The keyboard also features basic media control buttons across the top (Play, Pause, and so on), as well as a touchpad kill switch just above the mousing surface. Even better, when you press the Fn button, icons pop up across the top of the screen to help you navigate Fn functions such as screen brightness, sound muting, and screen zooming. These can be clicked on with the pointer, or launched using the dedicated row of F1-F12 keys. A second level of on-screen icons lets you quickly launch the bundled Toshiba apps.
The unique battery is based on silicon as a fuel that reverts to its original sand. The battery can also be left on the shelf for years and inserted into a device to provide immediate power.
It was developed over the last two-and-a-half years by Prof. Yair Ein-Eli of the Technion’s materials engineering department, with collaboration by Prof. Digby Macdonald of Pennsylvania State University in the US and Prof. Rika Hagiwara of Kyoto University in Japan.
Specs include a 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo Extreme X7800 processor, 4GB RAM, two 160GB hard drives, Wi-Fi, and HDMI and eSATA ports. HP has discontinued the Dragon, so you’ll have to scour Amazon, eBay, and online thrift shops to find it.
In performance, the X200 Tablet is not the speediest in its class, since it uses a low voltage processor. The 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo L9600 processor is a lot faster than an Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) or netbook CPU, though, so you’re not losing a lot in performance. However, both the Fujitsu T5010 (Multitouch) and the Toshiba Portégé M750 Series use standard voltage processors and are better at handling tougher jobs.
In video encoding tests, the X200 Tablet only trailed the T5010 (Multitouch) by 5 seconds, with a score of 1 minute 7 seconds. Cinebench R10 fared worse against the T5010, falling behind by 18%. The reason for the low voltage processor is that Lenovo placed battery life at the top of its priority list. The X200 Tablet outscored its rivals by a margin of at least an hour on MobileMark 2007, completing the tests in 5 hours 35 minutes. In contrast, the Fujitsu T5010 scored 3:35, which is unacceptable if you’re on the road.
Beyond the obvious audio wow factor, those willing to dig deep for the $2,299 USD notebook can also look forward to Intel Core i7 mobile processing performance, a generous 15.6-inch high-resolution backlit display, a Nightvision VGA Web camera, an external optical drive, an ultra-thin profile of one inch, a total weight of 5.19 pounds, and promised battery life of seven hours.
Also to include Windows 7 Home Premium are Toshiba’s recently announced ultra-thin Satellite T100 Series laptops (starting at $449.99 MSRP1), which offer the performance, flexibility and functionality of a standard-sized laptop, yet in a highly portable package, and the recently announced enthusiast-class Qosmio X500 Series line of performance laptops geared for high definition multimedia and gaming that feature the new Intel Core i7 processor and Blu-ray disc players.