| Article Index |
|---|
| Fujitsu LifeBook N6460 Notebook Review |
| 2 - Style and Design |
| 3 - Running Gear |
| 4 - AV Features |
| 5 - Connectivity, Battery Life, Extras |
| 6 - Conclusion |
| All Pages |
It’s apparently designed to meet the needs of the avid multimedia enthusiast, but I believe the latest notebook
available from Fujitsu, the LifeBook N6460, is designed to render the desktop PC obsolete once and for all.
It’s big, it’s fast and it’s expensive. The LifeBook N6460 sells online for around AU$4600, which makes it one of the most expensive notebooks on the market today, it’s even a few hundred dollars more than the biggest, fastest Mac Book Pro, which aren’t known for being cheap in the first place. So what do you get for your money? Well firstly, let’s have a look at the LifeBook’s specifications:
- Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 CPU (2.4GHz, 4MB Cache, 800MHz FSB)
- 4GB 667MHz DDR2 Memory (2 x 2GB Modules) + 1GB On-Board Intel Turbo Memory
- 500GB Total Hard Drive Storage Capacity (2 x 250GB 2.5” SATA-150 Drives)
- 17” SuperFine WXGA+ TFT (1440x900pixel resolution)
- ATI Mobility Radeon HD2600 – 512MB HyperMemory GPU
- Built-In TV Tuner (PAL) with Video Capture via RCA and S-Video Inputs
- Remote Control with USB Receiver for Media Centre Control
- Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer - Matsushita BD-MLT UJ-210S
- Intel PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Wireless-N (Draft) Wi-Fi Adapter
- Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (PCI-Express x1)
- 56k Modem
- 103-Key Keyboard with Separate Number Pad
- Fingerprint Reader
- Realtek ALC262 HD Audio, Built-In Stereo Speakers with Subwoofer
- Other Ports: 3.5mm HD Audio In/Out, SPDIF Optical Output, PCMCIA Type I/II Slot, ExpressCard /34 /54 Slot, 5 x USB2.0, HDMI Video Out, RGB Video Out, S-Video Out, Flash Card Reader, Firewire Port
- 6-Cell Li-Ion 3200mAh Battery
- Microsoft Windows Vista Premium
Well, I think that’s everything. Fujitsu seem to have packed in as much as they can into this unit in an effort to give as many connectivity options as they can, and thanks to the size of the unit there’s no need for any dongles or breakout cables, even for the RCA cable inputs, which would normally be relegated to a single port and breakout cable with smaller notebooks.
If Fujitsu were able to get away with a single hard drive I’m sure they would have, but to be able to give such enormous storage space (enormous for a notebook at least) with current technology, then dual drives are required. The drives are set up as two separate drives, so there’s no RAID configuration or drive spanning of any kind in use here. This is probably a blessing more than a curse, that even though we won’t get any type of speed increase, we also won’t lose all the data if one drive decides to keel over, and the drives can be upgraded in the future very easily. You just have to remember which drive your music is on, and which one has your movies.
Style and Design:
The design and styling of the N6460 isn’t too fancy, it seems to be more function over form with this notebook, but it’s not something I would call ugly, I think ‘plain’ is a much better description. It’s comprised of a typical grey/black colour scheme that I think would fit in well next to a home theatre Hi-Fi setup and/or plasma screen.
The sheer size of the notebook thanks to its 17” screen allows the N6460 to have a keyboard with a full sized and separate number pad, unlike normal notebook keyboards which have the number pad covering half the normal keys and toggled via a function key – which gets really annoying when you leave num-lock on by accident and half your words end up with numbers in them.
Just above the keyboard is a control panel which houses the wireless switch and volume control, as well as a 4-way hotkey pad which operates in two different modes. In the first mode it has hotkeys for launching Internet and Email, as well as two other customisable programs - which is quite a typical arrangement on Fujitsu notebooks. The second mode changes the 4-way panel into multimedia control buttons for functions such as Play/Pause, Next, Back, Stop/Eject – these only seem to work within Windows Media Centre, they didn’t seem to work on just the standard Windows Media Player or third party DVD software.
The stereo speakers of the N6460 are located on an angled section at the very front of the notebook and as such they are not obscured at all when the screen/lid is fully closed, so whatever you’re listening to can keep playing unimpeded without needing the screen to remain open. Underneath the notebook, tucked away in a corner we find a third speaker, bigger than the other two and marketed by Fujitsu as a subwoofer. While it certainly does provide more bass than the other two speakers, it hardly has the response you would expect from even a poor quality sub, it’s just far too small to make any big difference. I tested a song with a known deep bass line, which usually isn’t audible at all in notebooks (or any system without a sub), and it still wasn’t audible in this one, the ‘subwoofer’ seems to be more of a gimmick than anything else.
