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Fujitsu LifeBook P7120 Notebook

78

Good

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Pros
Two-battery option
Power-savings button
Cons
Small screen
Slow CPU and hard drive

Performance: Good: 73
Features: Very Good: 82
Design: Very Good: 82

Find out how these scores, and their relative weights, combine to produce the PC World Rating.

Performance
ACD Systems ACDSee	1042
Adobe Photoshop	547
Adobe Premiere	749
Ahead Nero	1258
Battery Life (Office Applications)	6:26
Discreet 3ds Max DirectX	561
Discreet 3ds Max OpenGL	1010
Doom 3, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit	3.1
Far Cry, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit	4.69
Microsoft Office XP	638
Mozilla	606
Musicmatch Jukebox	917
Number of Included Batteries	1
Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 1024 by 768, 16-Bit	32.9
Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit	32.13
Roxio VideoWave	626
Unreal Tournament, 1024 by 768, 16-Bit	54.93
Unreal Tournament, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit	41.22
Windows Media Encoder	724
WinZip	659
World Bench 5 Score	60
World Bench 5 Word Score	Poor

WorldBench Tests
Multitasking	1200

What You Should Know about the LifeBook P7120 Notebook

Not Much RAM for Multitasking

The more RAM your laptop has, the faster programs will run and the greater number of windows you can work in at one time. If your needs are simple and you rarely do more than two things at once on your PC, the relatively modest amount of memory that comes installed in inexpensive laptops will be enough. Today the standard amount of RAM shipped in most PCs is 2GB. If you like to multitask--say, you want to launch a search for a file and start backing up data to a disc while you watch a news video--you need more memory.

Reviewed by: sandina

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: small, light, fast

Weaknesses: hot, hot, hot--beware of burns (or worse, your hard drive melting down your keyboard and other parts)

Overall Evaluation: I have been undergoing an excruciating repair process with Fujitsu since Aug 2006 (it's mid-Oct now). What happened? 1) I got my brand new baby, and after a week, I accidentally left it on for 12 hr straight and when I woke up, the keyboard had melted. Upon waking and discovering this, I immediately tried to cool down the computer, and I literally could not touch it! Once cooled, I found that the keys had warped, and the processor seemed to have slowed to a crawl, among other things. 2) I bought the computer in the US, but I live overseas. I contacted local customer service. No response. I called so many times, I finally gave up. I emailed international customer service. I got the UK office. They said that I could only obtain customer service by calling a certain toll-free #. Good if you live in the UK, but I don't. I asked that they call me or contact me by other means. They said no. After much back and forth and recommendation from a friend who also had problems in getting her computer fixed via the Fujitsu UK Customer Service, I contacted the US office. They were very friendly and nice. 3) We agreed that I would wait until end of Aug when I happened to be in the US to send the computer in. I won't get into the story about how long it took to get the right shipping box and label in order to ship it back, or the lack of follow-up and the number of phone calls I made to Fujitsu. 4) Finally, returned! Wait, there's a problem. The cover and hand rest was scratched during repair. The bottom right corner looks so very old, despite my having used the computer a week prior to repair. Keys on the keyboard have buckled and warped again. Can't say for the processor, as I don't have the proper machines to test speed, but it seems OK. CONCLUSION: this fanless model (yes, I know all about the liquid cooling systems being more efficient. My previous job was to import power supplies and other computer components from China and Taiwan) does not cool down the computer properly. Now, whenever I use it at home, I have a laptop cooler with two fans running under it constantly. Makes it more manageable, but really, it makes it no longer portable. Previous laptop: Sony Vaio--worked for me for 4 years until I bought this one. That one still works. This one doesn't. Next time, I guess I'll have to put up the extra $700 for their comparable laptop. Wish I had done it in the first place. Also: if you have any tips about getting better customer service and computer repair, then I would be happy to exchange tips.