Fujitsu Lifebook T4310 Tablet PC

While everyone else is getting their knickers in a twist about a tablet that Apple might be launching later this year, here’s one manufacturer that actually has launched one — Fujitsu.

Before you get too excited, we should point out that the Fujitsu Lifebook T4310 is a Tablet PC of the old school rather than a sleek, slimline web browsing device, which means it’s effectively a traditional laptop with a screen that folds back on itself when you want to scribble on the screen.

Microsoft first pushed this idea for a new kind of portable PC back in 2002 and while it hasn’t exactly taken off in the intervening years, the Tablet PC has carved itself a small niche in areas where it’s easier to write on a large touch-screen held in the crook of one arm than to type on a keyboard sat on your lap.

The Lifebook T4310 is a 12.1” Tablet PC, which means the screen is large enough to comfortably use in laptop mode, but not too large to make it unwieldy in tablet mode. At 1.79kg and nearly 1.5” thick when closed, this isn’t a laptop you’d want hold in one hand for too long, though — losing the internal optical drive would help reduce the bulk, but perhaps Fujitsu’s customers are happy with a few hundred grammes of extra weight for the sake of this small convenience.

As far as business laptops go, the Lifebook T4310 isn’t bad looking — it’s bulky, as we said, but it also feels pretty solid. The case is all-plastic rather than some more exotic material, with a combination of gloss and matte finishes that make the best of what is otherwise a fairly ordinary design.

The lid is a thick piece of plastic that, while a little flexible, keeps any pressure on the outside away from the screen inside. It sits on a single pivoting hinge that rotates through 180 degrees in either direction, so it’s easy to snap into tablet mode with either hand.

The pivot feels robust enough and holds the screen stiffly at any angle, while a chunky latch keeps the lid locked in place whichever way the screen is facing — it pops through either side of the lid, depending on which side is folded flat against the keyboard.

Since this is a Tablet PC, the 12.1” screen is touch-sensitive, but it won’t work with just any blunt object — you need to use the supplied stylus (pen one end, eraser on the other) or a fingertip. Multi-touch is supported, but the only gesture we could get to work was a two-finger pinch for zooming into web pages.

Windows 7 really isn’t well-suited to fingertip control though, and many of the UI elements are simply too small to prod with a fingertip (particularly at 1280 x 800 on a screen this size). So, you’ll find yourself reaching for the stylus more often than not with the Lifebook T4310.

Fortunately, multi-touch is disabled when the stylus is near the screen, so there’s no risk of accidentally zooming a page when the ball of your hand is resting on the display as you write. Unfortunately, the Wacom touch-sensitive technology that underpins the Lifebook T4310’s screen also makes the display rather grainy and reduces the viewing angles, though not enough to make it illegible to a huddle of two or three people.

When not in tablet mode, the full-size keyboard is comfortable to use and there are no undersized keys to confuse your fingers. The trackpad works well, too — it’s a good size with a textured finish and two large, positive buttons.

Although it’s a Centrino laptop, this particular Lifebook T4310 uses a Pentium T4400 processor rather than a Core 2 Duo. The dual-core chip is clocked at 2.2GHz and performance compares favourably with a similarly specified Core 2 Duo though, so there should be no problems running applications.

Battery life isn’t bad, but the Lifebook T4310 won’t last anywhere near long enough for a whole day of mains-free work. It ran for nearly 90 minutes in BatteryEater Pro’s Classic test and for just over four hours in the Reader test. So, you can probably count on around three hours of normal use between recharges.

At around £949, the Fujitsu Lifebook T4310 costs rather more than a same-size laptop with a better specification, but Tablet PCs have always attracted a premium (which is why so few people buy them). We’d like it a whole lot more if it was lighter and more portable, but as it stands, it’s a tablet that’s better suited for use as a traditional laptop, with only the occasional foray into tablet territory.