Fujitsu waterproofs Windows 8 tablet, Android smartphones

IDG News Service - If you have a habit of dropping smartphones or tablets in toilets or sinks, Fujitsu may have an answer for you. The company showed off a new Windows 8 tablet and Android smartphones that can resist drops into water.

The Fujitsu Arrows Tab Q582/F tablet has a 10.1-inch screen and can remain submerged in one meter of water for a maximum of 30 minutes, a spokeswoman said at the company's booth in Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The company declined to provide a live demonstration, but the spokeswoman assured that the tablet was waterproof. Similar waterproofing capabilities have also been incorporated in Arrows Tab with the Android OS, which is already on sale in Japan.

The Windows 8 tablet has an Intel Atom Z2760 processor code-named Clover Trail, and has an integrated Fujitsu LTE modem for broadband connectivity. Other features include 64GB of solid-state storage and 2GB of RAM. The tablet provides an estimated 10 hours of battery life, according to the spokeswoman.

The tablet will ship next month in Japan for $1,330. Worldwide availability has not yet been determined, though the spokeswoman said it would likely reach Europe first before coming to the U.S. The price is relatively expensive compared to Windows 8 tablets such as Microsoft's Surface Pro, which is priced at $899 and Asus' VivoTab, which goes for $499.

The company's new Arrows smartphones are similarly waterproofed. They also have improved screens and faster processing power than their predecessors. The models have 5-inch and 4.7-inch screens respectively, Nvidia's Tegra 3 quad-core processors and 2GB of RAM.

The 5-inch smartphone has a full high-definition screen with a resolution of 1920-by-1080 pixels. It runs on Google's Android 4.1, code-named Jellybean. It has a 16.3-megapixel camera and a 1.3-megapixel front camera.

The 4.7-inch model has a 1280-by-720 pixel screen, and has Android 4.0. It has a 13.1-megapixel main camera and a 1.2-megapixel front camera.

The smartphones started shipping a few days ago in Japan, but an exact date for worldwide availability has not been determined, the spokeswoman said.

Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's e-mail address is agam_shah@idg.com