Introduction

I am reviewing the Fujitsu TH550M netbook-sized convertible notebook. This is a notebook computer which has a touchscreen or stylus-operable screen that swivels to become a tablet computer.

It is the first of this kind of notebook that I have had for review and is an example of what the proposed “netvertible” form factor could look like. This is although it runs the Windows 7 desktop operating system with touch and stylus operation built in to it as well as having full processor capabilities rather than the netbook-grade processor capabilities.

The computer itself

The display swivels to become a tablet

The Fujitsu TH550M convertible notebook is really about squeezing a quart in to a pint pot. Here, the “engine” is an Intel Core i3 processor which would be at home in a 13” ultraportable and the hard disk has a total capacity of 500Gb with cheaper variants having a 320Gb hard disk. Even the supplied operating system is Windows 7  Professional which is the “business package” version.

The notebook as a tablet

This is compared to a typical netbook which would be Intel Atom powered, have 250Gb on the hard disk at the most and run Windows 7 Home Premium. The only thing in common is the amount of RAM available which is 2Gb that is shared with the display memory.

Aesthetics and Build quality

The Fujitsu TH550M is about the size of a small book and is finished in a piano-black gloss finish. There is the sense of very good build quality especially with the flip-screen mechanism.

User interface

Like the typical netbook, this Fujitsu T-Series notebook uses a keyboard that is cramped and it may be difficult to touch-type accurately on this computer. There is also a very small trackpad with chrome-finished buttons and a rough tracking surface. This makes it easy to determine the sensitive area of the trackpad without you looking.

The main feature is the screen being a touchscreen that can respond to your fingers or the supplied stylus. The small screen size may make it hard to select certain operating-system icons like the icons on the edge of the windows.

Keyboard and trackpad

Audio and Video

This Fujitsu TH550M convertible notebook is driven by an Intel HD graphics subsystem which would be adequate for most tasks, even basic video playback. It can be connected to an external display via a VGA or HDMI connector.

The touchscreen is that typical glossy finish that can yield annoying reflections but in other cases, does the job adequately.

Battery life

The Fujitsu can last for many hours on regular tasks even though it was on the power-saving setting by default. This included an evening’s worth of use of the Social Web where I was monitoring and interacting with the #HackGate hashtag on Twitter during the ABC24 live broadcast of the inquiry in to the phone hacking scandal concerning the Murdoch press in the UK.

Other experience notes

I showed this computer to a woman friend and she had considered it as a viable “personal computer” that would suit her needs. This is after she had previously talked with us about personal-computing solutions like tablets and small laptop computers that had impressed her

Limitations and Points Of Improvement

An improvement that I would like to see for convertible notebooks would be a touch-optimised shell for the Windows 7 operating system, so these computers can be a worthy competitor to the iPad and Android tablet computers. This could include the extension of “newspaper apps” and “book-reading apps” to the Windows desktop platform rather than focusing them to the Apple iPad.

This situation may be rectified with the installation of Windows 8 on these convertible notebooks when it arrives or a dual-boot setup with Android and Windows 7 for current-issue machines.

For this model, I would like to have the cord that tethers the stylus to the computer able to retract in to the unit in a similar vein to the typical vacuum-cleaner’s retractable power cord. Here, this can avoid further damage to the cord, pen or notebook if the cord is snagged on items in the typical briefcase or laptop bag.

Conclusion

I would consider the Fujitsu TH550M as a computer for those who want a “bridge” between a tablet computer and a netbook; rather than carrying around an accessory keyboard with a 10” tablet computer like an iPad. This is more so i, offer the bf you mainly use line-of-business applications or create content.

As well, other members of the Fujitsu T-Series convertible notebook range would, with their different screen sizes, offer the bridge between the tablet and the regular notebook with this distinct interface kind.

Article

GSM turns 20 today, still rocking the world — Engadget

My Comments

GSM Mobile telephony has now turned 20 this year and has become a technological milestone in itself as far as “on-the-go” mobile communication is concerned,

Here, this service had brought through a highly-reliable digital transmission system which could allow many users to use mobile phones in a given area. It had extended the mobile phone beyond voice towards data-driven activities like SMS text messaging and concurrent packet data transmission.

