Additional accessories for the P1620 on the way today
OK, I’m still waiting for the delivery of the Fujitsu P1620, in fact right now I don’t know when it might arrive. When it didn’t arrive on Wednesday of this week I called Fujitsu and they said it shipped that day and would arrive today, Friday. They also told me I’d receive a confirmation email that had a tracking number but that didn’t arrive. On Thursday since I had no confirmation that the computer was shipped I called Fujitsu again and they told me it shipped that morning. Since it’s coming direct from Japan it would arrive at Mobile Tech Manor on Monday or Tuesday. Knowing when it might arrive is important because it is shipping with a signature required and I would have to be home to sign for it. I still have received no confirmation that it shipped from Japan so at this point I am not sure when to expect it. The online status still shows it as shipped which it has shown since Monday so that doesn’t mean too much.
Meanwhile I have ordered some little accessories to use with the Fuji when it does arrive and those should arrive today. First up I decided I needed a USB 2.0 hub to use with the port replicator of the Fuji which only has 2 USB slots and those will be used up by the DVD drive which has already arrived. It requires 2 USB slots so it gets enough power and even though one of them is a pass-through connector I felt I would still need several additional USB slots. I ordered this Belkin hub which is very similar to the one I use with the MacBook Pro and am quite happy with it. It’s a 7 port hub which is plenty but the cool thing is how 2 of the slots are on the top of the hub. This makes it very handy to plug in memory keys and the like which I just plug in, use, and then remove. It’s also very reasonably priced and like I said I am quite happy with the one I already have.
Next up I decided to take the advice of good friend Steven Hughes and ordered a Patriot 16 GB SDHC card for use with the Fuji. Steven is using this card with his older P1610 so it should work fine in the newer P1620. Like Steven I intend to use 2 GB of the Patriot for ReadyBoost and the other 14 GB for movies and the like. The Patriot was reasonably priced for such a high capacity card and I will get good use out of it I am sure. I had actually ordered a SanDisk 2 GB SD card to use for ReadyBoost that arrived earlier this week. For grins I tried to put it in the HP 2710p to try it for ReadyBoost and it wouldn’t work, the HP told me it was not fast enough for that usage. I decided at that point to go with Steven’s solution which works for him so I am pretty confident this Patriot card will work fine.
Now if the P1620 would only get here already! There are few things in life worse than waiting endlessly for new tech to arrive.
Just so you know there are people south of the equator almost as anxious as you are for your Fujitsu to arrive soon !!!
Olof (from Brazil)
I hope you enjoy your new P1620 when it arrives, James. I’ve very much enjoyed my P1610. It’s great when you get a new tech device, kind of like getting a new kitten or puppy!
Except for the boo-boos on the carpet.
James, mind sticking the 16 gig card into the 2710p, just to see if it works?
B, I’ll do that when I get it, it’s not here yet.
Why didn’t you buy this card?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220254&Tpk=Patriot%2b16GB%2bSDHC%2bSecure%2bDigital%2bCard%2b-%2bClass%2b6
James, previously you mentioned your sytem will be loaded with Vista but ships with XP Tablet recovery disk. Are you going to try Vista first or will you load XP Tablet directly? I’m curious if Vista works well with the extra RAM and dual core processor on the P1620. I’m currently experimenting with Vista Business on a 1GB P1610 with a 32GB SSD. The user interface is better but performance is noticeably slower. I may revert to XP Tablet or (gulp!) buy the $500 2GB RAM card.
http://www.leog.net/fujp_forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12344
All this talk about your 1620 is just distracting people from the 2133! Ha!
I’ll bet dollars to donuts right now that Vista on the P1620 with 2 GB of RAM works more than adequate. If it works fine on my Q1P with a 1 GHz Pentium M and 2 GB, the P1620 should provide an even better experience.
B, bad news is the Patriot card does not work in the HP for ReadyBoost. My gut feeling is the SD drive is not fast enough as it works in the HP.
Vista will not run well in any device without at least 2 GB of memory in my experience. I expect it should work fine in the 1620 since I ordered it with 2 GB of memory. It did not run well in my old 1610 with only 1 GB of memory. The Core 2 Duo processor will be sufficient too.
travis, now you tell me.
Vista will be fine on the P1620. I installed it on my P1610 almost a year ago and I’ve been quite happy with it. Since then, with all the latest updates and more recently with the final version of SP1, it has gotten much quicker. Microsoft have really done a good job improving performance over the last year and these improvements should be pretty obvious on the P1620, especially with newer drivers from Fujitsu.
