Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P7010

Reviewer: Stephen Patrick
Review Date: 8 December 2004
Manufacturer: Fujitsu-Siemens
Price as reviewed: £1549
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9/10

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User: Simon Brown, London, UK
Date Posted: 30 October 2005
Review: This is an interesting machine for several reasons, all of which influenced my purchase decision. I was looking for a reasonably powerful business laptop with a good battery life which my boss could use on budget airline flights. The boss flies cheap whenever he can, to save money - he'd rather pay his staff than an airline's. He needed to know that, when the guy in front puts his seat back, work can carry on unhindered. The P7010 is perfect. The 1280 x 768 pixel screen is bright, sharp and wide enough to view DVDs in widescreen. Which is handy since a DVD rewriter is fitted. 512 Mb RAM means that though only powered by a Pentium M 1.2 GHz chip, there's not much slowing down and chugging. I have spent months trying to persuade him how much difference 512Mb RAM makes over 256 with WinXP - now he believes me! The 80 GB hard drive (effective size is 74 GB) is ample for most users. But there are plenty of high-resolution laptops with long-life batteries et al - why this one? At a mere 20cm from front to back the lifebook is small enough to carry onto a plane and will easily fit on your lap on the stingiest budget airline seat. Even though the optical drive is built in, the whole thing comes to a feather-light 1.3kg and measuring 26cm x 20cm it easily fits most airline carry-on dimensions with room to spare. True it's not Libretto tiny but then adult-sized fingers always struggled with the Libretto. The keyboard on the Lifebook is almost full sized - I'm touch typing on it right now and it feels compact but not cramped. The keyboard feel is nowhere near as good as on IBM laptops (this machine is replacing a larger IBM ThinkPad) but as already stated, the lifebook can fit into baggage allowances most laptops would balk at. So it fits on a plane and the batteries will last for a medium-haul flight. It also looks pretty sexy - a kind of cross between a Sony Vaio and an Apple iBook. It feels well put together and sturdy for such a tiny machine (the screen measures 10.6"). One interesting point is it feels thicker than many other "business" laptops. Fujitsu have obviously decided that rather than make a thin and large laptop, spreading all the components out, they'd go for a thicker but overall smaller package. The end result is sort of an A4-sized laptop. Now all I have to do is persuade the boss that I need one too!
Rating: 10 people have rated this review helpful

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