Fujitsu drops its prices to bring us a more wallet-friendly notebook with zippy performance and USB 3.0, but at what overall cost?
Once limited to the upper end of the laptop market, with laptops that cost more than a small car, Fujitsu has recently set its sights on the Average Joe, with laptops targeting a more palatable pricing range. The AH551 is one such example, arriving at half the price usually associated with Fujitsu machines. Has the company had to compromise its stellar quality standards and reputation for high tech to make this laptop more budget-friendly?
It might be built from affordable plastic, but the glistening metallic finish certainly doesn't look cheap. The screen has a little more flex than we'd like, yet overall the build quality feels solid and sturdy. A full-sized keyboard, including numpad, is present, along with a unique secondary touch pad that enables quick scrolling and zooming.
The 1,366 x 768 15.6-inch screen isn't exactly high-def, but it's great at reproducing rich, vibrant colours. Powering this is the underwhelming NVIDIA GeForce 310M GPU; fine for movie playback but not fast enough for today's games. Backing up this GPU is the Intel i5 M460 CPU, capable of a healthy 2.53GHz when under load. Combined with 2GB of DDR3 1,066MHz memory (upgradable to 8GB), the performance is responsive, with the overall PCMark Vantage score a very zippy 5,497.
A nice addition is the inclusion of two USB 3.0 ports, though the other two are plain old USB 2.0. There's also an HDMI output, but the lack of Blu-ray means most folks won't bother using it.
Other than the USB 3.0 ports, we're left with a laptop that's rather unremarkable. While the build quality feels above average, the overall feature set and specs are very similar to many other me-too laptops, but at almost five hundred dollars higher in cost. As a result, we'll have to pass on this one, and hope that Fujitsu can continue to bring its costs more in line with competing manufacturers, without sacrificing the goodies the company is known for.
Available from Fujitsu, retailing for $1,699.
APC rating: 7/10