FUJITSU LifeBook T900 Battery |
Posted: February 22, 2015 |
Overall, I’m very impressed with this laptop. It is great for me to carry around, take on flights or to school everyday. It’s a great laptop for business but also has a lot of consumer oriented features. The widescreen is great for viewing worksheets side-by-side or watching movies. The fingerprint reader provides extra security for the business user. I’d recommend this laptop to anyone looking for a notebook that is very durable, light and powerful. It’s not too expensive price makes it a good option for the business user or student, looking for portability, durability, and performance, but not gaming. The 1280×800 resolution is good for DVDs and running heaps of apps at once though it can be a pain persuading older games and even some newer ones to use the widescreen correctly. Quake 3 Arena and Battlefield require you to manually edit obscure config files to get a widescreen resolution. The LCD has eight levels of lighting available and is still quite readable on the lowest setting. My A6 came with no dead pixels and the backlighting appears to be very even with no leakage. The only complaint I have against the screen is that it lacks contrast compared to most other laptop and desktop LCD screens, especially with near-white colours. If you’re doing serious graphics stuff you should either look at another laptop or invest in a decent external monitor to use. Speakers About 4 weeks ago I purchased the Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pi 1536 notebook. I basically purchased it as a replacement for my desktop machine, seeing as I’m starting to become a bit more mobile and need my PC with me. While I was normally not very impressed with Fujitsu-Siemens machines due to build quality issues, I am actually very happy with this notebook. When I was looking at notebooks, I really wanted to get a dual core processor but the costs were still too high, and it was only found on the latest and greatest models (like the Apple MacBook Pro and ThinkPad T60). I also wanted a dedicated graphics card because I could not really put faith in the Intel GMA 950 graphics chipset — after all, I want to run Windows Vista with the Aero interface when it comes out in 2007. So basically this machine has the latest chipset in terms of graphics, motherboard and processor and expandability in the form of Express Card. There is no option for Bluetooth or Infrared which is not that great. I’m not all for infrared, but Bluetooth is pretty much a necessity these days.This falls into a “mainstream notebook” category — definitely not a desktop replacement, but not a globetrotting laptop either. When used for walking distance in a backpack, this machine is easy to carry around.
I looked at the Acer 4202 with the core duo processor, but it did not have the discrete graphics card, so I grabbed the chance of getting this machine (with a ATI X1400) for only a little more cash.The body of the machine is built from hard plastic, but not cheap feeling. This is my primary concern in the past with Fujitsu Siemens machines — while I obviously can’t afford the build quality of a ThinkPad, I do expect the machine to well built at this spec level. Luckily I am quite happy with it — no creaking or loose feeling parts. The lid and inside is decked out in silver whereas the rest is black. I don’t like silver, I’m more of a Henry Ford man myself, but not because of the colour — in many cases these silver bodies are merely some cheap coating. But I’m very happy with this notebook, my watch almost constantly bangs against the silver plastic when typing, and I can’t see any signs of wear and tear. All the ports are well fitted and there no loose parts on the outside. The hinges of the screen feel well built with just the right amount of stiffness when closing and opening. The DVD RW drive has some slight gaps underneath it, but it does not flex when pushed around. There is nice dedicated wireless switch on the front which is nice to have.The second generation Lenovo S10 looks great, with a cleaner and smoother appearance all around. In the redesign, the sides changed from flat surfaces that looked stuck onto the chassis, to a rounder and smoother form that looks integrated into the netbook. As a result, the new S10 is thinner in most dimensions, with varying heights depending on the inner structure of the notebook. The all-black model which we were lucky enough to get looks great, with every bezel matte black, except the screen lid which has a glossy black finish with a faint metallic weave pattern. Contrasting the black surfaces the Lenovo logo, power button, and touchpad buttons are all silver. This theme continues to the bottom of the S10-2, which if some of the stickers were removed would share the same clean look. My only complaint is Lenovo stuck with the large Windows COA sticker, instead of the new netbook-sized stickers that can be hidden