New Laptop - Fujitsu Lifebook S6150 - First Impression

I am typing this blog entry on a brand new laptop, a Fujitsu Lifebook S6150, which I picked up yesterday. This will be "first impressions", and I will write a more complete review over the weekend.

First Impression - WOW! I haven't been this impressed with a new laptop in quite some time. I've been a loyal Lifebook customer for quite some time now - at least my last five laptops have been Lifebooks. They have all been solid, well designed, well built and well supported. Even against that good record, though, this one really seems to stand out.

The best part is certainly the 14" display, with 1200x800 resolution. It has a lot more than that going for it, though - Intel Core 2 Duo CPU (mine is 2.2 GHz), 2 Gb memory, and mine also has 1 Gb Intel Turbo Memory, and came preloaded with Windows Vista Business. It will be interesting to see how Vista on this one compares to my struggles with Vista on the S2110.

One thing that I noticed, and appreciated, is that all of the connections have been moved from the back to the sides of the laptop. It is SO much easier to connect things when you just have to look at the side of the computer, rather than leaning over the screen and practically standing on your head to see what you are doing. There are plenty of connections, too - three USB ports, rather than the usual two, an IEEE1394 (FireWire), SD/MS media slot, PCMCIA, ethernet, modem and 802.11b/g/n wireless.

So far setup and software installation has been smooth and easy. I have installed and tested Gizmo, which went without a hitch and the audio quality was just fine using the built-in microphone and speakers. I have also installed SightSpeed, and it worked perfectly the first try as well, using the built-in microphone, speakers and webcam! I got the usual first-time warning from SightSpeed about the webcam not being one they had tested, and as usual it worked perfectly. I also tried to install Skype, and it was a dismal failure. First it had trouble with the Realtek audio, and after I had spent far too much time fighting with that, it also had a problem with the built-in webcam - I got a black box where the local video preview should have been. I really don't understand why Skype still has this much trouble when the others install without a hitch, but since I don't have FOUR DAYS to wait for a reply, I'm not going to bother trying to report it to Skypw Support. I'll give it another try tomorrow, when I have more time and my patience has been restored.

I've also started installing the usual utilities and applications, but I have quite a way to go with that yet. I'll write a more complete review once I have most of those installed, and I've had more time to test and really get a feel for it.