Fujitsu LifeBook S6510
January 23rd, 2008 | by Josh Norem
Full Review
Features and design Centrino Power Video and Display Turbo Memory Protected gigs Wireless and Networking Battery life OS and software bundle Ports and Connectors Security
The S6510 is a notebook designed for corporate users, with corporate needs in mind. Paramount among those needs are reliability, security and portability.
This is a Centrino Duo notebook, so along with an Intel T7700 Core 2 Duo processor, which hums along at 2.4GHz and has 4MB of L2 cache, it also uses the new Intel 965 chipset, which has an 800MHz front side bus. This notebook has 4GB of DDR2 667MHz memory, but since it uses 32-bit Vista only 3.33GB is actually available to the operating system.
The star of the show here is the 14.1” LCD display, which is incredibly thin and is largely responsible for the notebook’s low weight. It’s a widescreen display with a glossy covering that Fujitsu calls Crystal View. Also contributing to the weight loss is the display’s magnesium alloy shell that is very thin yet incredibly rigid. The display is powered by onboard Intel graphics.
This notebook has something we have not seen before, which is Intel Turbo Memory. It’s a 1GB module of NAND flash memory that is integrated into the system to work alongside system RAM to improve performance. We think it’s similar to if you put a USB drive into your Vista machine and used it to improve system performance. According toIntel, “It works alongside your system's RAM to increase the efficiency of data movement between the processor and hard disk.”
Yes, it has turbo memory! It certainly reminded us of the old turbo buttons on PCs.
The S6510 has a shock-mounted 120GB 5,400rpm SATA hard drive. The drive’s orientation and movement are tracked in real-time by an onboard sensor that monitor’s drive movement on the X, Y and Z axes. If it detects too much movement, it retracts the read/write heads to a safe zone (away from your data) to prevent a head crash.
The Shock Sensor Utility measures drive movement along three axes to protect the drive.
All the wireless bases are covered, with wireless A/B/G/ and Draft-N WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet and support for Bluetooth.
The unit we received for review includes a 6-cell battery, which should be good for around 4.5 hours according to Fujitsu. Also, this notebook includes a modular bay that can accept an extra battery, which will push battery life up to 6.5 hours respectively.
Like any business notebook, the S6510 comes shipped with…Vista Business! Not a big surprise, as every corporate notebook we’ve reviewed has included this version of Vista. The notebook also includes trial versions of Norton Internet Security and Office 2007.
We see three USB ports, a Kensington lock, 56K modem and the DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW drive.
Here we have an Ethernet port, AC jack, VGA-out, 4-in-1 media reader and a PCMCIA slot.
The rear of the unit simply holds the 6-cell battery and another Kensington lock slot.
Like most corporate notebooks, the S6510 has a biometric fingerprint scanner. It can be used to both log into the Windows profile, and also to log into any websites that have a password field. The S6510 also has a “security panel,’ which is a row of numbered keys below the LCD. These can be used as a “combination lock” of sorts that would require the user to press the correct code to boot the PC. This notebook also has a TPM module, which in the future might be used for user verification and enhanced data security.
You can log into both the computer and password-protected websites via the fingerprint scanner.
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by Al on February 1, 2008:
“Good review but there was a huge oversight in praising the built in 3.5G connectivity. This main feature, plus the CPU power convinces me to by this unit... ” More...