Fujitsu LifeBook S710 Battery |
Posted: September 9, 2014 |
I thought the wireless was just average compared to my other notebooks because signal strength was about the same when using Wifi G. I don’t have an N router yet so I couldn’t really test that out. The Bluetooth was really easy to use if you have prior knowledge on how to use it. In case you were wondering, the Bluetooth uses the Toshiba Bluetooth stack. As mentioned before, the vista battery monitor is also problematic and at times, it tells me I have 6 hours left and after 5 minutes, I suddenly only have 4 hours left. I really do hope that they improve the accuracy of the battery meter because it is very important for road warriors to know when they should turn down that backlighting to get the extra juice needed to last the rest of the day. So there is some bloat ware, but some of the software is really good. I really like Omnipass because I’ve never had a fingerprint scanner before, so now, I can just swipe my finger and log in, but I’m not sure how to set it up with the FireFox master password or Skype. When I try to set it up skype, it tells me that "the field that Omnipass is trying to fill is partially or completely obscured by another window. Omnipass can not fill in the window." but my gmail in FF works very well.I don’t really know what the TPM drivers are, but a quick search online told me that it was something relating to do with backup and such so the average user will probably not use it. I’d also like mention that no notebook is perfect, and one can only consider a notebook that suites their need, that’s why I recommend this tablet to students, businessmen, and any other road warriors who have the cash to buy the tablet. I doubt that the tablet would be useful for a gamer or any other graphics-intensive user out there. So in summary, the pros and cons listing (from important to less important): The laptops that I considered before purchasing the Fujitsu LifeBook S6210 was the 12″ Apple Powerbook G4, and the Sony Vaio V505EX. I initially purchased the Apple Powerbook. The design of the Apple Powerbook was great, but I just couldn’t get the hang of Mac OS X. So I returned the Apple computer and focused on the Fujitsu S6210, and the Sony Vaio V505EX. I ended up purchasing the laptop from Newegg.com for $1,584. The Sony that i considered was $1,709, which was also from Newegg.com. I believe Newegg.com offers an excellent price on most of its products. If the Fujitsu S6210 laptop, with the same configuration was purchased directly from Fujitsu, it would of totaled $1,709. If the exact model Sony V505 was purchased directly from Sony, it would of been priced at $1,799.99. The customer support provided by Fujitsu is excellent. I called it once; partially to see how well it was and also to figure out why there are two restoration methods provided for this computer. The computer comes with a partition on the hard drive that is an image of the fresh Windows installation. Also included with the computer is a Restoration DVD. I called technical support to see if it’d be alright (which it was) to delete the partition on the hard drive to free up disk space (it took up 1.99gb of data).
The battery featured in the Fujitsu S6210 is a Lithium ion, 10.8 volt, 440mAh, 47.5 Watt Hour battery. What does that translate into? It translates into 4 hours of continuous use. After fully charging the battery I surfed the internet and did various other CPU non intensive tasks for approx. 4 hours. This time decreases dramatically if you are utilizing the full power of the CPU. A great feature of the Fujitsu laptop is that the keyboard has a direct and quick way to turn down the brightness of the screen, which extends battery life. To start with, the Crystal View display is excellent; It will leave even the pickiest screen guru in awe of its beauty, sharpness, and elegance. It is simply unparalleled by any other laptop display. The features on this laptop for the price is hard to beat too. For under $1,600 you get a fast Centrino processor, the sweet display, an adequate amount of hard disk space and ram, dvd burner, wireless connectivity, fire wire, usb, memory card reader, etc–it’s a great deal. To top it all off, the technical support is the cats pajamas! You wont find yourself waiting on hold with Fujitsu. There is only one complaint that I have with this system. The system information display is an LCD that lays flat in front of the screen (as pictured above). It isn’t backlit so reading this in low light conditions is hopeless. If Fujitsu manages to update this problem, it’d give this laptop almost a perfect score. The screen of this notebook is really something to be proud if you own it. Fujitsu Siemens was actually the first in Europe to introduce a 17” CrystalView screen (glossy screen) with its M3438G model. The screen of the Xi1546 is the same as the previous model, featuring a 1440×900 resolution widescreen with CrystalView technology. The screen has