Infact SMS had even brought about a language of shorthand slang known as “textspeak” that ended up as part of email and instant-messaging culture as well and had made the pager redundant. Here, we now see teenagers and other young people working their phones to frantically tap out a message with one hand the moment they hear that phone beep to indicate a text had arrived. This technology had been taken further with MMS which allows photographs, audio or video clips to be sent this way.

The GPRS packet-data system has become the foundation stone of the mobile Internet, allowing for the phone to become an mobile email client and Web browser. This has been emphasised more with technologies like EDGE.

This technology has brought about cost-effective handsets and phone services with a sense of service portability through the use of SIM cards. Here, a person could upgrade to different handsets or “rope in” another handset like a loan phone to their service by transferring a SIM card between these handsets. It also allowed carriers in a competitive market to strut their stuff by offering service that is affordable to most people.

Infact GSM has mad the mobile phone become a mature ubiquitous technology that is available to all. It even has put the traditional landline phone and the payphone “on notice” as far as young users are concerned.

Therefore I would consider the GSM mobile telephone system a milestone to the connected lifestyle.

Happy 20th Birthday GSM Mobile Telephony

Article

Iliad aims to boost Free Mobile service with free femtocells – FierceWireless:Europe

My Comments

In France, Illiad’s “Free” telecommunications brand is to use femtocells as a way of increasing its effective coverage. These are devices that provide  mobile telephony coverage within small premises, typically one’s house, but use the Internet service as the backbone to the mobile telephone network.

SFR offers a similar service for their “Neufbox Evolution” customers but this requires that they pay EUR99 per month for this service. Instead Free are offering it as a complimentary service to their “Freebox Revolution” customers. Both of the triple-play platforms will have the functionality integrated in their “n-boxes” which combine a network-Internet “edge” device (router) along with a VoIP analogue telephony adaptor.

For France, this will be seen as relevant for the mobile carriers in that country as they face an uphill battle against a strong NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) culture when it comes to deploying mobile-phone towers. This is more exacerbated as the junk science and fears concerning the side-effects of electromagnetic radiation are held as gospel in some French communities.

Issues that can affect current femto implementations

A limitation I have observed with these “femto” implementations is that they will be designed to serve up to four or five handsets, which may be enough for a household. But for a country that has the cafes and brasseries at its heart, there needs to be reference designs for femtocells that can work in a similar manner to a Wi-Fi hotspot service. Here, the device could support around 10 to 15 concurrent users. The service could support multiple-carrier traffic and provide the host carrier or even the business’s owner with a service bounty for customer’s voice minutes that pass through the femtocell.

Similarly, there can be the issue of assuring coverage across the property for a femtocell setup. It may be of concern with larger properties in areas of poor mobile coverage or properties that have radio obstacles like thick brick walls for example. This could be rectified by establishing a mechanism for “multi-femto” arrangements where the same backbone can serve two or more femtocells with proper seamless handover.

Other technologies

Of course there are other technology setups that may work instead of the femtocell. The classic example may be the use of Wi-Fi technology with EAP-SIM authentication and VoIP call-provisioning systems to provide “indoor” mobile-call service. This will typically require the phone to have integrated Wi-Fi functionality which most smartphones do have; but support seamless handover, quality-of-service and accounting between cellular and Wi-Fi networks.

Another issue that will affect this setup is current-generation Wi-Fi transceivers that are integrated in smartphones is energy use when in full activity. Here this will affect the mobile phone’s battery runtime and typically cause the phone to require charging more frequently. Most likely this will be rectified in the upcoming generations of Wi-Fi transceivers available for these devices.

Conclusion

The French femtocell services offered by Free and SFR are worth examining as far as private femtocell and “quad-play” (TV, telephone, mobile telephone and Internet) services go. Here, it would be worth examining the technology and its relevance for mobile-telephony service goes especially where the NIMBY culture thrives; and identify the real problems where it can run into when using it to augment these service in the public and private realms.

Article

Seagate GoFlex Satellite : Father’s Day Gift Guide: Geeky Patriarch Edition

From the horse’s mouth

Seagate’s Web site for this device

My Comments

The Seagate GoFlex Satellite network-attached storage is representing a new breed of network device design that is becoming more prominent with Wi-Fi devices. Here, the device has an integrated access point and DHCP server and works with dedicated client apps or integrated Web server to share files.

