Fujitsu Stylistic Q702 Tablet Review

I have decided that it is time to do a review of the Fujitsu Stylistic Q702 Tablet. I've been using one and troubleshooting them for almost 5 months now and have become familiar enough with the model to feel like I've got a pretty good handle on it.

The tablet comes with Windows 8 and I've used it with both Windows 8 and 8.1. You can look up the specs and different configurations online, so I'm not going to bore you with any of that. The version I've been using has an i3 Processor, 4GB of RAM and a 64GB Solid State HDD. The tablet seems to be well built and has enough ports to make it very usable. I've also used it with the docking cradle as well as with the full size docking station. For any kind of imaging for institutional use or deployment, the docking cradle is a necessity since it has an Ethernet port.

I do like the overall design of the tablet and the number of features that it has, however, the issues that I have been experiencing with this model far overshadows any positive points that I may like.

The touchscreen/digitizer - Fujitsu decided to use the N-Trig Duosense digitizer in this tablet. When it works, it's a decent digitizer. You can use simple finger touches or the supplied stylus from N-Trig. The problem is that many users (I have 375 of these tablets in use where I work) experience what are being called "ghost clicks". The digitizer detects what it thinks are touches to the screen and then translates them into actual touches. This is NOT something you want since the majority of them tend to appear at the upper right corner of the screen where the browser home button or the red x close button are located. You can imagine the number of users complaining about being sent back to the home screen or having their programs closing on them. There are also a lot of tablets that I've seen which have numerous dead spots on the screen, which, many times, are accompanied by the ghost clicks. I also have had to disable finger touch on a number of the tablets. So far, this issue has been making these tablets less than functional. While Fujitsu has not denied one of these for warranty repair, when you have at least 40 or 50 of these tablets with this issue, it can be VERY time consuming sending them back for repair. There may be even more that I'm not aware of, but only time will tell how many and what percentage of our batch is affected by this issue.

The wireless adapter - The tablets use the Intel Centrino Advanced N-6205 wireless adapter. Just like the digitizer, when it works, it's great. Connections speeds have been up to 270mbps on 5ghz radios. The adapters are dual band, so they work on the 2.4 and 5ghz bands, a plus if you are connecting to access points that can handle both. The building I am in is a brand new building and uses the latest Cisco access points, which do support both bands. The drawback with these adapters, the random and numerous disconnects. I've tested these tablets with the recommended Fujitsu drivers as well as those from Intel and nothing seems to help. The wireless seems to be turned on and it even sees wireless SSIDs in range, but cannot re-connect to them.  Luckily, running the wireless troubleshooter (which disables and re-enables the adapter) seems to fix the issue in most cases. One caveat is that Intel just came out with a new driver on December 17th, so I have been testing it out to see if the disconnects have been corrected. So far, I don't have enough data because of the small number of tablets with the new driver.

The Bluetooth adapter - The Bluetooth is part of the Centrino wireless adapter, so I'm not sure if the disconnects with the wireless are related to the issues with the Bluetooth. What's good to say about it? The tablet comes with Bluetooth, but most devices already do, so that shouldn't be a big surprise or something to hype. What IS disappointing, is that these tablets also see a lot of issues with the Bluetooth disconnecting peripherals. The users have Bluetooth keyboards from Sharkk and seem to get disconnected quite frequently. Is it because of the sheer number of Bluetooth devices in close proximity? An issue with the driver? A problem with the keyboard? It's hard to say, but there are numerous users every day that have their keyboards not working and either the Bluetooth has turned itself off or Bluetooth is showing as disabled in Device Manager. Either way, the keyboards stop working and usually need an administrative user to turn it back on.

The motherboard/BIOS/some other hardware component - I have seen around 15-20% of these tablets come in and will not turn on by pressing the power switch. I am forced to reset the CMOS in order to get them to boot again. Unfortunately, around 20% of these tablets, that come in for this reason, will not turn back on at all, even when resetting the CMOS. At this point they have to be sent back for repair. I've even had over half of these tablets sent out to Fujitsu's engineers in California and they can't say what might be the cause of the issue.

