Fujitsu Lifebook P701 review

Fujitsu’s Lifebook P701 is an ultra-portable designed for business use, and comes with features for corporations, including a TPM module for secure encryption, and a SmartCard reader and fingerprint reader for secure login. However, some of the other business-oriented features also offer benefits to the average user, such as the ExpressCard slot, the non-reflective 12.1in screen and the copy of Windows 7 Professional.

The latter gives you more features than Home Premium, with support for older Windows XP applications and Remote Desktop, amongst other things. The ExpressCard slot, which supports the smaller 34mm cards, lets you add peripherals such as TV tuners or extra ports. The screen is intended for office environments, where bright strip-lighting will create annoying reflections on glossy screens.

The downside is that it also dulls colours, and has a fine grain that can spoil areas of uniform, light colour. It has a 16:10 aspect ratio rather than the more popular 16:9 aspect ratio of consumer laptop screens, with a resolution of 1,280×800. In practice there’s very little difference between the two aspect ratio and no clear advantage to either. We found colours to be natural, but dull, and contrast wasn’t great, although the backlight was bright and even.

In keeping with the business tone, the internal speakers were tinny and harsh, but loud and clear enough to convey spoken word, so they’re ideal for Skype or dictations, but not great for music or films.