The state of Vista on the Fujitsu P1610
I installed Vista on the Fujitsu P1610 (Miyagi) over a week ago and thought I’d share the state of the system. When I first installed it I was only playing around with it and didn’t try to do anything productive, rather I was getting familiar with the Tablet bits of Vista. Those are so useful they inspired me to build a full production setup and this is where I am right now.
I installed Vista on a separate partition from Windows XP using a dual-boot configuration. The Vista Ultimate install went very smoothly and I was surprised to see the fingerprint sensor and one other device as the only ones not detected and installed properly out of the box. I used the Fujitsu Windows XP driver for the fingerprint sensor and it is now recognized as it should be. I can’t do much with it yet due to reasons I’ll cover in a moment. Out of the box everything worked on Miyagi except:
- Buttons on the bezel (Page Up/Down; rotate; Fn; CAD; backlight toggle)
- Onscreen function key indicator (volume, brightness, etc.) although the Fn keys work fine themselves
- Bluetooth
- Login by fingerprint
- Screen auto-rotate
- Docking (can’t differentiate between docked and undocked states)
Everything else works fine so I set out to get the above operating, but after I installed my core applications for production- Office 2007, OneNote2007, SnagIT, TimeTTracker, New York Times Reader, MindManager, ResultsManager, Skype, Onfolio, iTunes). Of those the only program that just will not work is ResultsManager, which is a pity as the latest version is calle ResultsManager Vista. It’s an install issue, not a run issue so hopefully this will be fixed soon. The other programs work solidly and is the reason why Miyagi is becoming a production machine under Vista.
The buttons I was able to get working (mostly) by installing the Fujitsu Button Utility in Windows XP Compatibility mode (as Administrator). This recovered the functionality of all the buttons except the CAD and the backlight toggle. Since auto-rotate still is not stable the most important button is the screen rotate button, which works well.
Bluetooth required an install from the Fujitsu supplied CD, which is not surprising since it wasn’t pre-installed under WinXP either. It works fine, although I’ve noticed that sometimes resuming from Standby causes a failure to re-establish a connection to my mouse.
The OmniPass software that works in conjunction with the fingerprint reader just will not work under Vista. It installs fine but hangs up when I try to enroll a user, so the fingerprint reader is pretty useless for the most part. Hopefully the producer of OmniPass (Softex) will release a Vista compatible mode soon.
Auto-rotation of the screen works now but only until I dock and undock. In fact, the docking/ undocking has a tendency to screw up a lot of the graphic settings since I have an external monitor. If I boot in the dock it works fine but when I undock and subsequently dock again it doesn’t fire the external monitor again. When this happens Vista crashes a utility called jDock something so I know that it’s a utility issue. Hopefully this will get fixed when Fujitsu releases real Vista compatible drivers and software.
Pressing the Fn key twice starts the Fujitsu utility menu just like in WinXP, but some of the keys on the menu bar are not mapped correctly. You can’t change the brightness setting, for example, it erroneously starts the Tablet PC settings utility. Most of the buttons do work as advertised, though, so it’s not too bad.
All in all I find that I can use Vista daily now that I’ve built my dream machine. I love the Vista interface and how easily it’s manipulated with the fingertip. I see a big difference in useability over Vista RC1, the last version I installed on anything prior to this RTM version. Vista is a real joy to use and I’m happy to report that perfomance is still very fast, even though I am running Aero Glass. I love the smell of Vista in the morning. 
UPDATE: I should mention that I got my Verizon A620 AirCard to work for EV-DO access on the run. It was incredibly easy. Do NOT install the Verizon Access Manager software as it does not work under Vista. Instead, pop the AirCard into the PC Card slot, Vista will recognize it and install the proper drivers for it. Then create a simple Dial Up Network connection using #777 as the phone number and leave username and password blank. That’s it! Works like a charm.
James, do you still have the one “unknown device” in the Device Manager that does not install correctly? I believe it is the Hot Keys utility (Fuj02B1) that won’t install? Another question is whether you have been able to connect to the web through your bluetooth phone. Thanks for any pointers and happy holidays!
We need video!!
We need video!!
We need video!!
We need video!!
We need video!!
The lack of bluetooth for me ( i couldn’t get it to install and remain stable ), and the autorotate errors were enough for me to go back to xp. I’ll wait for the official cd and drivers.
Fernando, yes I do still have that and I do believe it is the Hot Key stuff. As I understand it that is only the on-screen confirmation for the Fn settings adjustment as I mentioned. I have not seen anything else that does not work as a result of this undefined device.
Have you tried unchecking the “Install ResultsMerlin” option during ResultsManager installation? ResultsMerlin is there solely to aid beginners and not needed for routine ResultsManager operation. I’ve seen ResultsMerlin cause problems on non-admin users and also (I think) some .net issues.
I’m thinking about getting a 1610 but I’m worried vista might be a bit crampt given the 1gb memory limit, how is the memory preformance with office and vista and 1gb? Is there lots of disk curn (I’ve noticed loads on my 1gb m200)?
JK, I think you’ll find that the ResultsManager problem is IE7 related not Vista, the guys at Gyronix have a solution to the problem on their site.
I hate you, Kendrick!!
I hate hate hate hate you!!
I am tuyping this at DataVision in NYC — on a Fujitsu 1610!
You bloody SOB!!
This is Love!!
Now I know why you dumped the Q1.
So would I.
Drooooooooool!!!
Mike, get you a real gadget. And a room.
jk: The 1610 is not much bigger than the Q1. At least that was my impression in person (it was not next to a Q1, however; DataVision doesn’t have any UMPCs — nor was there a Pepper Pad 3 I could see!). Is this so? The DV one was running off AC with the battery *out* (J&R does that too), so I couldn’t tell what its weight was. But I really liked what I experienced. Hmmmm… does it have a stylus? What’s it look like?
Oh, the thing about the 1610 that shook me was the feel of *horsepower* it had. It wasn’t my imagination, was it? I opened my blog with all its recent pictures and it was *effortless* on the 1610. Is this the same CPU the Sony UX uses? The UX always felt sluggish to me (ala TBPOSKTM, the 770).
I installed Vista on my 1610, and in the end went back to XP. Vista simply requires more horsepower and memory than is available on the 1610. Don’t get me wrong, I love Vista for tablets….but you really need 2g of memory or you will be constantly annoyed by the apparent slowness of the system.
Also, readyboost didn’t seem to make much difference…and the 1610’s SD reader is not readyboost compliant. You have to use USB.
I love my 1610, but I really can’t wait for the next version…let’s hope it can run Vista without hickups.
Martin Tibbitts