Bottom line...would I buy one of these? For the price, definitely not. If the tablet was $500 or at most $600, I might be tempted, but only if there weren't any other possibilities available. I had high hopes for these tablets, but they have fallen far short of what I had hoped for.

As always, I hope that this has helped some of you make an informed decision. Stop back, as I will be adding a few links to some of the features of the tablet.

Windows 8

Windows 8: The Next Greatest OS or the Same Old Microsoft

Well, For anyone who has read my previous posts, you know that I really liked Windows 7. Well, welcome to the latest and greatest from Microsoft, Windows 8...or is it. Depending on what you plan on doing with it, Windows 8 can be a nice improvement or a real hinderance.

I've had the experience of using Windows 8 on both a tablet and a laptop. I can honestly say that on a tablet, I don't mind using it. It actually makes doing certain things much easier; however, as Microsoft always does, they changed things. One of my biggest gripes is the control panel. While it hasn't changed much from Windows 7, there have been a lot of changes to where user-changeable settings are located. I like to refer to it as the dummy control panel, but the "Change PC Settings" section is a lot like what I called it, a control panel for those who really are afraid of the real control panel. Many times, users should be afraid of using the control panel since there are a lot of things there that can get messed up if you aren't sure what you are doing. Microsoft has now created a place where the simplest of user settings can be changed. It's a good and bad thing, at least for me, since there are times that I have to try and remember where exactly the settings are changed, the real control panel or, as I call it, the dummy one.

So, is it the next greatest OS offering from Microsoft, or just more of the same?

If you are in the market for a Windows tablet, then yes, you will like it and for the most part, it will enhance your experience. If you are in the market for a laptop, be prepared for some frustration until you learn where everything is. It really isn't the best OS for a laptop. I feel that Windows 7 is much more useable in that respect.

All in all, it has a lot of the look and feel of Windows 7, minus the start button. Now you have a whole screen for that. Supposedly, Windows 8.1 has some improvements in store for everyone, but since it has only been out for a short time and my experience has been limited to using it on only a dozen Fujitsu Q702 tablets so far, I will refrain from commenting on it for now. That will be another post as well as will be the Q702.

Mac or PC

I know it's been a while since I've posted (not like anybody is reading my blog), but it's been absolutely crazy at work since late fall.

So are you a PC or a Mac (or one of those few that really favor Linux)?

Well, I'm not sure I can really take sides. Maybe the question should be which is better, a PC or a Mac. 6 months ago, I would not have felt qualified to answer anything about a Mac because my experience with them was seriously outdated. Now, it's not. After dealing with 150 Macbooks (new unibody ones and 2-year old models) and 2 Mac servers (a new Xserve and an old PowerPC), I feel that I can comment on them without any bias.

Well, let's look at the PC. If you're a PC person, more than likely you are a Windows user. Microsoft's incarnation has been around for almost 20 years (I'm starting with Windows 3.0 and not the run-time versions prior to 3.0). It's come a long way since the days of Windows 3.0. I can clearly remember using 3.0 (in addition to DOS before it) and moved up through all of the versions between it and Windows 7 which I currently use. Yes, I even used the ill-fated Windows ME for a short period of time. Currently, PCs are relatively inexpensive when comparing them to equal hardware on a Mac. The PC has a plethora of software available for it and most software vendors have a version of their software that will run on Windows. Clearly, it is the dominant computer platform out there. As far as software is concerned, you can find almost any software to do almost anything conceivable on your Windows computer. Programs can create files that can be saved, exported, converted, imported and then re-saved in a totally different program. Truly data can flow between different programs.

As for the Mac, I do have experience using them WAY back when the IIe was out and even ventured into the world of the IIGS when it came out. Neat? Yes! Cheap? No! At the same time the IIGS was purchased at work, I purchased my own PC at home. I could have gotten almost 3 PCs for what that ONE IIGS cost. But, to be fair, that was ancient history.

Moving almost 20 years into the future (aka, The Present), I sit and use my shiny white unibody Macbook with Snow Leopard at work, while I come home and sit here with my shiny silver HP Notebook with Windows 7 Professional. Do I prefer one over the other? No. They both have their strangths and weaknesses.

