Pen Computing 27 - April 1999 -- Looks can be so deceiving. For example, when you look at the new Stylistic 2300
mobile decision support computer from Fujitsu Personal Systems, Inc. (FPSI),
chances are that you won't notice much of a difference between this new model and
the Stylistic 1200 it replaces.
And that's just fine with FPSI and most of their
customers. Unlike office systems which can be just about any size or shape as
long as they fit on or under the desk, handhelds are highly optimized tools where
form follows function. "Collect all five" may well help Apple sell more of its
now multi-colored iMacs, but in the field, where standardization matters and
where customers may already have invested in millions of dollarsÕ worth of
peripherals, docking systems, or device protection gear, whimsical design changes
are not only frowned upon, they can literally kill a deal.
This is not to say
that vertical market customers do not seek to keep their field force computing
equipment up-to-date--new technology often has a direct impact on productivity--but
it must not come at the cost of changing shapes and designs simply for the sake
of it. Fujitsu Personal Systems, the undisputed market share leader in pen
tablets, knows that. The company has reached $100 million in sales per year by
knowing what its customers want and by concentrating on one product and one
product only, pen-based mobile decision support computers.
During 1998, FPSI
shipped some 35,000 (20,000 Stylistics and 15,000 Points) pen computers, a very
significant number in this market. According to IDC estimates, FPSI had a 55%
market share in unit shipments in 1998, a number that may have decreased a bit
due to a number of new pen products that have come on the market since, but FPSI
continues to occupy a leadership position the likes of which are hardly ever seen
in hotly contested markets. Think GM in its heyday. In addition, FPSI has been
profitable since 1995, a fact that is certain to be comforting to the growing
number of FPSI clients (which include, by the way, American Airlines, Nabisco,
Nestle, Gillette, Southwest Air, State Farm, and ADP).
Update of a proven design
But to get back to the new Stylistic 2300. Although it
looks virtually unchanged from the Stylistic 1200, nothing could be further from
the truth. While the 2300's exterior has been left largely unchanged--including
the all-important placement of ports and peripheral connectors, the inside is all
new. "What do I care what the thing looks like inside," you may say. "So they put
in a faster processor and a bigger disk."
Fujitsu did that, and a whole lot more,
but the extent of the work that went into making the new Stylistic a better
machine in every respect is totally amazing.
We've opened many pen tablets in our
lab over the years and have seen many clever solutions and fine quality, as well
some atrocities that we'd rather forget about. We never cease to marvel at the
complexity of the task--to pack an entire computer into a very small space, place
all the connectors in just the right place, and put it all together in a way that
can withstand abuse that a regular notebook computer cannot. Open any handheld
computer and you immediately see that it's infinitely more difficult to design,
and assemble, a good mobile device than it is to build a desktop computer where
space simply isn't an issue, and where it really doesn't matter where the
connectors are since you can simply run a ribbon cable to the plug on the back of
the machine. Given the huge complexity of fitting all that power into a small
package you might expect mobile computers to be less reliable than desktops or
notebooks.
At least in the case of FPSI's products, that's not the case.
According to Fujitsu's Geoff Walker, the Stylistic 1200 has an annual failure
rate of under 7%. According to Ziff-Davis, the failure rate of corporate
notebooks runs between 25 and 30% per year. Amazing. Take a look at the insides
of the Stylistic and you know where that stellar repair record comes from.
Fujitsu literally spared no expense to get every detail correctly designed,
optimized for the purpose, and just plain right.
Here are two examples that
illustrate FPSI's design approach. First, all too aware that heat is a major
problem in small, fan-less devices powered by hot-running Intel processors, FPSI
designed the Stylistic 2300's motherboard around a sophisticated thermal heat
dissipation model. This approach had worked well in the Stylistic 1200, and the
2300's thermal subframe that carries heat away from the Pentium processor is even
more impressive.
The 233MHz Mobile Intel Pentium II processor itself,
incidentally, isn't the same clumsy brick you see in desktop machines. Far from
it. Fujitsu developed a multi-chip module (including 512KB of L2 cache) sitting
on a small 280-pin daughter board that itself is smaller than a standard Pentium
chip, dissipates far less heat and takes up 70% less space. The Pentium chip
itself is less than a half of an inch square, about the size of your pinky
fingernail. The elaborately engineered heat dissipator subframe then passes on
whatever little heat the mini-chip generates. As a result, the Stylistic 2300
runs even cooler than its slower predecessor. Second, and here FPSI clearly has
an advantage over most of its rivals, every FPSI pen tablet has close and
extensive genetic ties to an existing product of Fujitsu's highly regarded
notebook computer division. This may not be immediately obvious, given the big
difference between a pen tablet and a clamshell notebook, but put a Stylistic
next to certain members of Fujitsu's "Life-book" series of notebook computers,
and you'll see many shared components, and inside the resemblance is even
greater. This ability to share components, and the significant resources of
Fujitsu's notebook engineering staff, quite obviously have a positive impact on
the design and quality of FPSI products.
