Cisco Cius Close Up: A Tablet Built for Business

As a tablet, the Cius doesn't physically distinguish itself. The unit measures 8.9 by 5.5 by 0.6 inches, and weighs 1.15 pounds--heavy by 7-inch tablet standards, but not so heavy as to discount it as a mobile device. The Cius is optimized for use in landscape mode with the video camera centered above the display, and with the speakers positioned along the bottom near the physical Android navigation buttons. The menu, home, and back buttons are contoured and well defined. At the back, an indentation beneath the battery houses some of the inputs (shown in the next slide). When you're handling the tablet, the indentation provides a convenient place to rest your fingers.

When you hold the Cius horizontally, along the top of the tablet are an oval-shaped power button, a MicroSD slot under a sturdy lid, and a Micro-USB port. The left edge has a curved volume button, as well as a mute button. The only things on the right side are a power input and the slider to remove the battery.

The HD Media Station is a dock designed to turn the Cius into an office workstation and advanced telecommunications system, complete with a phone handset. It also adds gigabit ethernet, three USB 2.0 ports, a 3.5mm heaphone jack, DisplayPort, and a PoE (Power over Ethernet) jack.

Cisco has written its own drivers to support USB host devices, a mouse, and a keyboard. When docked, the tablet can output upscaled video via DisplayPort. Unfortunately, the tablet's output looks disappointing: Text seems grainy and overblown, a situation made even worse because Android 2.2 isn't optimized for scaling to large screens.

The Cius runs Android 2.2 (Froyo). Although Cisco says that it has kept the Cius's software close to a stock install of Android, the home screen has many customizations, with Cisco software front and center. The seamless integration of the various apps and tools sets the Cius apart from consumer-oriented tablets.

The core apps include Unified Inbox, Phone, Chat, Email, Calendar, and Contacts. Videoconferencing ties in to Cisco's TelePresence system. You'll also find the Cisco WebEx online-conferencing app. The apps run in real time in the background.

A good portion of the Cius home screen is filled with the Unified Inbox widget. The widget displays up to five contacts with images pulled from the corporate directory, sized based on the most recent communication, with the last person you spoke with being the largest. The widget also displays the contact's availability for chat, email, and phone calls, and it shows missed calls, voicemail messages, and upcoming meetings.

The list of contacts pulls from the corporate directory; a dot next to a person's picture indicates availability. Tapping a contact pulls up the communication ribbon, allowing you to call, email, or chat. This screen remains visible during an active call, chat, or email session, allowing you to switch seamlessly to another method of communication without having to back out of your current one.

The calendar shows appointments by day, week, or month. Another benefit to the tight integration of Cisco's tools is the ability to start a conference call directly off a meeting on the calendar.

The phone app has three panes. On the left is the list of available rooms, and any active or missed calls. In the center is the contact list, which shows the availability of each contact. On the right is the familiar phone keypad for dialing.

Voicemail messages are delivered visually, so you can listen to them in whatever order you choose, and also read transcripts of the messages. Once again, the contact's picture shows the person's availability, and tapping it will call up the communication ribbon.

The contacts list stays on screen during active chat sessions, for easy switching to a phone or video call. The keyboard is responsive and reasonably sized for a 7-inch tablet.

Cisco is known for enterprise-class videoconferencing tools, so it's no surprise that video calling is well integrated into the Cius. On the left, you can see various TelePresence rooms that are available to join.

App HQ will offer apps that Cisco has vetted to work on the Cius, and to be malware-free. The App HQ infrastructure will also enable, for a fee, the ability for companies to create custom stores for employees; the benefit here is that employees can then download customized Android apps for company-specific uses, or download apps that the IT department has already licensed, all without having to enter personal credit card information.

In the base installation, Cisco also includes Quickoffice for viewing Microsoft Office apps. For editing, you'll need to purchase the Pro license, or buy an alternative from Cisco's App HQ store.

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