| Article Index |
|---|
| Fujitsu LifeBook P7230PD Notebook Review |
| Page 2 - Style, Design |
| Page 3 - CPU, Memory, Screen |
| Page 4 - Connectivity, Battery Life, Extras |
| Page 5 - Conclusion |
| All Pages |
Style and Design:
The P7230 is part of Fujitsu’s “Personality” range of notebooks, all of which are designed to have sleek lines and be good looking in every sense, not just your typical boring notebook design. The P7230 pulls this off without a hitch, it’s a brilliant looking notebook that you wouldn’t be afraid to pull out of your bag while amongst the most pretentious and style conscious of latte drinkers or in front of potential clients for your big presentation.
We have a rather nice white version here with us today, however the P7230 is also available in black or maroon, no such thing as boring silver, beige or grey for this lot. Being practical though, I would have to say white would not be my choice, I would have the black model, because you just know that 6 months to a year down the track, the brilliant white finish on the notebook is not going to have the same lustre, it’s just a fact of life that it’s going to get dirty and be a pain to keep it looking as good as it does today.
The design and layout of the P7230 is rather simplistic however very practical. There is one USB port on each side of the notebook giving you easy access, sadly a total of 2 ports isn’t a lot in this day and age, and I think the flash card reader could have been incorporated better, as it sticks out like a bit of sore thumb at the front and disturbs the look and feel of the overall design, hiding it on the side would have been a better option. At the rear of the notebook there are the network and modem ports, one near each corner surrounding the battery, which maintains a clean symmetrical appearance at the back.
Fujitsu have managed to keep the standard 82-key keyboard using normal size keys unlike some other micro-size notebooks out there, so when you’re doing work on it you don’t FEEL like you’re using a tiny notebook. The touchpad is smaller than average, but still a very usable size and the cursor buttons below the touchpad only require a feather light touch to operate. A fingerprint scanner is also included below the touchpad, which can be used for security or simply as a scroll device like the scroll wheel on a mouse, nice and handy but doesn’t work nearly as well as a real scroll wheel.
Above the keyboard are the power buttons and LEDs, next to the power button is an ‘ECO’ button, which when pressed will put the notebook into Eco-mode, which disables the Firewire, network, modem ports and DVD drive, lowers the screen brightness to 50% and disables the PC Card slot and flash card reader, all at the press of a button to give maximum possible battery life. This is all supported under Vista Business which we’re running here today, however I can’t comment on support for this feature under XP Pro, which is also available on the P7230.
