Fujitsu Readies Tablet PC

— -- Fujitsu will launch a new tablet PC in August, the company's South Korean unit confirmed on Tuesday after information about the system leaked onto the Web.

Details of the computer, called the Lifebook P1510, appeared on a South Korean Web site late last week but have since been removed at Fujitsu's request, says Shin Dong-Yung, a spokesperson for Fujitsu Korea in Seoul.

Information regarding the computer was shared with the site "unofficially," and the machine has not yet been officially announced by Fujitsu, he says.

The computer is scheduled to be launched August 8 in South Korea and other countries, Dong-Yung says, without specifying which other countries.

While Fujitsu wouldn't confirm details about the computer, the original Web posting, which included pictures of the machine, showed a compact tablet PC with a convertible form factor.

Such computers can be used as laptops or, with the screen swiveled around and folded down onto the keyboard, as a tablet PC.

The computer is based on a 1.2-GHz Pentium M processor, has a 60GB hard drive and 512MB of main memory, according to the South Korean Web site. It measures 9.1 inches by 6.6 inches by 1.4 inches and weighs 2.2 pounds, the site said.