Fujitsu LifeBook U810 UMPC - Dining Room Table Reviews

[benerban]

Man this machine is bad ass! I really want one now, even though it's 4 years old :)

[TheCanadianPublic]

@benerban No you don't. It's struggling a lot with on-line videos today. They're now so processor intensive, the A110 processor is having trouble keeping up.

You'd be better off getting a $200 Atom based netbook. You can still play 480p YouTube videos with that.

[gvi341984]

You should install some GNU/Linux distro

[TheCanadianPublic]

@gvi341984 I did. Slow as molasses. Unfortunately, the machine is showing its age pretty badly. It's almost ready to be junked once I find a suitable replacement.

[gvi341984]

@TheCanadianPublic

What were you even running? What version ?

[TheCanadianPublic]

@gvi341984 Ubuntu 11.04 and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition in a dual boot configuration. Only Windows XP had all of the appropriate drivers. Ubuntu might have missed a few components including the proper chipset drivers.

[gvi341984]

@TheCanadianPublic

No Wonder! Look, if you wanted something very quick and light you should have ran Puppy or Knoppix through a usb flash drive.

[TheCanadianPublic]

@gvi341984 Wouldn't have made a difference, and might have made things worse, especially with video playback through the USB.

It's a four year old machine. There's only so much it can do today. It did its job, and one day it'll be replaced with something better.

[MustardMonkeyLtd]

great video, thanks for sharing

[CAFcorey]

lol will it blend??? lol

[TheCanadianPublic]

@CAFcorey You know, that thing is so old and slow now, maybe I SHOULD blend it! :)

[CAFcorey]

@TheCanadianPublic thats a good idea but what i meant was it was playing will it blend on youtube lol

[explodingzebras]

@TheCanadianPublic no way! they run better with Linux, donate it to a worthy cause! ( to me :D)

[TheCanadianPublic]

@explodingzebras Hmm. I could always try the latest version of Ubuntu on it. It doesn't hold any huge data files, so I can set it up as a dual-boot system with two 20 GB partitions on it. And if I lose Windows through a mishap, it's no big deal.

I have my weekend project! :)

[TheCanadianPublic]

@explodingzebras Okay. Just tried Ubuntu 11.04 installed via USB in a dual-boot configuration. The biggest (and usual) problem is the custom Fujitsu devices not supported by Linux.

Works: speaker, keyboard, mouse, wireless, video, SD slot, USB, volume.

Doesn't work: custom buttons, screen rotation, lights, touchscreen (very flaky), microphone.

Unknown: VGA out, wired Ethernet, CF slot.

[uni7art]

Excellent review. Just upgraded from EEE 4G to U810. Won it on Ebay for $270, installed XP, drivers (headache!) and typing on it now.

Love it, only complaint is the keyboard, Fn for cursor keys, space too small (should've eliminated the pointless windoze key). And wasted space for CF slot which could've been 2 USBs then use card readers for CF. PS: I can tell he's using a modern text to speech program, which is a cool idea. I'm interested in using this technology for my instructional videos

[TheCanadianPublic]

Text to speech program???

[WolfeLienhardt]

lol thats his voice man! he's canadian!

[TheCanadianPublic]

Give me a break man! That was my very first YouTube video! :)

[nbwssef]

I wish all of the reviews on You tube could be this clear and well done.

[qsrcz]

Probably the best notebook review I've ever seen on YouTube. Great work, man!

[osmiley99]

this was very helpful, i took of that blue foggy thing and i removed some applications that were not needed.

[robbysobby]

amazing review!

[brianreal]

Wow! All I can say is wow! You are awesome. Fantastic review! You just tell the facts in a clear, concise, and clever manner. I truly enjoyed this and actually learned much about this product. Keep up the good work. I wish more reviews were as well done as yours.

[ravi911uk]

This is quite possibly the informative and useful review video I've seen on You Tube.

I'm fed up with all the out of focus junk on YT - this is a real oasis in a sea of crap!

Well done guys, more please!!

[domehgt]

fuckin love it!!!!! i need one! cant wait till i can buy it in switzerland!

[kris259]

very true, the price can get-cha.. i just picked up a refurb yesterday for US $611.47.. 60gb harddrive 4 cell battery... not bad...very do-able...so dont put it out... i cant wait to try it out as a ebook reader, pdf ebook reader and just to play with it!!!!

