Smaller and faster--that's usually been the motto of computer manufacturers. And none have adhered to this creed better than Fujitsu. Its last few ultraportable notebooks have been both excellently designed and powerfully economical. The Fujitsu LifeBook S6410 is the company's latest, and is compliant with the latest Intel Centrino standard. It sports several competitive features including an LED backlit screen, 1GB of Turbo Memory, and a removable drive bay.
Design
This notebook features the use of magnesium alloy and carbon fiber for a combination of strength and lightweighted-ness. It's not as thin as some ultraportables we've seen, but despite its relative chubbiness it still weighs only 1.66kg.
The LCD is a 13.3-inch model and the LED backlighting makes this one of the brightest we've seen. In fact, as far as clarity and viewing angles are concerned it even outstrips Fujitsu's own Q2010, which is almost S$2,000 (US$1,315.96) more. The only problem with LED backlighting is you lose a lot of contrast--black comes out grey--and it's not the best choice for multimedia applications.
Build quality was pretty solid--the first model we saw was preproduction and a little flimsy around the screen, but the production model seems to have remedied this.
The one misgiving we had about the Fujitsu was in the design of the battery chamber. Rather than simply push in like most batteries do, the Fujitsu's battery sort of locks in place via a complex twist from the front to back--you can't slide it in. The battery contacts on the preproduction model had been shredded by the time we received it, and despite assurances from Fujitsu, the battery design remains the same on the final model. But put the battery in correctly and there shouldn't be an issue.
Features
Centrino Duo notebooks have been filtering into the market since mid-June, but the S6410 is still one of the first laptops we have seen to include Santa Rosa features. Ticking off the list you get: An Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 processor at 2.2GHz; a relatively skimpy 1GB of RAM (this is Vista after all--we would have liked 2GB); a roomy 120GB of hard drive space; Turbo Memory; and a Draft-N wireless adapter.
Being a Santa Rosa, it also features an Intel X3100 graphics adapter, and it really takes the load off the other components while running Vista Business in Aero mode. Despite having only 1GB of RAM, there were no slowdowns or "chugging" while using the PC with all the eye candy enabled. You wouldn't want to use this PC for games, though. However, Intel has recently released new drivers which significantly increase the performance of the integrated chipset.
For ports, you get a front-mounted mic and headphone jack, a 1394 mini-jack, an S-video out (via a dongle) and a wireless on/off switch. On the left-hand side you get a LAN port, VGA, PCMCIA (Fujitsu doesn't believe there's enough saturation for ExpressCard accessories to warrant its inclusion yet), and a card reader. On the right side you get three USB 2.0 ports, a modem and the removable drive bay. You can choose to install a weightsaver or another hard drive in there if you wish--there is also a second six-cell battery available for this slot.
Performance And Battery Life
The Fujitsu is factory-fitted with a six-cell battery and it performed adequately in our battery test. Using the BatteryEater Pro 2.70 benchmark, we were able to clock the S6410 at a speed of 2 hours 40 minutes. A little short when compared with a competitor such as the Acer TravelMate 6292 which was able to last an extra 40 minutes--and this is without Turbo Memory. The inclusion of Turbo Memory should help the Fujitsu here because this is really a test of how long the laptop can last with the monitor on at full brightness. It's not demanding on the CPU or memory, and should be caching from the Turbo Memory module. In this instance, it doesn't appear to have made as much difference as Intel has suggested. The Acer is without the Turbo Memory upgrade.
On the performance side, it's on a par with the Acer at 4,156 marks in the PCMark 05 benchmark. This demonstrates that the two notebooks are very evenly matched, with the Acer achieving 4,192 marks. PC Mark, while a synthetic test, is a good measure of how the laptop performs across disciplines such as startup time, graphics performance, and CPU calculations.
In the end, the Fujitsu is a good laptop with a brilliant screen, some useful battery-saving features and a decent appearance. Only its unusual battery chamber design holds us back from whole-heartedly recommending it.
Service And Support
Fujitsu LifeBook has a one-year international warranty with second-year and third-year local warranty. At Fujitsu's support Web site, LifeBook owners can register their warranty online as well as download the latest drivers. For simple problems, the company offers a helpline and email address for troubleshooting. Should the unit require further diagnosis or repair,the customer will have to send the unit to any service center worldwide during the first year. Subsequently, Fujitsu will only honor the notebook's warranty for the subsequent two years at the original country of purchase. For users who use their laptops for time-critical work with no margin for downtime, it must be noted that most Fujitsu service centers in Asia Pacific operate only during office hours. There is no option to upgrade the warranty terms.
