Measuring the same dimensions as a CD cover, albeit one 5cm tall, the Q900 is a regular PC that’s been hit with a shrink ray.
Despite the tiny dimensions, Fujitsu has delivered a full-blown Windows 7 machine in the ESPRIMO Q900 and one that will happily serve as a mini-server or desktop, even if you live in a cupboard.
Powering this novel-sized PC is the Intel i5-2520M, a chip originally destined for notebooks but put to good use here. The dual-core performance is perfectly fine for running single applications, though it probably won’t handle too much heavy lifting. Fujitsu has leveraged this chip’s integrated graphics – Intel HD Graphics 3000 – to deliver to the display. This can handle HD decoding with ease, but the slot-loading drive is a mere DVD model and there’s no option to upgrade to Blu-ray, which is a real missed opportunity.
Fujitsu obviously never intended this to be a media player, however, as there’s also no HDMI out, nor S/PDIF. Instead, you’ll have to use the DisplayPort or DVI-I out, combined with three 3.5 minijacks for audio. Thankfully, there are five USB 2.0 ports, plus another couple of USB 3.0, allowing for plenty of external devices to be plugged in. One of these will inevitably house a Wi-Fi dongle, as the only built-in network connectivity is a single Gigabit Ethernet connection.
As a simple desktop machine we’re rather impressed with the performance, delivering a very healthy 1,974 points in 3DMark 7. It’s more of a proof of concept machine than a viable desktop replacement, though, as it lacks many of the features we’d expect at such a high price.
Available from Fujitsu, retailing for $799.
APC rating: 7/10