Our list of the most innovative executives of the year spotlights the people that are pushing the envelope with new products and channel programs to bring solution providers to new heights.
Find out which executives made the grade and held their own, despite the great IT downturn of 2009.
Most everyone loves Thanksgiving turkeys. But IT industry turkeys? Not so much. We look at 10 examples of 'turkeys' that have disappointed the tech industry this year.
Fujitsu Enters The Netbook Fray
4:14 PM EDT Mon. Jun. 08, 2009
The M2010's top is an attractive ruby red with a large white swirl, taken from Fujitsu's logo. Red trim also surrounds the sides and bottom of the keyboard. The rest of the device is a glossy black. Overall, the small (10.2 x 7.4 x 1.3-inch), lightweight (approximately 2.5 pounds) laptop is a good-looking unit, with the color embedded into the actual plastic for resistance to scratching and fading.
Loaded with Windows XP Home, Fujitsu claims the unit boots completely into Windows from a cold start in approximately 50 seconds, and during our testing this proved to be true. Although designed with the retail market in mind, the company claims that the M2010 was built primarily for the education market. For this reason, the computer can withstand the rigors associated with being in a young person's hands, backpack, etc. As such, the device can withstand up to 200 kg per square foot at the typical "pinch points."
The mercury-free, 10.1-inch WSVGA LED display is driven by a standard Intel GMA 945GSE chipset, and supports a maximum resolution of 1,024 x 576 and 16 million colors. Additionally, a resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 and 16 million colors can be achieved with an external monitor attached to the 15-pin VGA connector on the back. Although the screen has a somewhat shiny quality to it, glare is kept to a minimum, and images are sharp and bright.
The keyboard is 90 percent the size of a full-size keyboard, which, as with most netbooks out there, requires some practice. However, considering the target users are children, Fujitsu can be excused for not focusing too much on this area. Still, those with normal-to-large-size fingers should expect to make a few typos during use. The keys themselves have a comfortable, solid feel to them with a short -- but not too short -- travel distance.
Although we couldn't find any mention of them in the spec sheet, or any physical signs on the device itself, the M2010 has a pair of 2-watts-per-channel speakers tucked away somewhere that produce surprisingly loud, clear audio for such a small footprint.
Network connectivity is accomplished by way of a Gigabit 10/100 Ethernet LAN, or via 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi. The M2010 also supports Bluetooth v2.1.
The netbook comes standard with a 160-GB hard drive and, although it is only available for purchase with 1 GB of RAM installed, the M2010 is capable of supporting up to 2 GB. With the standard configuration, we ran Primate Labs' Geekbench2 benchmarking program, which garnered a score of 860. This is about on par with other netbooks we've tested that had the same major components and specs.
Fujitsu claims that the standard 3-cell battery has about a 2.5-hour life span. There also is an optional 6-cell battery that doubles the life to 5 hours. In our battery test, which consisted of turning off all power-saving options and playing a Windows Media file in repeat mode until the system shut down, the M2010 lasted 1 hour and 50 minutes before dying. Charging it back to 100 percent while in use took about the same amount of time. With normal settings and usage, we expect Fujitsu's estimation to be accurate. Still, for an education-based device, it would've been nice to have seen a battery life closer to the length of a full school day.
Additional features include a 1.3-megapixel Webcam and a digital, mono microphone, both located above the display. There also are three USB 2.0 ports, stereo microphone and headphone jacks, and a built-in memory card reader.
If there's any Achilles' heel to the M2010, it would have to be its price point. Retailing for $449, the netbook isn't necessarily overpriced, but considering that there are plenty of similar devices on the market for less, it's hard to understand what the reasoning is behind this price point.
Price notwithstanding, the M2010 is an attractive-looking, solidly built netbook that has us looking forward to Fujitsu's next generation.