excellent viewing angles, so watching a DVD with your friends will be easy on this notebook. The screen has minimal light leakage at the bottom, certainly not something that will bother you while playing a game or watching a DVD. I did not notice any ghosting while gaming which means that gaming is great on the Xi 1526. The screen also gives a great crisp picture and good contrast. Black is black and white is white, something which is very important for designers. The pictures that I took do not show the beauty of the screen. This notebook has great sound as well as great speaker design. Fujitsu Siemens was one of the first companies that introduced subwoofers in their notebooks. The Xi1526 also has a subwoofer (diameter of 4 cm). The notebook has above average sound and it is very pleasant to listen to music or watch a DVD. However, for serious gaming I advise a good headset because you won’t hear subtle things like footsteps in a game with just the speakers.I personally own a two year old Fujitsu Lifebook N6210, which has been great for all of my work and school purposes, it is still going very strong. I remain very happy with my original purchase. I have also used Fujitsu’s tech support a few times, they have been quite helpful and knowledgeable during my interactions. The N6420 was packaged just like all of the N Series notebooks I have received from Fujitsu — double boxed and tightly packed with cushioning, no chance of getting damaged in the shipping process. It couldn’t hurt to borrow a page from Apple’s book and get a bit more creative with the packaging, but that’s coming from an art-minded person.The included software with this model has always been quite good, without being over the top. So many computers today ship with numerous useless software applications that most people end up removing, that’s not so much the case with a Fujitsu notebook. The only software that is included that I’d rather just not have (or at least be on a disk and not pre-loaded) are Quicken 2006 and Norton Antivirus. Once again, as with the N6410, a good Application Panel control utility is in the Control Panel, as well as another utility to control functionality of the Fingerprint reader between the Touchpad buttons. Also included is Omnipass software to control Passwords using the Fingerprint reader, this is useful and very easy to setup. The design and color scheme is also shared with the earlier N6410 model, although a few improvements have been made, such as the “re-addition” of the volume control buttons next to the wireless LAN switch, as well as a Visual Optimizer button that controls screen color modes, which I will speak more on later. I definitely like the very professional looking design of the N6420. The silver and black color scheme works very well, not too much, not too little. It’s a style I think a lot of people will find agreeable. The N6420 has easy to see LEDs for power, battery, HDD access, NumLock, Caps Lock, and new mail indicator. All are right below the main panel and above the keyboard, so it is easy to see. Some may think this placement would cause it to get annoying, but it is very subtle and non-intrusive. I do like the mirror looking DVD control panel/Application launch panel, it looks great and works well. Another thing I am glad to always see is the black bezel around the screen, having black around a screen does make a difference in how the screen looks. After being able to see and use what I think are some of the best screens available on any notebook computer, I was very excited to see what Fujitsu has done with their latest model. The first thing I was interested in trying out was the “Visual Optimizer” button Fujitsu has added to the Application Panel. Pressing this button switches the display from PC and Video mode, which basically seems like 2 separate color/brightness/contrast settings. This is a good idea, but I believe without the ability to customize settings it is a little incomplete. It would be great if there was a small application that let you control and adjust each setting, as some people may not find them to be the best settings.
The screen is very bright and looks quite good; however, I was very surprised to see that the screen has a somewhat grainy look to it overall. I remember reading about this happening to some Asus notebooks with the X1600, and it being fixed with a BIOS update, maybe this is the same case with the N6420. This won’t bother the majority of people I think, but for someone like me doing graphics work or film editing it is an issue. While watching a video or DVD this is not noticed at all, and the screen really looks truly excellent. Like the N6410 screen, the color balance looks great while watching a video. I have to confess that I prefer the N6410 and N6210 screens to this one, as I believe the Visual Optimizer control could be better implemented, and the graininess is pretty unacceptable to me.
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