Keep taking the tablets

Pro

1 April 2005

Personal computers, especially those aimed at the corporate market have become a little lacklustre in these less buoyant times. PCs are becoming increasingly standardised, the number of suppliers is falling, the feature sets are pretty similar across each company’s range, and the focus of IT is now less on what you have and more on how you use it.

Furthermore, the thin-client model of computing, which effectively says that on the desktop, less is more, has gained a following in many large companies. In consequence, client devices are being relegated to the status of an obedient slave, which gets on with what it is allowed to do — not very much — leaving the hard work to its big brothers in the server room.

Having said which, several PC companies are determined to ‘sex up’ the moribund market by introducing computers that match the Tablet PC specification laid down by Microsoft. This aims to smooth the path for exciting technologies like voice and handwriting recognition into mainstream computing, at whose door they have been knocking for some time without ever really attracting a big following. It has to be said, these devices can set a-flutter the heart of the most sober technophobe.

The Stylistic 4120 Tablet PC is Fujitsu Siemens’ offering. Unlike many of its rivals it is first and foremost a slate PC, as it comes with no keyboard attached and is clearly intended to be used primarily in applications where handwritten note taking or form filling will be the main means of data input.

You can of course attach a USB-enabled keyboard to one of the Tablet’s two slots, or you could use the supplied docking station which is an easel stand that can be adjusted to support the Tablet in landscape or portrait mode. The docking station has a power outlet, three USB slots and an Ethernet connection. We attached a wireless keyboard and mouse to it with no problems.

Tablet PCs run a modified form of Windows XP and the Stylistic comes with the standard Office XP suite of business productivity tools. Also included is Journal, a note-taking application which allows you to take handwritten notes directly on to the Tablet screen. These may be stored as bitmapped pictures or one can convert them to text automatically.

The accuracy with which this is achieved depends on the amount of ‘training’ you give the computer and the general legibility of your handwriting. Sadly, the combined processing power of the world’s research labs could not begin to decipher this reviewer’s illegible scrawl but don’t let that dissuade those of you who possess copperplate-like handwriting from trying out the Journal application.

Voice-recognition is, dare I say it, on the point of becoming genuinely useful. No longer does one have to pause between each word to make oneself understood. It helps if one has had elocution lessons as clear diction at a reasonable pace is essential. Irish proper names are still a problem of course, so if you want to send a letter to Cliodhna or Aodhan you will have to type that in by yourself.

The lack of a built-in keyboard might put some people off the Stylistic. It would not be possible to type up a report, for example, while on the move or catching a coffee at the train station. However, Fujitsu Siemens has put a little thought into the overall portability of the device and it comes with a specially designed carrier case with a transparent covering over the screen area, allowing pen input to take place while giving the Tablet a modicum of protection from being rained upon or dropped on to hard surfaces.

At EUR2050 ex-VAT, this is a much cheaper though less robust alternative to a ruggedised notebook PC.

Features that come as standard include a 933MHz Pentium III with 256Mbyte of SDRAM, a 30Gbyte hard disk, a built in modem and wireless LAN and a 10.4in LCD screen.

There are more powerful portable computers on the market than this Tablet, based as it is around a Pentium III processor, but its price puts it in the mainstream portable category and for its exciting features and extreme portability it could be just what you need, if your special requirements revolve around handwritten note taking.

BOTTOM LINE — VERY GOOD

Fujitsu Siemens’ Stylistic 4120 Tablet is a stylish tech accessory threatening to be a genuinely useful tool, depending on how you use it.

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