A sexy multimedia notebook that has everything - but is it all good?
Written: Sep 10 '02 (Updated Sep 10 '02)
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Pros: All-inclusive multimedia PC, sleek&compact form factor, very good battery life, TOSLINK digital audio out
Cons: DVD playback may (very occasionally) stutter; standard battery's life just short of today's 2+hr movies
The Bottom Line: I think this notebook is a road warrior's dream thanks to its small and slick appearance, nearly perfectly rounded hardware feature set, low power requirements.
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| karasa's Full Review: Fujitsu LifeBook P-2046 Crusoe 800MHz / 20GB / 256... |
To date, I could never imagine that quite as many PC features can be packed in a sleek, tiny notebook. Until, that is, I have come across Fujitsu LifeBook P-2046 four months ago. It was love at first sight (mutual - this PC has never let me down)! :-)
General features:
The most obvious feature is the small size of the notebook, enhanced by its sleek silver metallic color and narrow form factor. The narrow shape is thanks to the wide 15:9 (not 16:9) 1280x768, very sharp looking screen. The keyboard and speakers, therefore, take most of the lower half, with not much space wasted above or below the keyboard like on many other conventional (almost square) notebooks. I like this wide screen arrangement, particularly for DVD playback on the road - more on that later.
The pointer is a pencil eraser type, very firm and grippy. I find it better than average for that type pointer, though whenever desktop surface is available, I prefer to plug in a USB mouse. When you first open the notebook, press on the grippy pointer tip to make sure it is fully seated, lest its tip rub against a spot in the middle of the screen. (By the way, I think Fujitsu ships a spare pointer tip with the notebook.)
The keyboard is almost paper-thin, but the keys appear full size and work reliably. The key labels so far have resisted the wear very well and look like they will stay put for a good long time.
The underside of the notebook warms up during operation, though not so much so as to cause much discomfort. Fujitsu placed patches of nice gray suede on the underside so it does not slip when on one's lap.
The drives are:
* 20GB 9.5mm thick 2.5" Fujitsu hard drive. It appears easy enough to upgrade in the future being behind its own hatch on the bottom of the case (Fujitsu now makes 40GB models in what appears to be the matching form factor), though upgrade would probably void the warranty.
* DVD / CD-R / CD-RW drive in a removable drive bay. The notebook ships with a weight-saver dummy, and Fujitsu also sells an optional battery to go in the bay if one does not need the optical drive.
* The rather sleek matching external floppy drive with a USB cable.
There ports are:
* USB 1.1 (two ports, with power);
* FireWire (1 small style port, no power);
* PC card;
* 56Kbps v.90 fax/modem jack (as usual on laptops, phone line in only - no pass-through)
* 100Mbps network jack
* Proprietary analog monitor RGB out (up to 1280x1024) via a relatively weak jack with the adapter supplied to HD15 VGA female. The built in video out jack is small, and must be treated with care. In particular, the supplied adapter to standard VGA connector has a latch and a release pushbutton that needs to be pressed rather than just pulled out;
* S-Video out;
* 1/8" mini stereo jack, headphone stereo audio out
* Combined 1/8" mini jack with analog stereo line out + TOSLINK optical digital audio out. This one is a major feature; more in it later.
There's also a built-in WiFi 11Mbps wireless networking capability with an internal antenna and an OFF switch. I have found the sensitivity and range of the built in wireless networking transceiver pretty good. Next to the Wi-Fi switch, curiously, is an email button that can be configured to kick off your email app when pressed.
The software bundle is unexciting. While it is nice of them to include WinXP Pro, instead of providing a backup CD with this OS, they follow the all-too-often XP bundling practice of dedicating a 2GB hard drive area for online system backup. The file system they chose is FAT32 rather than NTFS (though there is a way to convert it without reinstalling everything). There are CD writing, virus scanning, and backup utilities. No office applications like spreadsheet or word processing.
The one bright spot software wise, however, is the DVD playback software, InterVideo WinDVD. It is one of the better DVD players out there, and works very well. It takes full advantage of the notebook's wide screen, commendably, compensating for its 15:9 rather than 16:9 aspect ratio). It won't, however (in v.3), full-screen one of the few wide-screen yet non-anamorphic titles (like "Pi" or the old Jack Ryan trilogy). The notebook's optical audio output can be used to send Dolby Digital or DTS digital surround audio tracks to your surround sound receiver. In fact whenever I'm at home, I watch my DVD's on this notebook, connecting it optically to my Denon 3802 7.1 receiver and my Sony VPL-CX10 1024x768 projector, for a movie experience that far surpasses what's available from conventional DVD players and TV's. One other nice thing about WinDVD is that its vendor, InterVideo, offers a small and inexpensive remote control with a USB sensor, that can be used to control this notebook as a DVD player. The notebook's fan is very quiet, and even the DVD drive is nearly silent during playback, after it spins up.
While we are on the topic of DVD playback, it must be said that sometimes (1% of time on some DVD's), the DVD playback may stutter momentarily. Either the 800MHz Transmeta CPU is not always sufficient to decode some segments, or I should try exiting the virus scanning and other resident agents before "critical DVD watching". The frequency and severity of this glitch has not seemed distracting though, and also CPU seems to be ruled out as a culprit thanks to snappy overall PC response and surprisingly good performance even during tasks such as 640x480 USB webcam video capture and video encoding.
I recommend the following accessories for this notebook:
* The small and inexpensive Fujitsu slipcase. Well padded, sleek, and designed to fit this notebook perfectly. Has a pocket for accessories (though wish it had a zipper or loops for batteries and such).
* The 6-cell large capacity battery. This will easily last you all day doing regular work at medium brightness setting and sparing optical drive use, or will allow 4 hrs of DVD playback.
* The car / airplane power adapter. The one Fujitsu sells is actually a 3rd party universal one, that might support your other needs if you get the cables for the other voltages needed.
* The InterVideo WinDVD remote
* The 1/8" mini -> standard TOSLINK optical digital audio cable
* The proper Solar power adapter from SunWatt or such
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1799
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: 701-800
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
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Epinions.com ID:
karasa
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Member: Alexander Karasev
Location: New York, NY
Reviews written: 23
Trusted by: 12 members
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