Motion Computing is a US company that specialises solely in Tablet PC devices. It goes to great lengths to point out that it does not offer, as it sees it, a compromise in the form of a clamshell device, producing only slate designs.

The main reason behind this approach is that it sells its Tablet PCs into vertical markets, where form-filling and data entry — such as hospital charts and order taking — is done using pen and paper. The Motion M1400 Tablet PC (£1106 ex. VAT) is built around a 12.1-inch screen, which offers adequate space similar to an A4 notepad. The screen offers the standard digitised panel type found on all Tablet PCs, and uses a digital pen for entering data.

The screen is supported by the Intel 855 chipset, which offers usable 2D performance, but is not intended for use as a 3D accelerator. However, the panel is the first one we have seen to incorporate Ambient Light Sensors (ALS), which monitor the amount of light in the area and respond accordingly. In this way, the brightness of the panel changes to suit your needs and can also help to sustain battery life. Furthermore, Motion has introduced a technology that allows for a greater viewing angle, which makes it readable even when the panel is almost horizontal to the eye.

As with many ultraportable laptops, the main specification of the Motion M1400 is based around Intel’s Ultra Low Voltage Pentium M offering, running in this instance at 1.1GHz. Such a processor doesn’t offer cutting edge performance, but with the second generation of Tablet PCs moving to this processor, it is sufficient for the typical tasks of a tablet. Our review unit came supplied with a 20GB hard drive and 256MB of DDR SDRAM, and under test recorded a MobileMark 2002 benchmark of 109, which is adequate but not particularly outstanding. What this means in terms of battery life — far more likely to be a concern when using such a device — is that the use of lower voltage components is a wise choice. Under test, we recorded a battery life of 263 minutes. At over four hours of usage, the M1400 doesn’t offer all-day mobile computing, but it is impressive away from mains power and should suit those who can work all morning, then dock and recharge the tablet for afternoon meetings. For the security-conscious, a newly added mini fingerprint-reader can be found above the screen. To save space, the user must swipe their finger across the mini-reader. In practice this works well with very few occasions where it is required to retry.

The usability of the Motion M1400 is excellent. We found that it was highly responsive and was one of the best Tablet PCs that we have used. With the wide range of peripherals, from keyboards to external optical drives, the
Motion M1400 is currently the most innovative and interesting Tablet PC on the market.

RATING 7
PRICE £1106/£1300 (EX/INC. VAT)
PROCESSOR Intel Pentium M 1.1GHz (ULV)
MEMORY 256MB DDR SDRAM
HARD DRIVE Hitachi 20GB
SCREEN SIZE AND TYPE 12.1-inch TFT
DISPLAY RESOLUTION 1024 x 768 pixels
GRAPHICS CARD Intel 855
DIMENSIONS 296 x 240 x 22mm
WEIGHT 1.2kg
PC CARDS (Type II/III) 1/0
WIRELESS LAN 802.11g
ETHERNET Yes
MODEM Yes
USB PORT 2 USB 2.0
FIREWIRE No
STANDARD WARRANTY 1y/RTB
WARRANTY UPGRADE N/A
CONTACT
0207 269 4770
www.motioncomputing.co.uk  

VALUE FOR MONEY 7
PERFORMANCE 6
FEATURES 7
MOBILITY 8
BUILD QUALITY 6
OVERALL 7

BATTERY LIFE 263 mins
MOBILEMARK 2002 109
3DMARK 2001 1273