Also, bear in mind that there’s a not-very-subtle difference between actually fixing a problem and saying that you’re planning/hoping to have a problem fixed in 2 months.

I feel a little bad about beating these guys up since I looked at the press release for their latest quarterly financial results. I’m actually surprised/impressed that they’re putting out new consumer products at all:

First Quarter Fiscal 2010 Financial Highlights
• Revenue increased by 16.2% to $920,000 from $792,000 for the year ago quarter.
• Net Operating Profit, before interest, taxes, foreign exchange and amortization, improved
by $553,000 to $38,000 compared to a loss of $515,000 in the same quarter of the prior
year.
• Cash and cash equivalents totaled $5.2 million at December 31, 2009, compared with $4.2
million at December 31, 2008.

[read full release at their home page; direct link to PDF embedded in my name]

The previous Scribbler model (SC4000) was also released with a 45Wh battery; the 70Wh battery seems to have been an optional upgrade. In Electrovaya’s store right now, when you go to the listing of Scribbler SC4100 specific accessories, the extra battery is described as a “45Wh Battery for SC 4000 series” and includes a “Cradle for SC-4000 series Tablet PC.” If the 45Wh battery works in both the SC4000 and SC4100, shouldn’t the 70Wh battery also work in both models, as well?

But even if the 70Wh batteries for the SC4000 do work in the SC4100, they may be hard to get your hands on one: they don’t seem to be available for purchase from Electrovaya anymore. They’ve probably sold out of their inventory from past production runs, but maybe they’ll make more. Making batteries is the main thing they do, after all.

They are still selling the 75 Wh Lithium-ion SuperPolymer Batteries for SC-2000/3000 series tablets, but those won’t work in the 4000 series tablets. Go figure.

CPU
• Intel® Core2Duo(ULV)
• 667 MHz FSB, 4M L2 Cache L7400 (1.5 GHz)

Operating System
• Microsoft Windows® 7 Home Premium

Chipsets
• Core Logic: 945GME+ICH7-M
• VGA:GMA 950 Integrated
• Audio: High Definition Audio

Elsewhere on the purchase page (from which I copied these specs – link embedded in my name), Electrovaya describes the processor elsewhere as a U7400. I don’t know whether these labels are actually interchangable, and if not, which one the SC4100 actually includes. I do know that the L7400 CPU was introduced in Q1’07, and this is exactly the same processor/chipset included in the all-but-discontinued Motion LE1700.

Looks like the digitizer’s the only novel thing about this particular slate – too bad it’s wrapped around such a lame LCD.

So that makes the LE1700 batteries 39Wh (2600mAh, 14.8V – which actually is on the sticker). Still worse than the SC4100′s 45WHr, but not as bad as I thought. The short battery life of the LE1700 is my biggest complaint, but it’ll take more than this to make me give up a 1400×1050 display (even granted that the ULV processor will probably make an even bigger difference).

1024 x 768 on a 12″ screen is kind of pathetic at this price – though I’m sure it’s not easy to find an LCD maker that’s still cranking higher-res 4:3 panels. If I wanted a 1024×768 slate, I’d dust off the old TC1100 (or buy an iPad. heh).

As for battery life, while it’s a big step down from the SC4000′s 70WHr SuperPolymer beast, 45WHr (~4200mAh) edges out the 42WHr (3800mAh) of TabletKiosk’s current Sahara i400-slates and stomps my Motion LE1700 slate’s 2600mAh standard battery (though I can add another 2600mAh – and 15 ounces – to the Motion with a secondary battery slice. Perhaps Electrovaya will make something like that available for the 4100). Just to add another point of comparison: the 8-cell battery of Lenovo’s x200 convertibles clocks in at 66WHr.

(P.S. when did WHr overtake mAh as the standard unit for battery capacity? I seem to have missed that completely.)