Bigger Isn’t Better: Fujitsu LifeBook P7010

The Fujitsu P7010 will give big notebooks an inferiority complex. At 3.3 pounds, this sleek, slim laptop offers just as much practically as laptops 2 to 3 times its weight. The first thing that will catch your eye with the P7010 Lifebook is its uber-urban design. All black and silver with red and blue LED lights, the LifeBook looks good without wasting an ounce. Many of its features are simultaneously slave to both fashion and function.

Its lid hinge doubles as the housing for the speakers and the power button. The front of the chassis is where you can find the WiFi power switch and the media card reader. Other ports–like the PC Card slot, compact flash slot, USB, FireWire, and Ethernet–are located, complete with covers, on the sides. And as a final touch, the scroll button on the touchpad is also a fingerprint scanner.

The most attractive feature of the lifebook P7010, may be the 10.6-inch wide-format Crystal View display. It comes standard with XGA resolution (1280×768 at 16M). A 64M Intel graphics chip is more than enough to light up this screen, and then some for multiple displays.

The P7010 isn’t just all beauty, though. Brains are in that chassis as well. It’s available with a 40GB, 60GB, or 80GB hard drive. The base 256MB memory is expandable to 1GB. (The notebook can manage two 512MB memory sticks at the same time.) The processor comes in 2 varieties: either an Intel Pentium M 1.2GHz or a Celeron 1GHz.

These processors may seem slow compared to other laptops, but the LifeBook matches any of the other ultra-low-weight laptops when it comes to its chipset. Like the Sony VAIO T and the Toshiba Libretto, the Fujitsu uses the Intel 855GME. And it uses it well. The P7010 can last more than 5 hours with its battery power.

With that kind of performance, and all of its powerful features, the Fujitsu Lifebook P7010, rises to the top of the latest crop of ultraportable computers.

By Matthew Brodsky

Wednesday, May 11, 2005