Fujitsu Lifebook NH751 review

Fujitsu might be better known for its business laptops, but the company also makes models that focus on multimedia. The NH751 is the latest addition; the 17.3in giant may not be ideal for taking on the move, but the internal Blu-ray writer and Full HD screen make it ideal as a desk-bound machine.

The plain looks and unassuming black lid belie the multimedia powerhouse underneath. However, open it up and the two large speaker grilles above the keyboard tell a different story. There are a further three speakers hidden on the underside of the laptop, including one to handle bass, but it struggled to produce decent power, even at full volume. Overall sound quality was reasonable, but still no match for a set of speakers or headphones.

More impressive than the underwhelming audio was the Full HD screen. The small text was initially difficult to read, so we increased the default Windows font size to compensate. Viewing angles weren’t great, with a noticeable lack of contrast unless we sat face-on to the screen, but colours looked natural and brightness was high. You can also connect an external display using the VGA and HDMI outputs.

The NH751 is no slouch when it comes to 2D performance. Its second generation Intel Core i7-2630QM processor, which can use Turbo Boost to increase its four cores from 2GHz to 2.9GHz, and 4GB of RAM, completed our multimedia benchmarks with an overall score of 73. This places it among the fastest laptops we’ve reviewed, so it will easily cope with any application. A 750GB hard disk should also be large enough for a sizeable multimedia collection.

Even though the dedicated Nvidia GeForce GT 525M graphics card is more than capable of playing HD video, it isn’t as well suited to playing games. In our Dirt 3 test it managed a smooth 36.3fps, but once we raised the resolution to 1,920×1,080 it couldn’t deliver a playable minimum frame rate without sacrificing quality levels.

Considering the powerful components inside it, a battery life of just over three hours in our light-use test is unsurprising, even with Nvidia’s Optimus technology disabling the graphics card to reduce power consumption. This result, when combined with its weight, means we wouldn’t expect many people to be taking the NH751 on the move; at 3.6kg, it’s definitely a heavyweight.

In terms of storage, the Blu-ray drive is a highlight. It’s capable of writing Blu-ray discs as well as reading them, so you can back up huge amounts of data and burn HD home movies. A multi-format memory card reader, ExpressCard/54 slot, a shared eSATA/USB port and three extra USB ports are also welcome inclusions, but it’s a shame none of them support USB3.

We had no trouble typing on the full-size keyboard, despite the keys being very closely grouped together. We rarely made errors thanks to the reasonable amount of tactile feedback, although the entire tray flexes significantly under pressure. The small touchpad felt cramped compared to the huge screen, but was still responsive. Oddly, multi-touch gestures were disabled by default, but once we’d turned them on they were mostly accurate. We did find ourselves tapping the touchpad for mouse clicks more often than usual, because the physical buttons felt spongy and not particularly satisfying to use.

The NH751 is one of the few laptops we’re happy calling a ‘desktop replacement’, as it has many of the features we would expect to see in a desktop PC, excepting USB3. If you can live with a Blu-ray player rather than a writer, a 1,600×900 screen and a slower processor, the excellent HP dv7-6051ea (which has USB3 support and better battery life) would be a good alternative. However, if you’ll use the extra power, resolution and ability to write to Blu-ray discs, the NH751 is worth the extra £200.