[kris259]

Best Review ive seen yet, editing and info. Esp love the "fast talking" to get as much info in as possible in the shortest amount of time. How about a review for the U820 that has recently come out, that would be fantastic!!!!!

[TheCanadianPublic]

I've phased out the fast talking. Even I had trouble catching everything I was saying! :)

As for reviewing the U820, that won't happen. It's simply too expensive. I can review three Asus Eee PCs for the price of a single U820.

[dnvlgm1]

yeah Crysis must be awesome in this thing lol

[TheCanadianPublic]

Only if you like slide shows! :)

[darkblood26]

it doesnt have zoom in zoom out buttons?

[TheCanadianPublic]

I don't fully understand. Are you referring to zooming into a portion of the screen? If so, Fujitsu does include a screen zooming utility. You don't see it in the review because I turned off the Fujitsu Utilities to save memory.

[darkblood26]

something like the sony vaio ux has.

[TheCanadianPublic]

The U810 does not have any dedicated zoom buttons. You can only zoom in using the Fujitsu zoom utility. The Fujitsu icon should be in the notification area unless you've turned it off like I've done.

[firebourn]

Great review, this answered alot of my question. According to your video, I should aim for the xp os.

[interwebbist]

I like your review style :)

How is this screen in sunlight?

[TheCanadianPublic]

I just did a few tests.

In direct sunlight: useless. No backlit screen can compete with direct sunlight.

In the shade with sunlight reflected off surfaces behind you: problematic. The screen is partially reflective. Wear dark clothing.

In total shade: no problems whatsoever. It doesn't look dim at all.

By comparison, the EEE PC 900's screen looks dim, but it does have a non-reflective surface which greatly reduces unwanted reflections. At the very least, it's "usable" in the shade.

[jester070993]

great review

i was thinking about purchasing a umpc

but i dont know witch one to get i am looking for one with a touchscreen and is not over $1000

do you have  any suggestions?

[TheCanadianPublic]

Try the Products page at umpcportal. They list nearly all the current UMPS available on the market. The page's "Tablet UMPCs" category is misleading since that includes mainly handheld devices with no keyboard. The Tablet PC style devices with keyboards (a.k.a. hybrid Tablet PCs) are listed under the "Notebook UMPCs" category.

The U810 might still be a good choice, but it's slowly starting to show its age. However, if you can find one for, say, under $800...

[jester070993]

oh ok

thank you, i will check the page out

one more question

witch umpc would you recommend?

[TheCanadianPublic]

I can't recommend any specific model; it all depends on what you need such as a keyboard, a touchscreen, storage type and size... There's simply too many variations coming out these days to pick a favourite. But I do have a few suggestions.

- Choose Windows XP over Vista. Or use Linux! (Windows is always +$100 extra)

- At least 800MHZ to play back standard def. videos, a lot more for HD.

- Avoid VIA based models.

- Minimum 1024x600 screen.

- Minimum 1 GB memory regardless of the OS.

Good luck!

[jester070993]

awesome!

thanks alot, you really helped me!

[CollegeJoe]

I heard the webcam is kinda crappy. Everyone who's done video reviews or written ones never once posted pics or vid of what the webcam looks like. Do you plan on releasing a small vid on the webcam itself? Thx.

[TheCanadianPublic]

Hmm. That's an idea. I'll see what I can do.

[TheCanadianPublic]

I've just posted a video review of the EEE PC 900. You'll find clips of the webcams from both the EEE PC 900 and the Fujitsu U810.

[CynicalPhuker]

Is this UMPC any good for gaming?

[TheCanadianPublic]

It's good only for simple games that can run in a 1024x600 or 800x600 resolution window. There's a lot of games out there that will refuse to work under those tiny resolutions. Your only way around this is to connect the U810 to an external hi-res monitor.

Also, there's not that many games out there that'll work properly on an 800 MHz processor. Even an old game like Postal 2 will look like a slide show, which is annoying when you're trying to whack people over the head with a shovel. :-)

[Mystefier]

Ok, I found out there's no right "shift" key. I thought he said there's no shift key at all.

[TheCanadianPublic]

I said no rightmost alt, shift and control keys. The leftmost keys are all there. It does take a bit of time to get used to the unusual keyboard layout, especially the double-mapped keys.

The Home and End keys ARE missing though, which can be a problem when filling forms.

