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Fujitsu is looking to offer users an even smaller and lighter ultramobile PC.
On Aug. 14, the Sunnyvale, Calif., company plans to unveil the Lifebook U810, an ultramobile PC that had previously only been available in Japan. Now, Fujitsu will begin selling the PC in the North American market for the first time in September.
The Lifebook U810 weighs a little more than 1.5 pounds and offers a 5.6-inch LCD with touch screen capabilities. The PC also offers a keyboard, which allows it to function as both a convertible tablet as well as a notebook, said Paul Moore, the senior director for Mobile Product Marketing for Fujitsu.
“Basically, anything that can be done on laptop can be done on this,” said Moore. “We really view it as a PDA replacement. Its much more robust, much more mobile and much more powerful.”
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Along with standard laptops, ultramobiles are one of the fastest growing segments of the PC market. In a June 12 report, IDC found that notebooks and ultramobile shipments increased 28 percent in the second quarter of 2007 compared to the same period a year ago.
In addition to Fujitsu, which already offers a number of ultramobile and ultraportable models, Dell, Gateway and Samsung have all recently introduced a number of ultramobile PCs as more of their customers demand additional flexibility with their PCs.
The Lifebook U810 ultramobile PC offers an Intel A110 processor—an 800MHz clock speed, 512KB of L2 cache and a 400MHz front side bus (FSB)—along with an Intel 945GU Express chip set, integrated Intel graphics, 1GB of RAM and a hard disk drive with a 40GB capacity. The U810 will also support either Microsofts Windows Vista OS or the XP Tablet operating system.
The U810 support 802.11 a/b/g WLAN (wireless LAN) technology and Fujistii plans on adding wireless WWAN (wireless WAN) support in February. The PC, which offers 5.5 hours of battery life, can plug into a docking station for users who want to use a full screen and keyboard.
When the U810 goes on sale officially on Sept. 18, it will have a base price of $999, said Moore. Later, Fujitsu will offer a solid state drive (SSD) option for this ultramobile PC.
In addition to the Lifebook U810, Fujitsu is launching a new tablet, the Lifebook T2010, on Tuesday. Unlike the ultramobile PC, the tablet will go on sale immediately with a starting price of $1,599.
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Fujitsu will offer a choice of two different Intel ultra-low volt Core 2 Duo processors, the U7600, which runs at 1.2GHz, or the U7500, which has a clock speed of 1.06GHz. The tablet also uses an Intel 965GM chip set and offers up to 4GB of memory and a SATA (Serial ATA) hard disk drive with a maximum capacity of 160GB. The tablet, according to Fujitsu, also offers up to nine hours of battery life as well as 12.1-inch LCD display.
Users will also have the option of adding Intels TurboMemory, a NAND-based flash memory, to the tablet. Like Fujitsus ultramobile PC, the T2010 tablet will support either Windows Vista or the XP Tablet operating system.
The tablet, which weighs about 3.5 pounds, supports 802.11 a/b/g and draft-n WLAN technology and the company plans to add WWAN support in February.
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