Design
This notebook features the use of magnesium alloy and carbon fiber for a combination of strength and lightweighted-ness. It's not as thin as some ultraportables we've seen, but despite its relative chubbiness it still weighs only 1.66kg.
The LCD is a 13.3-inch model and the LED backlighting makes this one of the brightest we've seen. In fact, as far as clarity and viewing angles are concerned it even outstrips Fujitsu's own Q2010, which is almost S$2,000 (US$1,315.96) more. The only problem with LED backlighting is you lose a lot of contrast--black comes out grey--and it's not the best choice for multimedia applications.
Build quality was pretty solid--the first model we saw was preproduction and a little flimsy around the screen, but the production model seems to have remedied this.
The one misgiving we had about the Fujitsu was in the design of the battery chamber. Rather than simply push in like most batteries do, the Fujitsu's battery sort of locks in place via a complex twist from the front to back--you can't slide it in. The battery contacts on the preproduction model had been shredded by the time we received it, and despite assurances from Fujitsu, the battery design remains the same on the final model. But put the battery in correctly and there shouldn't be an issue.
Features
Centrino Duo notebooks have been filtering into the market since mid-June, but the S6410 is still one of the first laptops we have seen to include Santa Rosa features. Ticking off the list you get: An Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 processor at 2.2GHz; a relatively skimpy 1GB of RAM (this is Vista after all--we would have liked 2GB); a roomy 120GB of hard drive space; Turbo Memory; and a Draft-N wireless adapter.
Being a Santa Rosa, it also features an Intel X3100 graphics adapter, and it really takes the load off the other components while running Vista Business in Aero mode. Despite having only 1GB of RAM, there were no slowdowns or "chugging" while using the PC with all the eye candy enabled. You wouldn't want to use this PC for games, though. However, Intel has recently released new drivers which significantly increase the performance of the integrated chipset.
For ports, you get a front-mounted mic and headphone jack, a 1394 mini-jack, an S-video out (via a dongle) and a wireless on/off switch. On the left-hand side you get a LAN port, VGA, PCMCIA (Fujitsu doesn't believe there's enough saturation for ExpressCard accessories to warrant its inclusion yet), and a card reader. On the right side you get three USB 2.0 ports, a modem and the removable drive bay. You can choose to install a weightsaver or another hard drive in there if you wish--there is also a second six-cell battery available for this slot.
Performance And Battery Life
The Fujitsu is factory-fitted with a six-cell battery and it performed adequately in our battery test. Using the BatteryEater Pro 2.70 benchmark, we were able to clock the S6410 at a speed of 2 hours 40 minutes. A little short when compared with a competitor such as the Acer TravelMate 6292 which was able to last an extra 40 minutes--and this is without Turbo Memory. The inclusion of Turbo Memory should help the Fujitsu here because this is really a test of how long the laptop can last with the monitor on at full brightness. It's not demanding on the CPU or memory, and should be caching from the Turbo Memory module. In this instance, it doesn't appear to have made as much difference as Intel has suggested. The Acer is without the Turbo Memory upgrade.
On the performance side, it's on a par with the Acer at 4,156 marks in the PCMark 05 benchmark. This demonstrates that the two notebooks are very evenly matched, with the Acer achieving 4,192 marks. PC Mark, while a synthetic test, is a good measure of how the laptop performs across disciplines such as startup time, graphics performance, and CPU calculations.
In the end, the Fujitsu is a good laptop with a brilliant screen, some useful battery-saving features and a decent appearance. Only its unusual battery chamber design holds us back from whole-heartedly recommending it.
Service And Support
Fujitsu LifeBook has a one-year international warranty with second-year and third-year local warranty. At Fujitsu's support Web site, LifeBook owners can register their warranty online as well as download the latest drivers. For simple problems, the company offers a helpline and email address for troubleshooting. Should the unit require further diagnosis or repair,the customer will have to send the unit to any service center worldwide during the first year. Subsequently, Fujitsu will only honor the notebook's warranty for the subsequent two years at the original country of purchase. For users who use their laptops for time-critical work with no margin for downtime, it must be noted that most Fujitsu service centers in Asia Pacific operate only during office hours. There is no option to upgrade the warranty terms.
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