On the right-hand edge of the notebook is an air port for the subwoofer located below, as well as the HD Audio ports (Headphones/Microphone). The headphone port also doubles as an optical SPDIF output providing you have the right cable. Only a single USB port is among this group of ports, and is the only USB port out of a total of 5 that is not located on the rear of the notebook. Considering the USB ports are likely to be the most used ports in the whole system, having a couple more within easy reach would have been nice. Also amongst this bunch of ports we find the Firewire400 port, card reader and two expansion slots, one for the older PCMCIA/Cardbus type cards, and one for the newer, faster ExpressCard expansion cards.
Jumping across to the other side of the notebook we find all the input ports for the in-built TV tuner, which include RCA and S-Video inputs for cable TV or capturing from older camcorders/VCRs, as well as an Aerial socket for free-to-air digital TV, we’ll get into more detail about this TV tuner later on.
The remainder of the ports are located on the rear of the notebook, and along with the usual LAN, Modem and USB ports, and the normal VGA output we also find a HDMI output, great for connecting to HD capable (and HDMI certified of course) LCD or Plasma screens. Also on the rear of the notebook we find the cooling/exhaust outlets, one main vent for the CPU and a small, thin one for the Video Card (located under the HDMI Port). The outlet for the CPU cooler generates some serious heat when this thing is in action, so much so that it even comes with a warning label, something I haven’t seen on a notebook before. We measured the heat coming out of the CPU cooling port at 60 degrees Celsius (peak) when running 3D Mark in a 21 degree Air Conditioned office, the CPU itself was running at 65 degrees Celsius on load and about 41 degrees on idle. The port for the video card recorded similar temperatures for both load and idle also.
Couple the running temperature with the fact this thing weighs about 5kg and it’s certainly not something you’d run for a long period on your lap.
Running Gear:
The CPU in the N6460 is an Intel Core 2 Duo T7700, currently the fastest notebook CPU available on the market, running at 2.4GHz on an 800MHz Front Side Bus with 4MB of total L2 Cache, and even though it’s “just” a notebook CPU, this thing is seriously quick, bringing in a PCMark05 score if 5431, which is a whopping 800 points more than the T7500 based LifeBook E8410 we tested a couple of months back. Of course the extra memory helps the N6460 along to this great PCMark figure, with a total of 4GB as standard – even though the 32-Bit version of Vista that is installed only sees 3.3GB, with some lost to the Video Card and some just lost to the fact that the 32-Bit version of Vista that is loaded can only address a total of 4GB of RAM, which includes whatever video card memory is present. There’s no option for a 64-Bit version of Vista when making your purchase, which is a little disappointing.
The 4GB of RAM included with the N6460 is still the old, slow 667MHz DDR2 for some reason, even though there’s been 800MHz DDR2 notebook RAM available for a while now, and the N6460 runs a CPU with a 800MHz Front Side Bus. Considering the asking price of this notebook, you’d expect the best of everything, however in this area it’s just not the case, maybe I’m just being picky but I think it’s a little disappointing.
The video card in the N6460 is an ATi Mobility Radeon HD 2600 which has all the same features as its desktop brother, but with a slightly lower clock speed and a much lower video memory speed. Despite these concessions it still performs brilliantly both within Windows and in 3D applications. We tested the system in 3DMark06 and got back a score of 3587, which is between what you’d expect from a GeForce 8500GT and 8600GT on a desktop Core 2 Duo system, so its 3D performance is outstanding - for a notebook PC.
All of that 3D grunt is shoved through the N6460’s 17” Widescreen LCD, which I must say - is absolutely brilliant, easily the best notebook screen I’ve ever used. Running at its native resolution of 1440x900 (so no it can’t do full 1080 HD) the display is very crisp and sharp, and in terms of brightness it walks all over my old LG notebook, and even trumps the Samsung 940N sitting on my desk – you wouldn’t want to suddenly look at this thing after being in the dark – might go blind. :) The viewing angle of the screen is also the best I’ve seen for a notebook screen (for nearly any screen for that matter), even directly side on at say 85 degrees the image still looks the same, almost no change in contrast or colour at all, it’s really very impressive.
AV Features:
The N6460 is designed to be, and marketed as the best Multimedia laptop that Fujitsu could produce, and everything about it tells me its place in this world is on top of your amplifier hooked into your 50” LCD or Plasma screen with a big Hi-Fi setup.