Once you eliminate the fluff, Vista works reasonably well on the U810. I'm still hoping to install Ubuntu one day, but there's still a few driver issues to resolve such as no touchscreen or wired network (wireless works).

[Mystefier]

Thanks. It is an excellent review. I saved it to my favorites so I can refer back to it when I buy my fujitsu.

[Mystefier]

Very good review. Did I hear right that it does not have a "shift" key. How do you type capital letters? I'm wanting to get one, but I was weary of the windows operating system. I switched to mac a long time back, because windows systems are such loose cannons, but mac doesn't make anything like this.

[CynicalPhuker]

Definately one of the best UMPC reviews I have seen so far. Concise, detailed, unbiased and informative.

[tjkelman]

Very useful, very thorough. Would like to have seen more about the inking experience in such a small format, but overall a very helpful review. Many thanks!

[TheCanadianPublic]

I must admit I'm not much of an "inker". But as long as you disable the touchscreen's power management in the Device Manager, I can honestly say the response while playing Bejeweled 2 is excellent. In fact, it's surprisingly responsive for a passive device, comparable to my HP TC4200's Wacom digitizer.

I still haven't tried taking extended notes or drawing elaborate images on the U810. But it's probably safe to assume you won't achieve the same precision as you'd get on a full size tablet PC.

[obsdn666]

This is a very good review. Thank you for putting so much time into making a quality review. I was leaning toward purchasing the u810 and after viewing this I'll be purchasing one in the next couple of weeks.

[dk07]

I have to agree, this is probably one of the better reviews I've seen of the U810, or any other UMPC for that matter. It was well written and narrated, and concise without a lot of useless adlib. The visuals (which is the whole point of a video) were pretty much always displaying what was being talked about, which I thought was also nice.

Nice, much more like a real review, rather than a "look at the cool stuff I got!" kind of video.

[Hiro808]

This is one of the best reviews I've ever seen! I have a fujitsu p5000 and it's served me well as a main pc for close to 3 yrs. I've been considering this umpc to give my p5000 a break when I travel. Keep up the great reviews!

[riceboyah]

very good review! Please keep it up!

[guthrien]

This is an incredibly good review. Much better than most of the umpc enthusiast sites. Can't wait to see what you post next.

[Bemopo]

I must say, this one of the best hardware reviews I've ever seen. All the other U810 reviews I've seen have mainly only showed the outside ports of the machine, which is information I can get from a picture. Not only did your review cover the devices performance in many aspects, but you even went as far as how to fix possible pitfalls/concerns a person may experience the device. Your review was the one that finally addressed many burning questions I had. Thanks again and well done!

[TheCanadianPublic]

Thanks! It always annoys me when reviewers spend so much time describing a product, but never warn you about the deficiencies that may affect you on a daily basis, or how you can work around them.

I did take a chance when I bought the U810, having never seen one in person. In the end, it paid off. I love using it at the coffee shop in the Montreal train station, sitting in one of the comfy chairs while everyone else has to sit at the tables so they can work on their over five pound beasts!

[jayjay01011982]

Super bon review Francois! Si tu decides de faire un review sur l'Asus eeepc ou le Everex Cloudbook, laisses moi savoir! Merci encore !

[TheCanadianPublic]

Je doute que je vais en faire bientôt. Je n'ai pas l'habitude d'acheter tous les appareils qui m'intéresse. Ça coûterait trop cher!

Par contre, si tu connais quelqu'un qui pourrait me prêter une de ces appareils pendant deux semaines... ;)

[joliano159]

Bonjour moi je suis qq1 du qc et jhésite en le fujitsu 1010, ou le everun (60HD) ou l'asus R2H ou le samsung Q1 ultra daprés vous la meilleurs qualité prix cerait lequel mercii et bonne journée

[TheCanadianPublic]

Ayoye! Malheureusement, déterminer le rapport qualité/prix d'un UMPC n'est pas facile! J'ai choisi le U810 principalement à cause de son clavier intégré, son écran tatile, et la facilité à bien le positionner sur ma table de chevet quand je suis au lit. :)

Une option à rechercher lors de l'achat est la possibilité d'installer Windows XP sur l'appareil. Sur certains modèles, Windows Vista a tendance à transformer ce qui aurait pû être un excellent appareil en presse-papier.

[almeidakrn]

in the begining was that card inside for wierless internet????????????