There are limitations with this class of device in that they cannot connect to an existing Wi-Fi network. Here, the user has to point their client device to the network-attached storage device’s SSID in order to benefit from the device. In the case of the GoFlex Satellite, the user would have to visit a Web page hosted by the device and / or use dedicated client software to gain access to the files.

Of course, with this GoFlex Satellite, it is intended for the user to connect the unit directly to a computer as an external hard disk using a USB 3.0 connection when loading content on to it or using it as a backup device.

This is compared to some newer “MiFi” wireless-broadband routers that have SD card readers and treat the mounted SD cards as network drives. Here, they use standard network-drive protocols for sharing the storage space and share media-file directories using UPnP AV / DLNA standards.

I find that it would be easier to have these kind of drives work with client devices through standardised protocols. If the device is to work with an Apple iOS client, the manufacturer could license or develop CIFS and DLNA client apps for integration with these devices’ file systems.

As for network connectivity, these devices could support the ability to join an existing Wi-Fi small-network segment, whether through “push-to-join” WPS, Windows Connect Now-USB or manual setup. Then they could serve content to that Wi-Fi segment. Of course, they could still work as their own network if they have to, such as serving content to devices that have no Internet; have Internet served via a wireless-broadband setup with integrated modem or computers in the throes of being commissioned.

The main issue with this design is that it is very much designed around the Apple iOS ecosystem and is not likely to work well beyond that.

Articles

Windows 8 And Its Incredibly Cool New Touch Interface | Gizmodo.com

Windows 8 Gets A Radical Facelift And Touch Functionality (Videos) | eHomeUpgrade

Windows 8, iOS 6 set for tablet face-off in 2012 | CNET

My Comments

Basic comments about Windows 8’s touch screen user-interface

A key user-interface concept in the next version of Windows will be a “Start Screen” that looks like a cross between Windows Phone 7’s home screen and the Windows Media Center interface. Here, this dashboard will have “Live Tiles” which present always-updated information in the window panes.

The applications represented on the “Live Tiles” can be a fully-fledged Windows application or a HTML5/JavaScript “mobile-like” app that links to a Web resource. This is taken further with Internet Explorer 10 implementing this functionality.

There will be the full integrated support for tablet computers and similar devices with an interface that works best with these devices as well as a regular keyboard / mouse interface. One issue that may affect software developers is that they may have to work the software so it can behave properly with a “no-keyboard” interface as well as a “keyboard” interface. Of course, the touchscreen keyboard interface will support a split layout so that the user can work the keys with their thumbs.

For some programs that primarily use mouse interaction like strategy or puzzle games, there won’t need to be much work done on having the programs work between a keyboard interface or a touch interface. But on the other hand, programs that rely on text entry such as email, the program may have to work with remapping the user interface to permit use of the virtual keyboard interfaces.

But where could this all lead to when it comes to the design of Windows-based computers?

Ever since Windows allowed for “tablet-style” computing with the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, where the computer is operated using a stylus rather than by touch, there have been two form factors put forward to the market. One was the “slate” form factor which is like the tablet computers such as the iPad, where there isn’t a keyboard but the computer could work with a USB-connected keyboard; and the other was a “convertible” notebook computer with a screen that swivelled 180 degrees and folded flat to become a stylus-operated PC. There have been a few touchscreen variants of these form factors released subsequently once Windows Vista provided the touchscreen interface option.

The “slate” or “tablet” form factor could exist as an alternative to the iPad and Android-based tablet computers; and they could allow for operation with small keyboards for word-processing and emailing. But the computer press have forgotten about the “convertible” notebook form factor which has seen some resurgence with some manufacturers running with “netvertibles” – netbooks that have a touchscreen which can swivel between a traditional layout and a tablet layout.

Windows 8 vs the Apple platforms.

Another article had raised issues about Windows 8 becoming a competitor for a subsequent version of Apple’s iOS platform, especially the iPad implementation.

But they also raised the spectre of it competing with the next version of MacOS X, known as “Lion”. The main factor about this is that Apple were viewing the MacOS platform as a “horizontal” platform and the iOS platform as a “vertical” platform; with scant mention of any touch-enabled Macintosh computers coming on the scene.

The possibility of a granular touch-based computer marketplace

What I would see with these touch-based operating systems is the ability for hardware manufacturers to provide a granular marketplace for touch-based computing devices. This means that there could be a touch-based computing device that could suit particular users’ needs and budgets.

