Fujitsu Stylistic M532 Review

Battery:

We were a bit hesitant about the 3170mAh battery capacity at first, but it is a Li-Polymer unit, and Fujitsu quotes it good for 8 hours and 40 minutes of video playback, which is about the norm for 10-inch Android slates. While writing this review, the battery indeed looked as if it can get you through the typical day of heavy tablet-ing, and even through the weekend, if used conservatively for browsing and such at half brightness.


Conclusion:

The Fujitsu Stylistic M532 MSRP is about $550, which is roughly the initial going rate for a 10” tablet with 32GB of internal memory and SIM card slot for data. It, however, adds a military standard toughness to the mix, so you can be comfortable with more abuse and neglect than your average Android slate. The Asus Transformer Pad TF300 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1), offer similar specs in this price range, but are not as rugged, and Fujitsu’s design is on top of that thinner, lighter and more appealing than both. The Asus slate allows you to hook up USB peripherals to the tablet, though, whereas the microUSB port with the Stylistic is only for data transfer.

However, there is a big elephant in the room, called the new iPad, which comes more expensive with the cellular connectivity, but will offer that “Resolutionary” display no other tablet is even close to matching, plus a cool aluminum chassis. If you are fine with standard display resolution, you can get the 32GB iPad 2 in 3G flavor for about the same money as the Fujitsu Stylistic M532, and have an abundance of slicker tablet-tailored apps at your disposal.

The things that make the Fujitsu Android tablet stand out are its comparative ruggedness in a slim, light and comfortable to hold red-accent design, plus the useful set of licensed enterprise-friendly apps. The market will decide whether these are enough to battle the rest of the Android crowd in this day and age of $200 7-inchers, and $350 10” tablets.

Software version of the reviewed unit: Android 4.0.3, Build 5.N08700.0505JPN-enFR.120703.0


Fujitsu Stylistic M532 Video Review: