Fujitsu P1610 on XP- an update
You may remember my problems with the beta Vista SP1 on the Fujitsu P1610 which had me rolling back to XP. I've been using the Fuji for a week with XP and I figured it was time to give an update over how that has been going. In a single word, great. The P1610 is very responsive and comes out of standby in a flash, it also undocks in a flash which it wouldn't do under Vista. I find that XP handles the mobility quotient much better than Vista as under XP I am able to pick up the Fuji no matter where it is or what it's doing and get right to business without delay or problems. No doubt my Vista problems were due to the Fuji's meager 1 GB of memory, but it is what it is and XP doesn't have a problem with it. I am finding that even if I let the Fuji go a day without picking it up that when I do grab it again it jumps right to what I need, and doesn't suffer from Vista casual usage syndrome. The XP experience has really rekindled my love affair with the Fujitsu P1610, which is a wonderful mobile PC.
JK, I think you have saved me a lot of grief! I have a Vista installation here ready to install on my P1610, but I'm going to now put that off indefinitely thanks to your experiences.
Let us know when you feel it is finally safe to drink from the fountain of Vista.
Thanks for this and for the hours of fun you and Kevin give us all.
Posted by: Johan | October 08, 2007 at 11:51 AM
What made you move from the Fujitsu P1610d to the Hp 2710p? I know you like things small & lite. Maybe you could do a comparison of the the two with the advantages and disadvantages or why you like one over the other. I think you got tired of the vista drama. Let us know your thoughts about the two similar but different devices.
Posted by: JHall | October 08, 2007 at 12:57 PM
Josh, I didn't move, I still use the P1610 all the time. The HP is more productive for me in my daily work, its better performance and full size keyboard works better at my real work.
The P1610 is my "home" machine, and probably my travel machine due to its small and light form. I am fortunate to be in a position to have two toys.
Posted by: James Kendrick | October 08, 2007 at 01:17 PM
James,
What setting do you use for sleep and hibernate on your P1610? Just curious. I use my P1610 all the time but coming out of hibernate is a tad slow to me (probably perception as much as anything else).
My battery settings are:
2 Min. - Mon off
5 Min. - HDD off
15 Min. - Standby
1 Hr. - Hibernate
Also, do you use the fingerprint reader to authenticate?
I will say that I would have purchased a UMPC by now were it not for the P1610. I really like it and use it all the time but I am hesitant to use a device with a processor that is slower than the 1.2 GHz Core Solo in the P1610. I consider it my minimum when it comes to processing power. Perhaps the Q1 Ultra with 2 GB would be ok, but like you, I think Windows XP shines on the P1610.
Posted by: Stephen Feger | October 08, 2007 at 05:27 PM
It's interesting. I've just gone back to Vista Business on my P1610 after a week of XP.
XP was more responsive and docked mode is better however I much prefer the tablet features of Vista and find it better integrated. This time I reinstalled every thing from scratch and I've tweaked like mad. Things are running really well, battery life is excellent(wifi on and being used, Bluetooth on, in portrait mode and inking and I'm reporting 90% and 7 hours of battery on my 6 cell).
I think it also helps that l've disabled UAC but then I never had it on XP so don't really need it now. That is making things much more responsive.
Posted by: Andrew Forde (acetuk) | October 08, 2007 at 06:34 PM
I've switched back from Vista to XP on my p1610 a long time ago, and don't regret it. Although I do keep Vista on a dual boot in the fleeting hope that SP1 will perform miracles. Thank god Vista was free under the Fujitsu upgrade program, otherwise I'd be pissed at the waste of money Vista is.
I also had an old copy of Tablet XP lying around and it works very nicely with the P1610. Couple of issues, but nothing some freeware programs didnt solve. The one thing I do miss though is the writing recognition on TabletXP is pretty horrid. It was quite decent in Vista.
Yeah I do plan on one day switching back to Vista, but I have a feeling it will be around SP2. Or if anyone finally releases a 2gh memory stick for the Fuji.
Posted by: spinedoc | October 08, 2007 at 07:09 PM
SP1 seems pretty good to me, but I run XP x64 so everything seems pretty good to me
Posted by: IWorkThere | October 08, 2007 at 07:37 PM
Have you looked at the Fujitsu T2010? Very nice, lighter than the HP, and amazing battery life.
Posted by: JM | October 08, 2007 at 11:50 PM
JM, I haven't gotten my hands on the T2010 yet but would like to.
Posted by: James Kendrick | October 09, 2007 at 05:54 AM
Hi James, I apologize for responding to one of your old blog posts but I would like to know whether you have a problem with Hibernation on XP for P1610? My battery seems to drain a lot on hibernation on XP but not Vista. Do you know of a way to solve this problem?
Posted by: Vincent | October 14, 2007 at 02:25 AM
Vincent, I don't use hibernation on any device, XP or Vista. I don't find the little power savings to be worth the wait to resume.
Posted by: James Kendrick | October 14, 2007 at 07:22 AM