Fujitsu LifeBook B

The B6110D's six-cell battery was a champ in our tests, lasting a little over 5 hours. Configured with a 1.2-GHz Pentium M Ultra Low Voltage 753 CPU, 512MB of memory, and Windows XP Professional, the unit turned in a decent WorldBench 5 score of 61. It's no speedster, but it should be fine for any mainstream application, including undemanding graphics work.

The black-and-silver B6110D is nicely designed, with a dedicated CF reader and a PC Card slot that's Smart Card ready (requiring only a $60 adapter). The B6110D also includes a user-accessible hard drive and memory slots. One drawback: The Wi-Fi switch is inconveniently located on the back, where using it was unnecessarily awkward.

A few things are missing. One reason the notebook's minimum weight (3.4 pounds) is so low is that the unit doesn't include an integrated optical drive. An external USB combination DVD-ROM and CD-RW combo drive costs $229; we did not receive one with our test unit. Also, there is no external DVD burner option. Though the notebook has two USB ports, it lacks FireWire and TV-out ports. DVD movies looked fine on the small screen, but the B6110D's weak stereo speakers--which emit sound from the top corners of the keyboard--didn't add much to the experience.

In general, the keyboard is easy to type on, despite some compromises. I didn't like that the small gray keyboard requires combination keystrokes for paging up or down, and it seemed wasteful to dedicate the upper right corner of the keyboard to the <Pause>/<Break> command instead of to the far more essential <Delete> key, which sits right next to it. The keyboard does supply two bonuses: an all-in-one system status LCD, and Fujitsu's dual-purpose security and application panel. You can program the panel's five numbered buttons to require a password sequence at startup and to launch your favorite applications once the notebook is turned on. For an extra $50, you can order the B6110D with a fingerprint reader between the mouse buttons in place of the standard vertical scroll button. A thorough printed manual covers the notebook's features, and a PDF manual details the security and application panel.

Upshot: If you don't mind using an external optical drive, the Fujitsu LifeBook B6110D Series is a handy little touch-screen notebook with hours of battery life.

Carla Thornton