Fujitsu Siemens LifeBook T5010 Review at 10:01 AM

Fujitsu Siemens LifeBook T5010 Review

Fujitsu Siemens' LifeBook T5010 comes from the same stable as the T1010. Like the T1010, it's a relatively large and heavy 13.3-inch convertible tablet PC. Differences include an active touchscreen rather than the T1010's passive unit, a solid-state hard-drive option and a wider range of processors. The T5010 is available for around £1,700 online.

Design
With its black lid, the T5010 looks more business-like than the white-clad T1010, although there's still plenty of white surrounding the keyboard and on the wrist rest.

The 2kg T5010 isn't exactly a featherweight, but its 13.3-inch screen does provide plenty of working space. The 1,200x800-pixel resolution is par for the course and viewing angles are good, both vertically and horizontally. The screen uses an active digitiser, so you'll have to use the stylus for touch-based navigation and handwriting recognition. The stylus lives in housing on the front right edge of the T5010.

The T5010 uses an active digitiser for the touchscreen, so it will only work with the provided stylus

Measuring 319 by 39 by 244mm, the T5010 is the same size as the T1010, and their casings are also very similar in design. Both share a solid clasp that holds the lid and base sections together when in tablet PC mode and in transit. Build quality is generally robust and there's very little flex in the lid section.

Fujitsu Siemens has done a good job with the keyboard, which is spill-proof, exhibits almost no flex, and has large keys with good travel and audible feedback. Typing at speed is no problem. The two-button touchpad on the wrist rest incorporates vertical scrolling.

As with the T1010, the horizontal scroller is on the screen surround. This makes scrolling tasks feel rather disjointed. We can see why Fujitsu Siemens wants to put a touch-controlled scroller on the screen surround but we think vertical and horizontal scrolling should be available on both the touchpad and on the screen surround.

Blue status LEDs sit on the very front edge of the wrist rest, where they are visible when the T5010 is closed, in tablet PC orientation and in laptop mode.

Because it's relatively heavy, you may find you use the T5010 in laptop mode more than expected

Controls embedded in the lid section provide access to plenty of functions in tablet PC mode. The on/off switch is here, as is the fingerprint sensor. Two microphones sit on the bottom edge of the screen, while the top edge houses the very small lens of a 1.3-megapixel webcam. A bank of five buttons accesses features like screen rotation and the Windows Mobility Center.

Features
Fujitsu Siemens offers a wide range of Intel Core 2 Duo processors to power the T5010, from the 2.26GHz P8400 to the 2.8GHz T9600. Our review sample had the mid-range 2.4GHz P8600 and 2GB of RAM. The maximum RAM capacity is currently 4GB, although 8GB is in the pipeline with future 4GB memory modules. Graphics are handled by the GMA 4500MHD module integrated in the Intel GM45 Express chipset.