Inside: cleaner and better than ever
Continuing our examination of the 2300's
innards, it becomes obvious that the overall design philosophy hasn't changed.
Like the successful 1200, the 2300 is built in four "layers," those being, from
top, a) the screen, b) the active, electromagnetic Mutoh digitizer (now on a
thinner orange Capton substrate instead of a standard circuit board, c) a rigid
magnesium subframe, and d) the motherboard with its peripherals. The 2300,
however, seems cleaner and more efficiently designed than the 1200 which was a
bit of a challenge even for seasoned service technicians. The 2300 seems simpler
and more cohesive, and is thus easier to work on if anything should go wrong.
This effort to make things easier to fix, incidentally, didn't stop at the layout
and organization of the electronics. Other small plastic bits and pieces that
were difficult to handle on the 1200 have been redesigned, undoubtedly lowering
repair costs of the new unit. Another impression is how efficiently Fujitsu's
engineers used every fraction of a cubic inch inside the 2300 and how tightly
packed everything is. Comparing the guts of, say, a MicroSlate Datellite to the
Stylistic is like comparing the power plant in the cavernous engine bay of a 60s
muscle car to the way the complex 3.2 liter inline six fills up the engine
compartment of my BMW M3 (yes, we love cars almost as much as mobile computers
here at PCM).
An analogy to such high performance automobiles is relative, of
course. For while the Stylistic 2300 represents a very major advance in power and
performance over the 1200, Fujitsu has always placed reliability and
functionality higher than bragging rights for the fastest processor. At the time
of the release of the Stylistic 2300, Intel had already announced 366MHz and
333MHz versions of the mobile Pentium II processor, "relegating" the 2300's
233MHz chip into the middle echelon of mobile processors. While more processing
power is always good, we fully understand, and agree with, FujitsuÕs decisions to
go with the 233MHz chip. The 266 version of the same chip runs about 8% faster
but consumes 14% more power, and waiting for the yet more expensive mobile
333/366MHz chips made even less sense. Given the tasks it is likely to perform in
the field, the Stylistic's 233MHz processor is plenty fast enough, and then some.
The choice of the right processor, however, was not the only decision Fujitsu had
to make. After the switch from PC Card hard drives (Stylistic 1000) to the
larger-capacity and more rugged 2.5-inch drives (Stylistic 1200), FPSI engineers
took a look at alternative storage technologies, such as IBM's new microdrive
(not available yet, not enough capacity), but decided to stay with the
shock-mounted 2.5-inch format, although now using an Ultra-ATA interface that's
twice as fast. Storage capacity rose to 4.1GB (Toshiba HDD2914), more than enough
to even store entire CD-ROM images, should a client need them. In an additional
effort to increase reliability, Fujitsu equipped the 2300 with a "real" RJ-11
jack. Customers had complained about the fragility of PC Card modem connectors (a
motion that we would second anytime) and the 2300 now has an internal 56k v.90
hardware modem that uses the ubiquitous Lucent chipset.
Screen advances
The screen was one area where the Stylistic 1200 had fallen a bit
behind the times. The 7.8-inch diameter TFT was certainly bright enough, but its
standard 640 x 480 VGA resolution made it unsuitable for the increasing number of
applications that require SVGA, and, like any other standard TFT screen, it could
not be used outdoors.
Things have changed, as has the state-of-the-art in display
technology. Fujitsu doesn't even offer a monochrome display with the new
Stylistic. Instead, the new 2300 comes with a larger (8.4-inch versus the 1200Õs
barely 8-inch) 800 x 600 SVGA screen and there are two display options available.
One is a standard, and very bright and stable, 262,144 color TFT that's perfect
for indoor use.
The second is--drum rolls, please--a Color Transflective screen
that can be read both indoors AND outdoors. Both screens have an ultra-fine dot
pitch of 0.21mm, which is a good thing because Windows in SVGA resolution can be
a bit of a handful on an 8.4-inch screen.
Let's talk about the screen options. If
you look at them indoors, side by side, there is no doubt that the standard TFT,
which displays 262,144 colors, is significantly brighter and more vibrant than
the color-transflective DSTN display that only shows 4,096 colors. Go outside,
however, and in bright sunlight the standard TFT simply disappears, whereas the
color-transflective screen remains easily readable, as easy as any transmissive
monochrome screen, only in color.