The reason I see it this way is because of what this thing can do in this field, the included Blu-Ray drive and very capable processing and video card power will play 1080p high definition movies flawlessly, as well as record your programs or general data onto huge capacity (25/50GB) Blu-Ray discs. While the Blu-Ray drive takes care of your movies, Windows Media Centre (which is included with Vista Ultimate) takes care of all your music and video files with ease.
The TV Tuner/Video capture card allows the N6460 to act as a digital set top box for free to air transmissions, and will even allow you to plug your PayTV system into it as well, either as a pass through to make the N6460 the main control centre of your system, or have the notebook act as a digital video recorder – there’s certainly enough hard drive space to cater for it. Again all of this is handled through Windows Media Centre, there’s no third party or proprietary software required (or even included at all).
An infra-red Media Centre remote control is included with the N6460, complete with a USB receiver which has a cord around 2m long so it doesn’t have to sit right next to the laptop. The receiver also has two secondary input jacks, with one secondary receiver included which only picks up certain inputs from the remote control, such as TV inputs. So you can attach this mini secondary receiver to the edge of your TV and tuck your notebook away out of sight, then just point the remote at the TV like you normally would, no confusion over the controls.
As for outputting the signals out to your AV equipment, it can either be handled by a single HDMI cable if your AV system supports it, otherwise you’ve got S-Video or VGA/RGB output for the video signal, as well as HD Audio output through either a 3.5mm stereo jack, or 3.5mm SPDIF optical jack. Dolby Digital and DTS formats are supported, but not decoded by the notebook itself in any way, it relies on you having the appropriate hardware to decode the signal via the optical cable. There’s enough output options that you should be able to hook it up to any A/V system, just so long as it’s not a hundred years old and inherited from your grandfather.
Connectivity, Battery Life, Extras:
Connectivity options on the N6460 are fairly standard for a current day notebook PC, there’s the normal network/Ethernet port, which runs along nicely at gigabit speed, as well as a state of the art Intel Wireless-Draft-N Wi-Fi adapter to connect to and support every wireless speed and standard currently in mainstream operation. So network connectivity is as good as you could hope for. A 56k modem is also included, perhaps just for sentimental reasons more than anything else?
Considering the size and power of the LifeBook N6460 the battery is minuscule, a 6-cell Lithium-Ion 3200mAh item that even by Fujitsu’s own specs will last a maximum of 1 hour, heavy usage will see it gone in just 30 minutes. This really isn’t designed to be used on the run, with the battery only really useful for avoiding a shutdown sequence when switching power outlets, any longer than that and it’s likely to die on you. When running on battery power, even in “High Performance” mode, the performance takes a severe hit with everything slowing down dramatically. We could only manage a result of 2550 at best on PCMark under battery power, compared to 5431 when plugged in. So the message is – don’t run it on battery unless you really have to.
As for bonus extras there’s not a whole lot included that hasn’t already been mentioned, there’s the usual software inclusions you’d expect with a brand name notebook, such as CyberLink DVD/Blu-Ray playback and authoring software, as well as Norman Virus Control and Firewall with 1 year’s worth of updates, after that you’ll have to fork out some more cash to keep your system secure. A 60-day trial of Microsoft Office 2007 Professional comes pre-installed, to use it for longer than 60-days and you’ll need to pay Microsoft for an activation key.
Conclusion:
Overall the LifeBook N6460 is easily one of the fastest, most impressive and certainly most expensive notebook PC’s I’ve ever used. It’s price (AU$4600) makes it hard to see it as a ‘good value’ notebook, but when you consider the specs and the fact it comes with a Blu-Ray writer, which is around AU$1000 on its own, it’s makes a little more sense. Although there may seem to be similar spec notebooks out there for less, none of them are as good as the N6460, not yet anyway. They’re all slower, less HDD space, less RAM, lower quality and no Blu-Ray – so I guess you get what you pay for.
As we’ve mentioned before, the N6460 certainly isn’t made with portability as a high priority, it’s big, it’s heavy and it won’t last long on battery power, but when you have it hooked up to your home theatre system or even sitting on its own running a High Definition Blu-Ray movie it all makes sense.
The type of people who would buy a notebook like this would certainly be a very (!) small segment of the notebook PC market, so I think it will only be the real video and audiophiles who will be picking one of these up, but I’m sure they’ll love it.
OzHardware Rating – 9.1/10 – Highly Recommended!
This product can be purchased online at www.techbuy.com.au (Direct Link)
