runs very nicely.

@Lemmiwinks: I swapped the Esc key and the Tab mapping. Works much better now!

I can actually type about 40 wpm, which is much slower than my regular 75, but I don't care because the U810 is so portable. I do hope that besides adding HSUPA, they increase the RAM max past the current 1GB. It would also be nice is the SD and CF cards used the faster standard (SDIO?).

[Donoho @ Jan 8th 2008 1:49PM]

I've had one for a few months, running XP (mine doesn't have the ears) and my biggest complaint (like others) has been the keyboard. It was very popular while abroad. I guess it's not available in parts of Europe yet.

However, a friend decide to test the fingerprint sensor.. AND IT LET HIM IN. Not consistently, but more than once. This was a bit distressing.

I haven't tried swapping any keys yet, I much rather go for (unlikely to Ever happen) a full replacement. Dedicated arrow keys alone would make this thing more usable.