It would range from the 7” coat-pocket tablets serving as an alternative to a dedicated ebook reader through 10” tablets like the iPad fulfilling most general-purpose “dedicated-tablet” needs to 13”-14” convertible notebooks appealing to those of us who do plenty of emailing, word-processing or similar work on the road.

Of course, the operating environments for units that are 10” or above will differ across the marketplace in a similar way to what is happening with the smartphones. Here, users may place emphasis on factors like software availability, operating-system flexibility, battery runtime and system performance as they choose the operating environment.

Conclusion

The proposed Windows 8 environment could then become a game change when it comes to the touch-based computing environment.

Article

Business laptops reload | Technology Spectator

My Comments

You are thinking of a portable computer device that can stand between your smartphone and your regular 15”-17” laptop computer. But where do you go?

Tablet computers

Firstly, we have seen the tablets like the Apple iPad family and the newer crop of Android-powered tablet computers. These units have a touch-driven user interface and range between 7” for a unit that can be stuffed in to a large pocket on your coat) to a 10” unit that can sit on a coffee table. They are good for viewing previously-written material or performing limited data-entry tasks like responding to email in a brief manner, due to the nature of the touchscreen keyboard.

There has been talk of these tablet computers displacing netbooks in their computing roles but the netbooks can still work for some users when it comes to taking notes or responding to letters and they want a keyboard that they can feel properly.

Ultraportable / Subnotebook computers

On the other hand, you have ultraportable or subnotebook computers which typically range up to 14” and are optimised for portable use. These units will have a regular keyboard as well as the separate larger screen. Also, they run a regular desktop operating system in the Windows or MacOS X families, which allows them to run regular fully-functional software like Microsoft Office or work with a large range of computer hardware.

There have been some new examples of very capable 13” ultraportables that have been cited in this article. One was the Lenovo ThinkPad X1, which is Lenovo’s attempt to respond to Apple’s cool designs. This is even though it is built by a company preferred by corporate “fleet-computer” buyers due to inherent ruggedness and security features. Another is the Toshiba Portege R830 which is a lightweight Core i5-powered model with an integrated DVD drive and USB 3.0. Yet another emerges from Hewlett-Packard as the HP ProBook 5300m, a Core i5-powered subnotebook that has had its audio subsystem worked with Beats Audio technology.

The author who wrote the article for the Technology Spectator that I am commenting on even had prepared the manuscript for the article on the Lenovo X1 and had found that the proper-size keyboard had allowed him to do the job. This is in a similar experience to what I had when I reviewed the Dell Inspiron 13z last year for this site and found that this class of computer is a proper size for those of us who want a travel-friendly computer to type up work on. It is because these computers use a keyboard layout and area that is commensurate to a standard typewriter keyboard, thus allowing you to properly touch-type without your hands feeling cramped; and you also have the proper tactile feedback that you have when you operate these computers’ keyboards.

This form-factor has become very useful especially amongst those of us who do a lot of public-transport travel, especially air travel because the can easily fit on those economy-class airline tray tables; as I have seen for myself on my flight back from Sydney. Here I have seen a person who was sitting next to me have one of these machines on their airline tray-table just for viewing some video material; and they didn’t look cramped when they used that computer.

As well, they are highly valued for wireless-hotspot use because they could fit on a typical cafe table or a window / wall bench that is very common at these places. This is more so as a lot of us use the cafe as a “second office” where one can get on with their work without office-driven distraction.

The possibllity of convertible “bridge” computers

Manufacturers could consider placing in to their market “convertible” ultraportable computers that have a touchscreen so one can benefit from the bonuses of touchscreen computing as well as have something with a proper keyboard. This could be augmented with Windows 7 fully utilising its touch and tablet abilities and support for applications that have proper touch-operation benefits. Of course, there has to be improvements with battery runtime and the ability to work with multi-touch gestures.

As for “big-time” media who want to preserve their “tablet-editions” of their newspapers; they could also run desktop front-ends for the Windows platform to provide the newspaper experience to these touchscreen-enabled portable computers.

Conclusion

I would reckon that a secondary portable computer that you use should be dependent on what you intend to do with it. If you do intend to just use the device for reading and viewing material; and occasionally creating emails, I would go for a tablet computer. On the other hand, if you are doing a lot of correspondence or creating a lot of material like writing articles while out and about, a subnotebook / ultraportable could suit your needs better.

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