[TheCanadianPublic]

That was the Atheros Wi-Fi adapter, model CP329041-01. The wireless Internet module (mobile broadband module, HSDPA...) would have been installed in the empty slot. However, my U810 doesn't include the antenna leads for it. Also, based on what I saw in a video a while back, the mobile broadband enabled U810 has a wider screen bezel to accommodate the extra antennas.

My U810 does have a Mini-PCI connector on the main board, so I could probably install other devices in it.

[almeidakrn]

so you still get wierless internet??????

how much do you pay for internet if you have it?????????

[TheCanadianPublic]

I have no idea since it's not available in my area as far as I know. And even if it was, I wouldn't pay for it considering I can easily get free Internet, either LAN or Wi-Fi, from most coffee shops, libraries and hotels. I don't need to hand over my hard-earned money to a huge corporation for nothing.

[Vanenix]

Great! I will wait to come up for the new upgrade Life book. I don't trust the 1st life book because pretty sure that there would be a lot of problems

[TheCanadianPublic]

Surprisingly, this 1st generation Fujitsu UMPC gave me fewer headaches than a few second and third generation notebooks I've owned in the past. The only problems I've had are the mouse buttons occasionally no longer responding (press the CTRL-ALT-DEL button to reactivate) and the power button not always working on the first try when the computer is in Sleep mode. Best of all, this computer's Wi-Fi unit was the first one I DIDN'T need to reconfigure in order to get it to work properly!

[Tedzy]

Francois Caron, excuse me, I am very curious in the bag that you've shown in this video, the "$15 Travel Organizer." I've been looking for a hip bag for my U810, something that I can fit on my belt and keep with me at my side while I'm out of the house. Do you have any more information on it, or other recommendations? Thanks

Great review, 5 stars.

[TheCanadianPublic]

The bag is made by Tracker and it even has a belt loop! I found mine in Montreal at Bentley Luggage and Leathers. Unfortunately, I threw the label out before writing down the model number. I'll see if I can find it when I pass by the store again.

The bag is practically made for the U810. It even has enough room for the dongle and a few memory cards and sticks. There's not enough room for the power adapter though. But because of the U810's high battery life, I don't really need it.

[TheCanadianPublic]

Found it! Model 8902-1109.

[rexinusa]

this is the best review i have seen for umpc.- very informative and enjoyable. unlike most out there, very boring. anyway I appreciate all reviews submitted.

[KnowHow2]

Very well done and informative review!

[MobileMavenHaven]

Extremely impressive review. Nice work!

[stevechippy]

Great video. Good info and well produced. Must have taken a long time to put together!!

[TheCanadianPublic]

About two weeks, but only because it's the first time I've ever done anything like this. The next one should only take me a couple of days to shoot and edit together now that I know all the steps.

[LinuxGalore]

Putting Vista on this is pure madness, Windows XP or even Xubuntu (only uses 68MB of ram) would better.

[TheCanadianPublic]

Except that the XP Tablet/Vista Business version will cost you $100 extra. Hopefully Vista SP1 will fix a lot of these performance issues or we'll have to rename it "Vista Millennium!" :)

My goal is to one day load the U810 with Linux, but I won't do that until the touchscreen is supported and the media playback is improved. I use Zoom Player with ffdshow on all my Windows machines and I've yet to find anything better.

[LinuxGalore]

I use Amarok or Kmplayer, Amarok is like iTunes on steroids and kmplayer plays every video file format Ive ever thrown at it. The touchscreen is supported its a matter of commenting the correct details in xorg.conf file.

[TheCanadianPublic]

That's why I've added the word "currently" in my review. I knew eventually it'll be supported "out of the box" hopefully by the time Ubuntu Hard Harry comes out. :)

Media playback under Linux still needs a bit of work. You can still see the playback struggle at times even with average sized media. And I also want my Zoom Player capabilities.

I'll still follow Linux's progression of course. It's very close to becoming a viable successor to Windows.

[TheCanadianPublic]

A quick correction.

There are TWO other Tablet PC style UMPC on the market. It's the Kohjinsha SA1 and SH8 UMPCs both equipped with a 7 inch LCD touchscreen. However, from what I could find on the Internet, they're available in North America only from importers and not from the more popular North American consumer electronics e-tailers.

So how good are they? I have no idea. Anyone out there want to send me some evaluation units? :)

[reflexx]

Very nice review. No fluff, just good info! I was sold on the OQO Model 02, until i saw this.