This means that you must decide what matters in
your application. If your users primarily work indoors, by all means select the
standard TFT. If they work both indoors and outdoors, let them make the choice,
for it IS a compromise. If they are always outdoors, the color-transflective
screen is the only choice. We applaud Fujitsu for including a color-transflective
screen even though the technology is still at a relatively early stage in its
development. Several companies (including LCD heavies Sharp and Epson) have
indoor/outdoor color screens, and FPSI chose to go with Kyocera's design. A tough
and easy-to-replace 2mm-thick Plexiglas shield protects the LCD screen on each
unit. Both screens, by the way, can be panned across a 1024 x 768 XGA display
area. Brightness, and contrast in the color-transflective unit, are pen
adjustable via silk-screened controls below the display, as are speaker on/off
and volume, monitor settings, and a user-programmable "hot pad." These controls
work well enough, though I will always prefer mechanical adjustments.
Unlike the
Point models, the Stylistics have an active electromagnetic digitizer. It is made
by Mutoh America (see sidebar next page), has a 1016 points per inch resolution
and a 133 points per second sampling rate. The handsome black pens use a AAAA
battery, that should last a year to a year and a half, and can be tethered to the
unit so that they don't get lost.
In the memory department, the 2300 comes
standard with 32MB of RAM, adequate for Windows 95, albeit marginal for Windows
98, and can be upgraded to 96MB via its single memory expansion connector.
In
terms of size and weight, the Stylistic 2300 remains completely unchanged from
its predecessor. It still measures a handy 11.1 x 7.4 x 1.6 inches and weighs a
manageable 3.9 pounds. This is despite a boost in capacity from 3.9 to 4.5Ah in
the unit's massive Lithium-Ion battery pack that, Fujitsu claims, can power the
2300 for up to four (TFT) or five (DSTN) hours. Between the larger capacity, the
relatively thrifty mobile Pentium chip, and improved power management, this
estimate doesn't appear unrealistic. The battery can also power the 2300 in
suspended mode for up to ten daysÑstill not as good as Windows CE's instant on,
but quite impressive. While multimedia is certainly not the Stylistic's primary
purpose in life, the unit has impressive AV credentials. In addition to
full-duplex, Sound Blaster Pro compatible audio and stereo microphone and speaker
jacks, the 2300 also offers "zoomed video," a technology that streams video
directly to the AV subsystem, bypassing the CPU and system bus, enabling
full-motion 30 frames-per-second video in a mobile pen system.
Some of Fujitsu's
competitors like to point out that the Stylistic is not "rugged," and that is
true. FPSI calls the Stylistic "semi-rugged," meaning that is very well built,
shock-mounted, and able to operate under a significantly wider range of
environmental conditions than your average notebook computer (which,
incidentally, FPSI says is the primary competitor to its tablets in most bidding
situations). There are also a variety of harsh environment cases and screen
protectors, but the bottom line is that the Stylistic is meant to be treated with
some respect.
Not much has changed as far as options go. Since the Stylistic 2300
already has parallel, serial, video, audio, keyboard, modem, infrared, and even a
USB port, the optional port replicator is primarily a convenience if you plan on
using the unit on a desktop for extended periods of time. Fujitsu also offers a
futuristic looking hand strap designed for left or right handed users and for
either landscape or portrait mode. There is also an external floppy disk drive
option and a wand-style barcode reader. Fujitsu has never been in the market of
offering more esoteric, "James Bond"-style options and still doesnÕt. This
doesnÕt mean that they arenÕt available from third parties, however.
As far as
operating systems go, the Stylistic 2300 comes with Microsoft Windows 95, Windows
98, or Windows NT Workstation 4.0. All come with CIC's PenX 1.51 pen extensions;
95 and 98 also come with Pen Services 2.0. As such, the 2300 proudly carries the
Microsoft "Designed for Windows 98/NT" sticker.
Pricewise, the new units are in
the same range as the ones they replace. The single unit list price for a
color-transflective Stylistic 2300 is US$4,485, expensive given the recent
dramatic price reductions of desktop PCs, a bargain compared to most high-end
notebooks. Note that Fujitsu isn't in the business of selling single units, so
corporate customers will likely pay a significantly lower volume price. Best of
all, while customers had to wait several months until the eagerly awaited
Stylistic 1200 became available a couple of years ago, the new 2300 ships right
now, and has been shipping since December of 1998.
The best Stylistic yet
So what's the bottom line? The Stylistic 2300, pen tablet
market leader Fujitsu's new high-end product, is a strong and attractive
follow-up to the hugely successful Stylistic 1000 and 1200. Its cautious, albeit
very thorough "outside-in" design may disappoint some customers who had hoped for
a new look or technology closer to the leading edge. We don't share that opinion.
FPSI took a very good product, redesigned its innards completely, updated every
meaningful component, took advantage of every feasible standard and feature, and
combined it in a thoroughly competent device that leverages the investment of
existing customers while attracting new ones. We still don't understand FPSI's
aversion to CD-ROM drives, but applaud the availability of the indoor/outdoor
readable color-transflective screen in addition to the color TFT.
As the vertical
market begins to explore Windows CE, there is still plenty of opportunity for a
powerful, full-function decision support computer such as the 2300. Great job. -
