HP HSTNN-UB73 Battery

Style certainly isn’t the number one feature to look for in a laptop, after all the main purpose of a notebook computer is to help you get work done, but when you can combine great style with excellent functionality in a highly mobile package then you’re onto something special. The Fujitsu Lifebook S6120 is the notebook computer I’m alluding to in this case. The Fujitsu Lifebook S6120 presents a sharp look with its external silver-magnesium alloy case, it’s sure to turn heads, and at the same time it keeps weight down to 4.3 pounds to provide for a fantastically mobile thin and light laptop that’s small enough to tuck under your arm but big enough and powerful enough to make it a highly functional and easy to use computer.

The Fujitsu S Series line of notebooks all come with a 13.3-inch XGA screen that is well backlit and provides a crisp image. The backlight can of course be adjusted, lower the brightness to save battery power but crank it up when you’re plugged in for a brilliantly lit screen. The keyboard, despite the compact size of the notebook, is big and comfortable to use. There’s of course no number pad such as you’ll get on much larger laptops (i.e. the desktop replacement HP ZD7000 notebook), and certain keys such as the Page Down/Up and Enter keys are compromised in size or accessibility, but in general making key strokes is a breeze and can be used as naturally as a full-size keyboard. There’s no option for a pointing-stick such as you get with IBM ThinkPads — I miss having that option but many buyers could care less. Often with thin-and-lights you’ll find that the screen is scrunched down to 12.2-inches and the keyboard is somewhat cramped but with the S6120 you get a 11.5-by-9.3-by-1.3-inch machine that weighs only 4.3lb, making it a cinch to carry, and it’s still comfortable to use. Another major advantage the Lifebook S has over similar notebooks in its class is that it has an internal, swappable bay. The S6120 single bay supports modular devices such as secondary optical storage drives (CD, DVD, and DVD/CD-RW), as well as a second battery. If you’re on the go and need to pop in and out different modules then you’ll really appreciate this feature. It’s also nice just to know you can upgrade your storage drives and have the flexibility to swap in and out different media format drives.

A front profile view of the Fujitsu S Series notebook A top view shows the beautiful Magnesium-Alloy casing, this great looking material also offers protection in the case of bumps and (to some extent) drops of the laptop The left side of the S6120 includes the Microphone/Headphone jacks, PCMCIA slot and fan output ventThe LifeBook S series offers a great selection of ports and slots. On the left edge of the notebook is the headphone and microphone ports, along with one Type II PC Card slot that includes an embedded smart-card reader. The smart-card reader lets you save and access sensitive info on smart cards. I’m not a very big fan of this feature, smart-cards have gained very little usage in the U.S. even though they have been out for a long time now. Europe has adopted this technology in a much larger fashion, but in my opinion this feature is wasted upon the U.S. market and it’s really sort of a drawback rather than beneficial feature as it takes up space and eliminates room for such things as an SD card reader. In addition to this, to use the smart-card reader you’ll have to buy a smart-card adapter (approximately $25) available through various third parties. Along the back edge, there are VGA, IrDA, 56Kbps modem, Ethernet, two USB 2.0 ports, a switch to turn enable or disable Wi-Fi (if you disable the Wi-Fi radio you can save battery life) and a FireWire port. The built-in FireWire that is standard in the Fujitsu S6000 series allows for blazingly fast transfer of digital media from cameras or digital video recorders onto your laptop. On the right hand side is the modular bay that can house an optical drive or backup battery.

The speakers on the Fujitsu S6120 are standard fare, nothing to write home about really though. You’ll want to buy a set of decent speakers to hook up to the headphone out port if you want to hear bass and treble or have a decent volume. The volume of the speakers don’t go very loud, and the louder you turn them up the more tinny they sound so it’s really not recommended. I’m not saying the speakers are bad, they’re actually pretty much so in line with other laptops in its class (desktop replacement notebooks tend to pay more attention to speaker quality that thin-and-light portable notebooks) but just don’t expect a sound machine that you can jam to tunes on. One thing to mention related to sound on this laptop is that overall the system is very quiet. The fan is located on the left hand side and since the Lifebook tends to run pretty cool (meaning it’s no bother to have it on your lap since it’s not uncomfortably warm) the fan rarely kicked in but when it did it was quiet and certainly not enough to be distracting or drown out speaker sound.