Mind you, if you’re not happy with it James you can just give it to me
Jake, have you tweaked Vista? I am using the most recent update, but it takes ~13 seconds to open Control Panel. A P1610 running XP Tablet on a HDD opens Control Panel in about 2-3 seconds.
I got the 1620 a couple of days ago (2gigs/80)and decided to allow Vista into my house … for the first time, as a guest of the wee Fuji. So far, I’m surprised. I reserve the right to flit back to XP at the slightest hint of OS-methane, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.
The wee-Fuji is sweet. It reminds me a lot of the Sony 505 I had a few years back. My hands have only gotten fatter since then, so I really have to focus on my fingers, and where they’re dawdling at the moment. The only thing I’m not really liking is the digitizer. I think I prefer “power-steering” to sticking the plastic sylus through the screen. Active digitizers spoil you. Other than that, looks like the wee-Fuji is my new best bud.
I woulda thunk you of all people would check around for prices.
Does the 1610 support SDHC ? I thought it was SD only ?
borax99: The P1610 supports SDHC.
http://www.leog.net/fujp_forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=11788
With a generic Athlon HP notebook running Vista and with 2GB RAM, a “regular” speed Sandisk SD card won’t work as readyboost, but a 150X card will.
Makes absolutely no difference to the speed of the Notebook though. Readyboost seems like a waste of time.
Floyd what are you not liking about the active digitizer? What is the inking experience like?
Neill:
My problem is probably that I’ve used a Motion 1600 for a couple of years, where I was introduced to the notion of inking. As of today, I’ve retrained my brain a bit, and maybe the Fuji. The first couple of days, however, I really had to concentrate on pressing the little stylus hard enough to achieve completed lines.
I’m now 100% functional, with respect to inking. No problems with the Fuji. Only me. Every hour I use the wee-tablet, I love it more.
James: I should have mentioned that I picked the Patriot card at NewEgg, but I am sure you would searched there or at ZipZoomFly for the lowest prices…I also purchased my 32GB SSD drive there,which are currently out of stock…must be alot of P1610 and Thinkpad owners out there that like to boot up in under 30 seconds!
My P1610 was shipped with Vista Business and Office 2007 (from Fujitsu’s ebay store) and came with the recovery disk for both which was needed when I installed a WU that duplicated my users with the Softex Omnipass software that required an uninstall and reinstall to correct.
The SD HC is pretty fast, not as fast as SSD,but I know a few people that run XP off of it on their Eee PCs.(If you have one be sure to check out http://wiki.eeeuser.com/ ).
In regards to the touchscreen on the P1610 and P1620 I use a pretty heavy pen with a stylus tip and it feels awesome. My favorite is a Y&C I purchased from StylusCentral several years back (no longer available) it has a brass body and has multiple pen tips for real inking, paired with some Fisher inks, .05 lead, it is a great all in one pen and I use it more than a Delta Dolcevita Executive Data Duo Pen that my wife picked up on clearance from a store in SF, which I am too afraid to use outside of the house due to fear of losing it, also most of the weight is in the cap and not the barrel of the pen. My wife uses a Montblanc Meisterstuck Burgundy Ballpoint with a pen stylus from the styluscentral.com because she loves that pen body. If you have a favorite pen body it is easier to mod a pen with a stylus rather than with a Wacom stylus since it won’t work with some metal bodies and requires some handywork in order to get it to fit right in wood or plastic pens. However things do seem “smoother” with a digitized tablet and I really miss hovering when I go back and use a digitized tablet, but IMHO the Fujitsu Touch screen is the best I have used for Tablet PCs.
James, Can you confirm the maximum screen res that the P1620 supports. Fujitsu Australia don’t have a clue. I’d like to use my wide screen monitor with the docking station (it’s included in the local bundle, along with 2GB RAM) with DVI (or VGA if no DVI plug).
The US specsheet says 1600×1200 max res, but the monitor native is 1680×1050 (actually fewer pictures). If your dock has arrived and you have a big monitor, I’d appreciate knowing how the little guy goes.
Thanks.
Dave, I haven’t used an external monitor but the specs claim 1600×1200 with an external monitor. I did this with the P1610 and since the graphics are the same I expect that hasn’t changed. That should be the maximum.