Hardware to hardware, the Macs are just way more expensive. But look at what you get with the new Macbook and suddenly that pricetag isn't so bad. When comparing a Windows laptop with a Macbook at work, my IT staff (a staff of 1 not including me) found that in order to make a Windows PC do what a Macbook can do out of the box, would require extra software on the PC. Once we tallied up the cost of that software, the prices were nearly identical. So as far as cost when actually comparing apples to apples, neither one is cheaper than the other.

Software to software (when comparing the collection of freeware and purchased software necessary to do what the Mac can do out of the box) the Mac has a bit of a lead as far as integration and ease of use. Me? I could easily save, export, convert, import and re-save my files to go from one program to another without any problem. Clearly, using a PC would not be a problem for me. But when looking at the average user, the Mac made working with those files SO much easier. Drag and drop. That's all you do. Drag from one of the iLife Suite programs right into another and that's all there is to it. Easy? You'd better believe it.

Yes, I could go on and on about differences. Viruses? Don't even need to discuss that. Mac wins hands down, uhhh, for now that is. Who knows what the future will bring. Windows has the lion's share of the market, so where do the virus writers concentrate? On a Windows PC, of course. Unfortunately, not having to contend with new viruses on a daily basis does not make it a selling point in my opinion.

So, after all of this, we come to the BIG question.

Is a Mac better than a PC?

OR

Is a PC better than a Mac?

The answer is.........


It's a personal preference and ultimately up to what you are going to do with the computer. If you are just going to email, surf the web, type some letters and maybe chat online DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY by buying a Mac. The cheap little old PC with Windows 7 will more than make you happy. If you are planning on doing numerous projects where you will be combining documents, graphics, movies and any other media types that you can think of, you are probably better off with getting the Mac. I say probably, because if you are computer saavy and can maneuver your way around a PC already, you'd probably be able to do on a PC what others do on a Mac (but then you wouldn't be reading this blog, would you?). It would just take you more steps and a little more thought on how you'd accomplish everything.

OK, before someone jumps up and says "But what about Linux??", for those of you who think that Linux rules and that's all there is in life, come back to reality for a little. The two biggest platforms are Windows and Mac. Linux is for those who love to tinker and get under the hood to see if they can squeeze a few more horsepower out of it. Yes, I've used it, it's OK, but not something that Main Street USA is ready to embrace and take into its homes. If you're a computer wiz, then Linux is for you; go run your cron jobs and work by command line. If not, it's Windows and Mac OS.

Questions and comments welcome.

Windows 7 - Ready to take the plunge?

With the public availability of Windows 7 approaching, I thought it might be a good time to give my thoughts on it (at least so far).

First off, I've never been one to jump into a new operating system as soon as it has been released. Going back to Windows 98, I can remember using it even after Windows 2000 had come into use. Once moving to Windows 2000 (after SP2), I found it to be a very stable operating system and was reluctant to move to Windows XP. After SP2 was released for Windows XP, I found it to be very stable and was then very reluctant to move to Windows Vista when it finally came out. While that opinion hasn't changed, I have found that Windows 7 is a much leaner and much more useable version of Windows than its predicessor. I'm quite happy to just skip right over Vista and move to Windows 7.

After downloading the Release To Manufacture (RTM) version I decided to install it on a few systems at work to see how it worked. After having no problems, I decided to take the plunge and install it on my new HP Laptop. So far I have not been disappointed.

With the retail version hitting the stores in less than a week, my recommendarion is to go for it. I'm actually impressed with this new release (which in my opinion is more like Vista 2.0 on a diet).

If you have any misgivings about it, put them to rest. Windows 7 is highly useable and seems to run much better than its immediate predecessor.

To Toolbar or Not

Well, it's been a while since my last entry, but the world of IT in a public school system is ALWAYS busy at the beginning of a school year. This year has been no exception.

A number of topics have presented themselves since my last post, but this one seems to be a pet peeve of mine.

Toolbars. Google, MSN and Yahoo, just to name a few of the big ones.

They can be quite useful at times but at what price? While their usefulness includes searches at your fingertips, quick access to videos, news and almost everything conceivable, their price comes at the expense of system resources (aka, slow computer, sluggish Internet access, system instability) at the very least.

