Now's your chance to cast your ballot for the 2006 Tablet PC of the Year! (For the purposes of this award, UMPCs will compete in Handhelds.) Our Engadget Awards nominees are listed below, and you've got until 11.59PM EST on Sunday, April 15th to file your vote. You can only vote once, so make it count, and may the best tech win! The nominees: Fujitsu P1610, Gateway CX210 / M285, Kohjisha SA1F00, Lenovo X60, and Toshiba Portege M400.

While a natural evolution of the ultra-portable, it's still noteworthy when a vendor gives in and offers an SSD option to their gear. Once again, it's Fujitsu doing the honors by bringing that Solid State Disk action from Samsung to their 8.9-inch, 2.2-pound P1610 convertible Tablet PC -- something they've been offering on their Q and B series of laptops since October. But come now Fujitsu, you can do better than $700 and $1,200 for the 16GB and 32GB SSD, respectively. Perhaps you should look for a cheaper supplier.

[Via Laptop Magazine]

Update: It looks like the P1610 isn't the only LifeBook getting an SSD transplant, with Fujitsu's B6210 also getting in on the action, available with the same 16GB or 32GB drives. CNET's also reporting that both tablets are, in fact, available now, though you'll need to get in touch with Fujitsu for a price quote, which usually isn't a good sign.

It's sexy, it's small, but is it any good? Laptop Mag took Fujitsu's LifeBook P1610 out on the town and they sure seem to think so. Despite the "cute" comments they received on the street, there's enough going on here to suit the demanding road warrior that wants to pack light. Notably impressive on this 8.9-inch screened unit is a "remarkably usable" keyboard, along with a quite impressive LCD, which might be a bit squint-inducing at 1280 x 768, but fended off ambient light quiet well. With a Core Solo processor, 1GB of RAM and an 80GB HDD the reviewer found performance to be quite good under Windows XP Professional, though Vista Business is also an option. The 3-cell battery musters a respectable 3.5 hours of battery, but a 6-cell battery doubles that time, and the 5 additional ounces aren't going to ruin your day when the laptop only weighs 2.2 pounds initially. There's no touchpad, and the stylus isn't of the fancy RF variety, but the pointing stick and included plastic stylus both worked quite well for input, and the convertible tablet switches quite nicely to tablet mode. Other perks include a PC card slot for adding 3G data, and a refreshingly small palm-sized power brick -- Fujitsu doesn't seem to have cut many corners. The main complaint of build quality is a weak latch that doesn't do much to secure the tablet in slate mode, but shouldn't be a deal breaker. As Laptop Mag warns, this form factor obviously isn't for everyone, but if it is you can't go far wrong with the P1610.

If LG's C1 Xnote is just too much bulk for you, and Fujitsu's Lifebook P1610 is putting you off with that lack of 3G, you might dig the up and coming Flybook V5i, which does it up right with an 8.9-inch convertible touch screen, 1.2Ghz U2500 Core Duo processor and the HSDPA hookup. Of course, at sizes like this, you're going to be making some sacrifices, and it looks like Flybook decided to axe the trackpad, instead opting for an OQO-esque thumb stick. This latest entrant into the ultra-ultraportable Tablet PC space is a tad frumpy in the looks department, but we're sure it'll make plenty of mobile professionals very happy all the same. As for price, the laptop should be going for $2200 - $2500 when it's released, which should be soon.

[Via Carrypad]

Fujitsu is going ultra-portable and uber-portable with its new T4125 (right) and P1610 (left) Tablet PCs. Both LifeBooks feature convertible displays, allowing for usage in both laptop mode and tablet mode, but while the T4215 sports a decent-sized (for a tablet) 12.1-inch display, the P1610 gets by with a mere 8.9-inches of real estate. As for specs, the 1.4-inch thick P1610 gets along fine, with a 1.2GHz Core Solo U1400 processor, WXGA resolution display, 512MB of RAM, 30GB HDD, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11a/b/g WiFi and a fingerprint sensor in the $1,649 base model. Unfortunately, the included 3-cell battery only manages 3.5 hours of battery, but you can spring for a 6-cell battery which promises 7 hours for $45 more. The T4215, which tapers from 1.4 to 1.1-inches thick, bumps the processor game to Core 2 Duo, ranging from 1.66GHz to 2GHz, adds a DVD/CD-RW combo drive and squeezes in a card reader, but the 12.1-inch display runs at a mere XGA resolution. The base configuration, with 512MB of RAM and a 40GB hard drive will run you $1,799. Both laptops look to be available now.

Read - LifeBook P1610
Read - LifeBook T4125

Well folks, nostra culpa, a laptop from a major manufacturer slipped under our radar; without any further delay, we present to you what we know about the new Fujitsu P1610, heir apparent to the P1500 / P1510: it's got an 8.9-inch display (1280 x 768), an Intel Core Solo U1400 (1.2GHz) processor, up to 1GB of RAM, an 80GB HDD, a fingerprint sensor, an SD card reader, USB 2.0, UMTS (3G), a PC card slot, Bluetooth, WiFi, and a battery that purports to be good for up to 4.5 hours. Whenever this finally hits the Korean peninsula (well, it's southern half, anyway) it'll cost you 2,090,000 South Korean won ($2,187) for the 512MB RAM model or 2,390,000 won ($2,501) for the 1GB model.

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