Sunday, November 16, 2008

Fujitsu U820 Unboxed in the USA

Well I received the U820 mid last week and thus far I can say it is definitely a must have if you are into UMPC's. It is definitely an improvement over the U810. Most notably is it's performance. The new Intel Atom processor running at 1.6 Ghz powers the unit quite well and runs pretty cool. Even with only 1GB of DDR2 memory the performance and response time is not bad at all for something this small. An extra gig would have been the icing on the cake. The boot time is better over the U810. The new keyboard layout is much better also having an extra row of keys. The big new addition is built-in GPS which seems to work great using the Garmin MobilePC software. Pay close attention to the instruction sheet included in the box when using the GPS for the first time. Included in the box is the Garmin CD and you will need the registration number from it. There is also an external GPS antenna that I thought was neat but the reception seems to be pretty good and I don't need to use it. Your experience may be different. It plugs into the Mic jack on the side of all places but hey...whatever works! The screen is much better too- more sharper and clearer with the higher resolution an the touchscreen is more responsive with needing less force. If you have checked out any of the review of the Asian model (U2010) you may have noticed that it has an FM transmitter for streaming music to an FM radio. The U820 in the USA does not have that feature. Although it is mentioned in the User Guide. I think they just overlooked omitting it from the documentation but just FYI... The U820 has all the same external ports, and the SD & CF slots as the U810 only things are moved around just a bit and actually I think the placement is better. As far as the battery life goes it seems to be really good. I had it going for hours and only had used up about 40%. That was with the 4-cell battery that ships with it. I also have the 2-cell which seems to last pretty long too. I probably got about 4 hours out of it. The batteries for the U810 and the U820 are the same and interchangeable. The 2-cell one is actually from the U810 and works fine with the U820. If you are thinking of getting the Dock for it make sure you get the one for U820 as the docks are not the same. The U820 will not work on the U810 dock. Over all the U820 is a great little small laptop and if you are thinking of getting one or upgrading from the U810 you will not be disappointed. Take a look at the pictures I have posted that show what you get in the box and size comparisons. They really show just how small it is. I know there are other small laptops on the market at very attractive prices but as small as this one is with as many features it has it's in a league all it's own. It's not a "NetBook", it's truly a mini-laptop.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Tim,

Thanks for the unboxing and comments. I suppose the lack of FM transmitter isn't that big of a deal, but it would have been fun to try it.

Did you get the U820 with the standard hard drive (60/120)? Or did you splurge and get the SSD model? (which is ridiculous at the same price or more than the device itself)

Also, I know from tear-downs that the U820 has only 1GB of memory which is unfortunately soldered to the mainboard. But my question is, can you use a CF or SD card for ReadyBoost? If so, what is the difference in performance?

Thanks,
Barugon