Review: Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P7230 notebook computer

It’s not the lightest but it is one of the smallest and a fair all-rounder

The Lifebook P7230 weighs a diminutive 1.36kg and houses the smallest display on test. Measuring 10.6in, it’s bright and has a high resolution, although its 1,280x768 resolution gives it a rarely seen 5:3 aspect ratio.

Fujitsu Siemens says the screen is backlit by LEDs rather than two traditional lamps, which is supposed to be a low-powered, slimmer and brighter option. The big benefit in our opinion is that the display should be evenly lit, but we still spotted significant backlight bleed which ruins movies.

Our test model featured an ultra-low-voltage Core Solo U1400 running at 1.2GHz with 2MB of L2 cache, 1GB of Ram and a 60GB hard disk with a slow 4,200rpm rotation speed, typical of the tiny 1.8in disks in this test.

The U1400 has a thermal design point (TDP, which describes the maximum heat dissipation and therefore maximum energy consumption) of 5.5W, six times less than regular Core 2 Duo processors.

It produced a fabulous battery life score of six hours and 29 minutes, but this comes at the expense of system performance, which was rock bottom.

Fujitsu Siemens says a refresh of the P7230 is right around the corner. It will remain the same apart from a faster processor (the U2500 with two 1.2GHz cores) and a 1.3-megapixel webcam, rather than the 0.3-megapixel version used here. While the U2500 has a higher TDP, it will be an even better package.

The P7230’s party trick is having rough felt fabric on the base of the chassis that makes it less prone to sliding off your lap. Other features include two USB ports (one too few, in our opinion) and two reasonable speakers.

Our first impressions of the P7230 were extremely favourable, but we tired of the small screen and found the squashed spacebar and small trackpad a pain.The Panasonic CF-W7 is faster, lighter and better value for money.

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This article is part of a group test, see also:
1 Introduction
2 The great weight conundrum
3 Acer Travelmate 6292 review
4 Advent 8112 review
5 Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P7230 review
6 Hi-Grade Notino D2200 review
7 HP Compaq 2710p review
8 HP Pavilion TX-1260ea review
9 Lenovo Thinkpad X61 review
10 MSI PR200-064UK review
11 Panasonic Toughbook CF-W7 review
12 Samsung Q45-A007 review
13 Toshiba Portégé R500-10U review
14 Performance graphs, page 1 of 2
15 Performance graphs, page 2 of 2
16 Replacement battery costs
17 Conclusion and awards