Appearance and thoughts II, bundle, warranty
The 84 keys have just the right amount of travel, making extended typing comfortable - and there's a satisfying thud each time a key is pressed. While it is good for typing, the keyboard does feel a little flimsy for a £1,000+ machine.
Here it is in regular laptop mode.
The beauty of a Tablet PC. The screen rotates in both directions and can be easily changed to full Tablet mode. Be aware, though, that the optical drive is disabled once the screen is placed flat above the keyboard.
The orientation of the screen is automatically adjusted to suit the mode, although the sensor technology is not clever enough to automatically adjust the display to suit the side you're viewing the screen from, unlike some competing models.
Fujitsu uses a Wacom active digitiser that doesn't require actual contact with the screen when moving around the underlying mouse-pointer. Instead, the screen becomes active once the Tablet mode is selected.
The included stylus, shown above in its holder at the bottom of the screen, can be used to navigate by hovering just over the digitised TFT - a single touch is construed as a left-click, while prolonged pressure translates as a right-click. Sensitivity and accuracy are good and your handwriting style can be clearly identified if using Sticky Notes, for example.
We'd have preferred Fujitsu to ship a hybrid digitiser instead. That would allow you to use your grubby fingers as well as a custom-designed stylus for pointing and clicking duties.
The 12.1in XGA screen has decent viewing angles and is usable in almost every environment, be it in a darkly-lit room or - and this is a real bonus - bright sunshine.
Two user-configurable buttons give access to short-cuts. Another button toggles the display mode and further buttons for function (Tablet-related) and Alt round off what's available in the cool-looking Tablet mode.
The microphone is disappointing - playback of speech recorded two feet away can barely be heard; you have to plant your face right next to the mic (and screen) before it picks up intelligible audio. There's also an LED display that highlights the various pertinent power and activity status, along with a handy Fujitsu-branded configuration tab.
Summary
The Fujitsu Siemens T4215 UMTS is a good-looking Tablet PC that's rich on connectivity. We have two concerns, though.
First, the heat that the computer gives off and any impact that this might have on long-term reliability. In addition, on this particular sample, we think that amount of supplied RAM is just too small.
Bundle
More CDs than you can shake a stick at. Microsoft XP Professional Tablet Edition 2005 is the OS of choice and all recovery CDs are provided as standard. Ideally, we'd like to have seen a one-touch restoration of factory-shipping settings with the appropriate ISO contained on a separate partition. Even so, Fujitsu does include Norton Ghost 2003, so you can create backup images yourself - and not just of the original configuration.
Warranty
The T4215 ships with a two-year collect-and-return warranty that begins one month after the date of manufacture. However, should significant time have elapsed between manufacture and sale, Fujitsu will accept the sale date as the warranty starting point. The warranty is transferable - it's based on the machine, not on the owner.
Warranty cover is provided by Fujitsu Siemens Computers (FSC) via its repair centre in Poole, Dorset. Once a warranty claim has been lodged with the FSC helpdesk, a carrier box will be dispatched to the customer's preferred address at Fujitsu Siemens' expense - and the machine collected.
FSC says that turnaround time should be a maximum of seven working days. Once the work is complete, the machine is returned in same carrier box. Further, customers can contact FSC and agree upon different levels of care - complete unit swapout or on-site service are examples.
