Fujitsu LifeBook T1010

Battery life is good too, lasting a healthy 3 hours, 46 minutes on a single charge, according to the PC World Test Center. It falls right in line with expectations--maybe a little better than the average performance for an all-purpose machine. Fortunately, that battery doesn't weigh you down. The T1010 starts at 5.3 pounds--while it isn't super-light, the model is light enough to be a good mobile solution.

The notebook's 13.3-inch touch-screen display accepts input from both your fingers and the trackpad. The screen's hinge feels solid and swivels in both directions for conversion to tablet mode. The stylus works well, but I am not a fan of the touch input. For example, if you're like me and you rest your hand on the surface while you write, the T1010 will pick up the input from your hand, something I found to be particularly frustrating when using the tablet feature.

Maybe it's due to the touch-screen treatment, but the panel itself is rather mediocre: Colors look dull, and text appears fuzzy on the 1280-by-800-pixel screen. And I have to say this again: Nobody will be buying this laptop as a multimedia showstopper. If you want to see a crisp, colorful image of what's happening on-screen, keep looking. The speakers are lacking overall as well; I found the audio to be tinny, with some distortion at higher pitches when I had the volume turned up. However, you'll find the same problem in most all-purpose notebooks.

The T1010 features sturdy construction, though it's a little bland on the design side. The keyboard is quite possibly this laptop's strongest point, with a solid feel and great tactile response. The trackpad, while not amazingly large, is big enough to use comfortably, and its buttons are plenty big and satisfyingly clicky.

Not happy with the mousepad? The notebook features three USB ports--two in the rear and one on the left-hand side.

Taken as a whole, the Fujitsu LifeBook T1010 is not a machine with much in the way of sex appeal, nor is it a good gaming or multimedia notebook. However, the T1010 makes for a nice-performing general-purpose notebook. Sometimes that's all you need.

--Darren Gladstone