If you feel that you need a toolbar available for instant whatever, then by all means, install one. ONE. More than that and that slow computer I talked about could be yours. So why do I constantly see computers with 2, 3 or more toolbars installed?

The answer is browser helpers/add-ons.

Many times, the browser helpers that we install come with an added package. Included with the helper is usually some kind of toolbar. Unfortunately, the recommended action (recommended by the company you are downloading the helper from) is to install the toolbar. Some times, the extra package isn't even noticed because the recommended installation is an express configuration, which installs the toolbar without even asking.

OK. What is my point?

Toolbars can be helpful, if you actually WANT them installed. What can you or should you do? Always avoid the recommended action unless you are TOTALLY sure of what it is going to do. Do a custom installation, and watch for those little unwanted toolbars piggy-backing along.

So, the next time you want to install Flash, Shockwave, Java or some other browser helper, make sure to pay close attention to what you are actually installing. That slow computer is just lurking around the corner. Uninstall them and you'll really see my point.

An Apple a Day Keeps the PC Doctor Away

I'm sure some of you have experienced a sick computer; sick with some kind of infection. For those that haven't, consider yourselves lucky (or excessively cautious). Even I've gotten burned with a virus from time to time, not because of carelessness, but because of a new, undetected virus.

Keeping your computer safe from viruses (or more properly, virii), can be almost as simple as today's blog title, the apple being a daily update of your anti-virus amd/or anti-malware software. Most of these programs update themselves automatically and with the growing number of broadband connections at home, update without our even knowing it. But are they updating? How do you know? Does it tell you? Do you check?

Maybe you figure that your computer came with anti-virus software when it was new, so you're safe. Right? Or are you? Most new computers come with 90-day free trials of AV software. You are really lucky if you get a year of free updates. Maybe you feel that since you bought the latest version several years ago, you should be safe. Unfortunately, if you believe one of these statements above, your computer is probably either in danger of being infected very soon or already is. It is surprising how many users think that because they purchased software several years ago, they should be safe and up-to-date. Most anti-virus software comes with only one year of updates. After that, you will either need to renew your subscription or purchase a new version.

So, if your software doesn't give you an audible message, then it is probably a good idea to check every now and then to see that it is actually being updated. I have seen some that do and others that don't. Play it safe and check. Keep your computer safe and clean. A little dose of updates will go a long way to keep your computer running smoothly.

Comments welcome.

One Phish, Two Phish, Three Phish, Blue Phish

Well, today finds me a little more rested from my 31 hour ordeal at work after wrestling with our mail sever. So I guess, this should be the last email centered post for now.

Phishing (pronounced like fishing) has become more common in recent years. I'm sure many of you have received a phishing email but just didn't realize what to call it.

If you've received an email from eBay, PayPal or a bank (yours or not) telling you that you needed to log in and re-verify your username and password or to apply some new security feature (with dire consequences if you didn't), then you've received a phishing email. These emails are doing just that; fishing for information.

Phishing is an attempt to steal your information (username, password) and possibly even your money. I personally know some people who were tricked this way when the emails first started appearing. Most of the original phishing emails were directed at PayPal and eBay. But, once the thieves saw that they could trick people into giving away their information so easily, they quickly turned to banks.

What can you do?

Two things.

First, NEVER follow the link in a Phishing email, even if you just want to go to the site and enter some bogus info to show that you're not falling for their trick. Some of these fake websites have been reported to also have spyware payloads automatically install (which can capture what you are typing on your keyboard), allowing the thieves to steal your information even though you didn't willingly give it to them.

Second, forward the email to the real company that the thieves are pretending to be representing. For instance, a PayPal phishing email should be forwarded to spoof@paypal.com. eBay also uses a spoof account for collecting these fraudulent emails. Some banks have their own address, but when I can't find one, I usually just forward it to abuse@thebanksname.com which gets it there.

By reporting the frauds, you are keeping other innocent users from falling into the thieves' trap. The sooner the legitimate company knows about the scam, the sooner they can start working on getting the web site shut down.

Following these simple rules with phising emails can help keep your information and money (as well as everyone elese's) safe.

Feel free to comment.