my first TB - CF-C1 mk1

[Gear6]

Hi everyone,

I've recently purchased a factory refurbished C1, C1ADACZGM (from buytough), which to my surprise looks 99% as new;

The good:
- as per the BIOS, came with only 120 hrs.
- the battery seems to have no degradation (42180 mWh)
- XP Tablet was preinstalled on the HDD, ready to config
- Win7 Pro 32bit Recovery DVD included
- stylus included
- good to very good heat management
- Core i5 standard voltage
- really light (prev. owned Thinkpad X100e, X120e)
- this thing+SSD is FAST (even compared to a Phenom2 X4 905e)
- Intel WiFI + LAN (2x2 agn, Gigabit)
- even with only one battery, you can get 3-5hrs, maybe 6 on very light and max power saving
- triple hinge + touchscreen + digitizer + low weight + handstrap is a wonderfull combo (minus LCD)
- got over 230MB seq read on the X25-M G2 160GB, so the AHCI controller is working in Sata2 mode (read about the Gen1 limitation on other models)
- Fedora 16 Linux seems to support almost everything out of the box, except 4 of the 6 tablet buttons on the screen

The not so good:
- lack of HDMI/DP
- lcd panel viewing angles are BAD, esp. vertical - in tablet mode it's hard to see clearly if you're not keeping perpendicular.
- using it in portrait mode it's disappointingly color-wise
- I didn't do a proper research, so I was surprised it didn't have a Webcam and Fingerprint Reader (my bad).
- the 2GB it came with is covered by a plastic plate, preventing removal, which I think needs dissasemble of the bottom plate in order to upgrade it. The upper SODIMM slot is easily reachable.
- only a PC Card Slot, even tough chipset (QM57) supports ExpressCard.
- the same/worse policy on add-on cards as Lenovo - BIOS lockdown of unbranded wifi/wwan cards
- keyboard keys have some side play, and space bar seems too narrow

I have a few questions for you guys, it seems there aren't many C1 users on this forum, so the info is scarce.

1) I want to upgrade it to 8GB, and on every spec sheet I read, it says max 6GB. Is that a BIOS limit, a marketing decision (it ships with 2GB, so only 4GB more field upgradeable) ?
I have added a Crucial 4GB PC10600, no problems so far. I know the mk2 has 8gb listed as max.

2) I successfully unlocked the BIOS flag for WWAN, and now I can see the Lenovo Gobi2000 I added from a X100e Thinkpad, in Device Manager (lspci).
Still working on the drivers, the TB Connection Manager didn't like it.
Aside from that, I'm not sure I properly connected the antenna wires, I put the GREEN on MAIN, and the GRAY on AUX. Is it ok ?

3) Can I buy a FP sensor and install it in the plastic placeholder on the lower right screen corner ?

4) Webcam retrofit - is it doable ? I know I have to drill a small hole, but aside from that - and finding a webcam assembly, has it been done before ?

Thanks in advance, hope to make this thread a very good resource for C1.

[UNCNDL1]

Welcome to the Zoo of all zoos ("1+1=3orMore")
I could not resist after reading an earlier post about this tablet and I'm awaiting shipment of an auction won last night. Excited about Business Ruggedness, Twin Hot Swappable Batteries, Triple Hinge, SpillProofKeyboard (can drain off up to 170 ml. of water spilled onto keyboard, even while active), Drop Tested at 76 cm, & 3 usb ports. I know it's not as tough as a CF-29 or 30, but Panasonic did underline their confidence in the ruggedness of this product that they offered a two year accidental damage insurance policy when this tablet hit the market in October 2010. Time will tell but it does have a removeable hard drive (caddy), bluetooth, wifi, and a rotational monitor. Not sure how the circular trackpad will fare as reviews were down on this feature, but who cares, it's a business rugged toughbook! Stay tuned...

[Comptronic]

3) Can I buy a FP sensor and install it in the plastic placeholder on the lower right screen corner ?

Don't think this is possible. I say this because if you bought a C1 with the Fingerprint, you would see that it is actually part of the Mainboard. I am not 100% sure on that though.

4) Webcam retrofit - is it doable ? I know I have to drill a small hole, but aside from that - and finding a webcam assembly, has it been done before

Same statement as mine above.
Don't think this is possible. I say this because if you bought a C1 with the Web camera, you would see that it is actually part of the Mainboard. I am not 100% sure on that though.

[Gear6]

My C1 has TPM v1.2 chip on the MB. That is required for having secure biometric authentication, but not sufficient. The actual image sensor is/should be located on the display frame, where the plastic is cut-out, but instead of the sensor, there is just plastic.
I'm not sure about the interface connection to the MB, but I presume it's USB, internally.

The webcam, is very likely USB also, I opened up quite a few laptops (and put them back up again in order ) and all of them were connected to a small white USB connector on the MB. You can see it in Device Manager on the USB section, or in lsusb in Linux.

What I really hope it's not the case, is a device disable flag in BIOS, which is hidden, if the laptop didn't ship with that device from the factory.

[Rob™]

I want to buy this laptop, but it doesn't have an HDMI port on it. For that reason alone, I will NOT be buying this laptop!

YOU SCREWED UP BIG TIME ON THAT PANASONIC!!!

[Gear6]

I agree with you on that, but that's why I ordered a docking station for it, with HDMI, 4xUSB, ETH, eSATA, DVD-RW, AC, VGA.
There was plenty of space for it, I don't have a clue why they didn't;
would have been really nice to hook it up to a 50" TV with just one cable.
I miss my X120 as a very good and portable 1080p XBMC media player (among other uses).
Until WiDi is a (practical) reality, we still need cables.

[UNCNDL1]

I want to buy this laptop, but it doesn't have an HDMI port on it. For that reason alone, I will NOT be buying this laptop!

YOU SCREWED UP BIG TIME ON THAT PANASONIC!!!

You'll want to check out the CF-S9 Series, which does have an HDMI

[Rob™]

You'll want to check out the CF-S9 Series, which does have an HDMI

S10 is out now... and no touchscreen! EFF THAT NOISE!

[UNCNDL1]

S10 is out now... and no touchscreen! EFF THAT NOISE!

Sorry Rob, just got mine in, came with multi touch plus touch screen
I don't care about the HDMI myself, you had mentioned you liked the CF-C1 but were not happy about NO HDMI.
HDMI is available if using the optional port replicator or on the CF-S9 according to my instruction manual.
I'm re-calibrating the batteries now, I saw on boot-up she had 6GB RAM & a Hard Disk Drive 128 GB (SATA AHCI). I got her for such a good price I might just clean her up a bit and re-sell her

[Rob™]

Wait so the S10 has a touch? It doesn't say anything of that on Pannys website!!