When configuring a LifeBook S series, Fujitsu provides many options. You’re able to choose between a 1.4GHz or 1.6GHz Pentium M processor, 256MB/512MB/1GB of RAM, 30GB/40GB/60GB Hard Drive at 4200 RPM, CD/DVD/CDRW&DVD optical drive, with or without a port Replicator, an optional USB external floppy drive and an optional extra Li-Ion battery. Wi-Fi comes integrated by default, the integrated Wi-Fi is an Intel PRO/wireless 2100 (802.11b) card so this is indeed a Centrino machine. Centrino is of course the Intel marketing terminology for a laptop that includes a Pentium M processor and integrated Wi-Fi. Your CPU choice will play a factor in determining how fast the machine performs, but in general if you’re on a budget and undecided between upgrading the amount of RAM versus processor speed, upgrade the RAM. The difference in speed between a 1.4GHz and 1.6GHz configured S6120 is marginal. However, the difference in performance between a notebook with 256MB of RAM versus 1GB of RAM is like night and day, upgrade the RAM if you can afford it! You can choose from three operating systems for the LifeBook S series: Windows 2000, Windows XP Home, and Windows XP Professional. You’ll also get a few Fujitsu utilities and Norton AntiVirus. Windows XP-based configurations come with Microsoft Works and Intuit Quicken 2004 New User Edition. Systems with a DVD or a DVD/CD-RW drive also ship with InterVideo WinDVD for DVD playback and Veritas RecordNow for CD burning. Overall though, the included software is fairly weak and you’ll end up needing to buy productivity packages such as Microsoft Office.

The Fujitsu S Series competes with notebooks such as the Toshiba Satellite Pro M10-S405 and Sony VAIO PCG-Z1A. When equipped with a 1.4GHz Pentium M processor and 512MB of RAM the Lifebook slightly underperformed the Toshiba M10 and outperformed the VAIO Z1A, the Fujitsu LifeBook S2000 is basically a low-end version of the the S6000, the S2000 comes with an Athlon processor:

Mobile application performance and battery life are measured using BAPCo’s MobileMark2002. MobileMark measures both application performance and battery life concurrently using popular applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Netscape Communicator, WinZip, Adobe Photoshop.One note I’ll add on the battery life, the advertised battery life by Fujitsu is 4.5 hours, and I’m pleased to say that that is indeed what I achieved when turning down screen brightness on a recent flight from New York to Las Vegas. I started using the notebook at the airport in New York and 4.5 hours later after I arrived in Las Vegas the notebook forced a shut down due to low battery power. Usually it’s the case that you’ll get less battery life than what is advertised in the system specs, but the S6120 lived up to the claim on battery life.

The Fujitsu LifeBook S6231 is one of the newest models in the thin-and-light series of notebooks aimed primarily at the mobile business crowd. As I am finding out though, this notebook is well suited for just about everyone, except possibly, the hard core gaming crowd. While the 6231 will handle most average games, the Doom 3 folks should look in the direction of the Fujitsu N6010, Sager, CyberPower or Voodoo for a gaming notebook. The Lifebook 6231 will amaze you at how much Fujitsu packs into a very light-weight, quality built notebook.

I have owned several notebooks from various brands (Dell, HP, Twinhead) going back to the time when notebooks were first introduced. Some were good, some not. I considered an IBM ThinkPad (too businesslike) a Sony Vaio (too pricey) and, of course, another Dell (too chintzy). The 6231 is the first one that excited me beyond belief. My friends and family members are absolutely sick of me shouting the praises of this computer. They avoid me in hallways and no longer take my calls! In any event, I bought the 6231 because it offered great looks, light-weight and good overall performance specs for a thin and light laptop.

After much “shopping” and perusing of internet vendor sites, user forums and price checker services, I bought this laptop from Portable One. The base price was $1499, but configured as above, I paid $1839 delivered via FedEx 2 day service. Portable One swapped in the 60 gb hard drive and changed the memory to a single stick. They also upgraded me to Windows XP Professional SP2 with CD. Windows Media Player 10 and even the Google Toolbar were installed, which was great as I wanted both of these applications. I considered a similar unit from NewEgg for $1804 delivered, but Portable One offered a three year Fujitsu warranty. I think it was a great deal and let me add, the folks at Portable One are top shelf. Their crew is very accommodating and helpful. I couldn’t even tell that they had opened the factory sealed box and reconfigured the notebook. Everything was neatly and perfectly repacked. One of the people from Portable One management called me a few days after the unit shipped to ask if I was happy with the notebook and if he could be of any further service. Now that’s great service!