Intel Atom powered Fujitsu UMPC arrives
I was thinking we’d soon have to retire our UMPC category but Fujitsu just gave it a stay of execution. The follow-up to the U810 UMPC is now available says jkkmobile and for $999 it can be yours. That’s the starting price of a Windows Vista Home Premium handheld with a 4,200 RPM, 60GB drive. For another $300, you move up to Vista Business and a 120GB drive. From there, the differences end as both U820 models offer:
- 5.6-inch WXGA touchscreen display
- 1.6 GHz Intel Atom
- 1GB of RAM
- Integrated webcam, fingerprint sensor, Bluetooth, WiFi (a,b,g & draft-n), and GPS radio
- Full, but small, QWERTY keyboard
Each also comes with a 4-cell, 5800 mAh battery and it’s worth noting that the lower priced model reflects a $50 rebate. Personally, I’d like to see these devices come with a Windows XP license as well: some folks would prefer it over Vista for a mobile device with this CPU.
Are there not still “downgrade” rights attached to Vista licenses?
Chris, Fujitsu would have to include Windows XP disks with the U820 and I don’t see any mention of that.
I managed to import a U2010 (pretty much the same thing) and honestly, while I used to be of the mind that 2gb is the bare minimum for Vista, it’s really not bad. I’ll be loading 7 on it next week to see how zippy it can get. I’m beginning to think the bigger problem is the slow, 4200 rpm hard drive.
Kevin, I think if you have the downgrade option, you can use an existing copy, which doesn’t help those who don’t already have a copy I agree
The manual states XP as an OS option, therefore I would guess Fujitsu has the drivers for the device. I would think that since the XP downgrade option expires in January Fujitsu chose not to offer it at this time.
I would just load Win 7 on it and take it from there.
I have a review and some pics on a blog here…
http://guru-tim.blogspot.com/