In October 2009, Motion made another announcement: Corning's somewhat funkily named "Gorilla glass" was now optionally available. With the new F5v, Gorilla glass is now standard. What is Gorilla glass? According to Motion, "thin-sheet glass that was designed to protect against real-world events that cause display damage." Examine some of the video on Corning's Gorilla Glass page, and you see the glass being bent and steel balls falling onto it. The glass neither shatters nor breaks. In fact, it's hard to believe it's glass at all. It looks more like a very thin sheet of some polycarbonate plastic or acrylic. But it is glass.

The secret, according to Corning's Dr. Shashidhar, lies in a special chemical ion-exchange strengthening process that results in what Corning calls a "compression layer" on the surface of the glass. The primary purpose of that layer is to act as an armor that guards against the nicks and tiny cracks that then result in the glass breaking. And even if there are tiny nicks, the layer keeps them from propagating.

Gorilla Glass adds peace of mind because you just know it won't break. And Gorilla Glass has another benefit that may turn out to be quite a selling point for Motion: it's nearly immune to smudges. There's nothing worse than a display that's full of grime and fingerprints, and that just doesn't seem to be an issue with Gorilla Glass.

I don't think the latest Motion F5v has additional changes in the display, but as long as we had the new machine in our test lab, we decided to do some side-by-side comparisons with an original F5 (gray housing).

The first picture shows the older F5 (gray housing) and new 2010 F5v model (black housing) side by side outdoors, facing away from the sun. It's clearly noticeable that, at full brightness, the new display is considerably brighter. That can make a difference in readability.

The comparison shots below show the machines in bright daylight, but in a shaded setting. The shots again show the brightness advantage of the new display. They also show that both displays control screen reflections fairly well, with the old one having more anti-glare treatment. Anti-glare is a mixed blessing as it often simply diffuses light, making the display milky and unreadable. Both displays have a glossy surface, but the display treatment is clearly different. "Glossy" screens usually "pop" more, but their sharp reflections can mess with our brains that have a tendency to fill in missing detail so that it becomes more difficult to concentrate on what is actually on the display.

The picture below shows macro excerpts of each display from an earlier face-off between AFFS+ and the original display technology used in the F5. There is a surprisingly large difference in color, vibrancy and perceived resolution. Although both screens had XGA resolution, the new display looks much crisper and sharper. This probably accounts for the overall crisper and brighter appearance of the new AFFS+ display.

The unit can now be ordered with Gobi 2000 integrated WWAN. Gobi stands for Global Mobile Internet technology, and is a Qualcomm wireless technology that supports the various wireless networking technologies around the world, so users can select whatever carrier is available to them (see Qualcomm page on Gobi). Gobi 2000, in addition to current wireless technologies, also supports emerging 4G standards.
• There is now a USB port! The predecessor F5 did not have one because the medical environment C5 it was based on did not have onboard ports on purpose. For a field machine it makes perfect sense to have a USB port, and the new F5v finally has one.

• The documentation camera resolution is now 3-megapixel, up from 2-megapixel. I did not test image quality, but at that resolution level, more is generally better.

• There is now a front-facing web camera, presumably for video conferencing (note that both cameras are optional).

• RAM is now faster 800MHz DDR3 instead of the older model's DDR2. Standard RAM is 1GB and maximum RAM is 4GB.

• The (1.8-inch SATA) hard disk is now 160GB instead of 80GB (our unit had the optional 64GB SSD).

The unique design of the F5v makes it both easy to use and requires a bit of re-learning.

After having used a number of Tablet PCs that combined an active digitizer with a touch screen, I miss not having touch capability, and that is still not available in the latest version. On the other hand, Motion's experience shows in the way they mounted the display. The glass cover extends about 1/6th of an inch beyond the LCD, and even the glass isn't recessed deeply. Why is that important? Because it allows you to move the tip of the pen past the edge of the display. That is often necessary to manipulate objects near the edge of the display. It seems like a small thing, but it's very important for ease-of-use.

With the new i7 processor, the F5v flies, and it's a perfect match with Windows 7. Gone are all the occasional lags and pokiness of older versions. The F5v does have a small fan neatly built into the upper left corner. It rarely comes on and runs extremely quietly. The F5v heats up much less than we expected, and less than the older machine.

The battery is recessed into the backside of the F5v (see picture to the right). It is held in place with a simple springloaded lever that opens a bit too easily for my taste. The battery is now hot-replaceable.

To activate the primary camera you push a small button on the right side. It takes about two seconds for the camera to be ready. Push the camera button again to take a picture. There is a small illuminator that can help in low light conditions. Unfortunately, the string tether for the pen is still anchored within an inch of the lens. If you use the tether it'll get in the way unless you consciously keep it out of the way.

The fingerprint scanner is also located on the right side. It is small and innocuous, and its position on the side makes scans simple.

A small button on the top right of the F5 activates RFID and/or the bar code scanner.

The "Motion Dashboard" is one of those handy utilities fairly common to tablet computers where you don't have a keyboard to quickly do things. The Motion Dashboard handles display settings, audio settings, pen and tablet settings, wireless, power options, and security.

Like on a digital camera, almost all hardware buttons are combined in a small area that includes a navigation diamond and four buttons. Hitting "A" searches for RFID tags. Hitting the "B" button does a barcode scan.

The F5 doesn't have any expansion slots. The addition of a USB port is good news for most users. The location of the port (underneath a rubber plug next to the power jack) means that some USB keys don't fit.

The F5's Hydis AFFS+ display remains stunning. The screen is perfectly readable from any angle and any direction, without any color shifts whatsoever. Outdoor viewability is excellent, and the screen is very bright and vibrant. The new version now comes standard with "Gorilla glass," a special glass that is four times as break-resistant than the old display, and is also much less smudge- and fingerprint-prone.

The now much faster F5 remains handy, competent and rugged enough to make you forget that the platform was originally conceived as a medical tablet to be used in clinical environments. A lot of the qualities that matter there (light weight, carry handle, scanner, RFID, easy to clean, etc.) are also appreciated in a mobile field computer. And there's finally a USB port for those who need it!