underneath the battery or someplace out of sight. Lenovo went with an extended battery that significantly improves runtime over the smaller flush-mount one. The downside to this is it sticks out the back, and raises the netbook up off a surface about 0.75″. Some could argue that it moves the keyboard into a more comfortable typing position, or it works great as an extra handle. I would personally like one that just sticks straight out the back, making aftermarket carrying cases much easier to choose. Build quality is very good, with firm plastic used throughout the chassis and very little obvious flex or squeaking when you are carrying the netbook around. The screen hinges feel solid, needing two hands to easily open up the display. The matte plastic finish on the inside and bottom of the notebook stayed scratch free throughout the review. Likewise, the glossy finish held up surprisingly well; it did, however, give us a few scares, making us think we created huge scratches… which turned out to be smudges. Even if you did scratch this model, the black finish hides most blemishes (including smudges and dust). From an upgrade standpoint Lenovo really wins our hearts with its user-friendly design that puts every swappable component behind one of two removable panels. Under the main panel, we have access to the hard drive, wireless card, and spare mini-PCIe slot with the connector included (some don’t solder this in place so they can save money). The other slot is for the system memory, which is expandable to 2GB total. The only thing that could have made this better is if they went with the HP Mini approach, which doesn’t even need a screwdriver to open the RAM cover. The glossy panel on the Lenovo S10-2 is average compared to other netbooks, with bright and vibrant colors, but somewhat limited viewing angles. The glossy screen really does an awesome job at making colors pop, and also helps reproduce deep blacks as well – handy for watching Sci-Fi flicks. The downside to this and any other glossy screen, though, is added reflection, making screen visibility poor when outdoors or under a bright light.
Viewing angles seemed average, with colors starting to shift if the screen was titled about 20 degrees forward or back. Horizontal viewing angles just showed a slight hint of color shift, but nothing that would really bother you if you were sharing the screen with someone sitting next to you. Backlight brightness was perfect for viewing in bright office conditions, but might not have been strong enough to use outside. I spent a couple of hours out in my garage with bright shop lights on around it, and my motorcycle schematics were still fully visible from a few feet away. One possibly limiting factor of the screen design which might affect a few people is the limited hinge range, which prevents the screen from tilting completely flat. It stops the screen about 45 degrees back from vertical. The powerpack does give a slight whine when the power-jack is unplugged from the system, though my ears are pretty sensitive to noises in that frequency. The optical drive is very quiet when reading and writing a disk – a great improvement over my previous systems.The easy part to discuss here is the touchpad, which works fine. It is very grainy which allows good accuracy and tactile feedback. It also has a section at the side and bottom for scrolling horizontally and vertically which works well. It is also possible to configure the corners of the pad to perform various actions such as middle click, program launch, volume etc. The buttons are attractive and glossy, which to my mind is preferable to painted plastic which can wear away easily. They have a nice, quiet action although they do require a firmer press than may be initially assumed. The keyboard is very good with a nice firm action and good sized keys. They cram a lot of functionality in so few keys. It doesn’t have the sponginess often associated with cheaper laptops and from this perspective it is clear to see that the Q45 is targeted at a “prosumer” market, sitting slightly oddly between consumer and business users. My main annoyance with the keyboard comes from the layout, which is rather annoying. There is the traditional bugbear of the swapped fn key and ctrl in the lower left corner, in addition to some other gripes. Firstly the backspace key is very small and can be difficult to hit at speed. Secondly the enter key is very small to boot though this is easier to adapt to. The main problem for me so far is having the right shift key be so small and now one key removed from the "?" symbol which is causing me frequent problems (especially since I often use a full size external keyboard when I use my external screen). I don’t see why Samsung could not use the additional width of the chassis to add in another column of keys for the likes of pgdn and restore a bigger shift key.
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