Fujitsu Siemens AMILO A1630 - Athlon 64 3200+ 2 GHz - 15.4" TFT

Author's product rating:   

Speed	Very fast
Look & Feel	Good
Comfort & Portability	Good
Robustness & Durability	Good
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Great VALUE !  Athlon 64 processor, fairly sleek
Disadvantages:	Graphics card starting to show age now

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I purchased this laptop a few months ago to replace my aging but trusty IBM ThinkPad T20. I had a budget of £750 and considered many laptops, but finally decided on the Fujitsu Siemens Amilo A1630 laptop. I chose it because of the fast Athlon 64 processor and 128mb ATi MR9700 dedicated graphics card.

Specification:

* AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Clawhammer 2.0GHz processor (1MB cache).
* 512MB DDR RAM (2x 256MB) PC2700, 333MHz.
* 40GB (4200rpm, 2mb cache) hard drive.
* 128mb ATi Mobility Radeon 9700 dedicated graphics.
* 15.4" widescreen 1280 x 800 display.
* Integrated 802.11b/g Ralink wireless.
* NEC ND-6500A DVD+/-RW dual layer.
* Memory card reader- SD, MMC and Memory Stick.
* Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition.
* Software bundle- Microsoft Works Suite, Adobe Photoshop Elements, WinDVD, Nero CD Maker.
* 3.6kg weight.
* Dimensions = 358 x 269 x 36mm.
* 1 year collect & return warranty.

The chassis of the laptop is a Uniwill 258KA0.

Appearance/Construction:
The laptop is bigger and heavier than my old ThinkPad, but it is a desktop replacement laptop. The design is fairly stylish. Not as stylish as an Apple Powerbook, but simple grey with a silver trim and a black base. The build quality is fairly good, but not as solid as a ThinkPad. There is a bit of screen wobble and creaking, but feels quite solid.

The keyboard is nice and solid with good depth and spacing. There is no flexing either. The only minor annoyance is that the keys are a matte white colour which get dirty quickly. I do miss the little LED light above the keyboard which IBM's have to work in dark conditions.

The touchpad is OK, but being used to a Trackpoint it took a while to get used to. It is nice and responsive and is the same aspect ratio as the screen. There is a scrollbar on the side and a rocker button between the two main buttons for scrolling websites, documents etc. Sometimes when typing, I accidentally brush the touchpad so the cursor moves across the screen which is annoying. A touchpad on/off button would be useful here.

Screen:
The screen is a 15.4" widescreen, running at 1280 x 800. It is not a glossy type (which would have been nice), but I am not too bothered about this. It is nice and bright, evenly lit and produces a nice sharp picture. There were no dead pixels on the screen and there is no light leakage. You can have two pages of text side by side open and it offers more width than a standard XGA display. The viewing angle is also good; it remains clear and readable from all positions. The only minor issue is that there is no little LED light above the screen like ThinkPads for working in darker conditions. If only more manufacturers started incorporating this feature.

Below are a pair of stereo speakers, but like most laptop speakers they are useless and sound tinny and lack bass. I use my Logitech X230 2.1 speakers which sound excellent (especially for metal!) and Sennheiser earphones if I am away with my laptop.

Performance:
I purchased the AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz) processor model (it is available also in 3000+, 3400+ and 3700+ models). It is a powerful 64 bit CPU, so I would be able to run 64 bit applications and operating systems in the future. It seems adequate for my needs, and can cope with media encoding and gaming fine.

Graphical performance is very good for the price, as this notebook had the best graphics card in my price range. Although the 128mb ATi Mobility Radeon 9700 is a fairly good card, it is starting to show its age now. I get an average of 40fps in Need for Speed Underground 2 (at medium detail 1024x768. There is no widescreen mode). It does still look good on the widescreen display, crisp, sharp and no visible ghosting.

Half Life 2 runs OK at 1280x800 in medium detail settings. I tested the start of the first stage of the game, and the frame rate ranges from 20fps to 80fps, but average is 40-50fps. There are large jumps in frame rate (sometimes stuttering and pausing for a second) and constant hard disk access. I attempted to run at high detail, but it took a long time doing something then warned that I was running low on memory. I think an upgrade of RAM (and possibly hard drive) is essential for gaming.

For older games, I can run at full settings with 60fps+, but newer games need to be turned down to medium or low settings, which is fine for me. I am not a hardcore gamer and just like to play a few hours a week. If I was, then I would have custom built a desktop.

Benchmarks:
Startup = 43 sec
Shut down = 13 sec
SuperPi (1million places) = 45 sec
3DMark01se = 11,872 / 3DMark03 = 3,328 / 3DMark05 = 1676
PCMark04 = 3701

I did overclock the graphics card a bit, which increased performance in games and the 3DMark01se score went over 13,000. It probably could go higher, but I decided to leave it at stock values to prevent damage or overheating.

There are 2 fans in the laptop- one for processor and one for the graphics card. The processor fan is constantly running on low speed, and is audiable but not disturbing. It may occasionally spin up for a few minutes but slows down again soon after. When doing processor intensive work, it will spin up and the second fan spins when gaming.

Ports and Connectivity:
There are many I/O ports in the laptop: PC card, 4 pin firewire, SD/MMC/Memory stick card reader, 10/100 ethernet, modem, 3x USB 2.0 ports, s-video, infrared, VGA, parallel and a Kensington lock space. There is also a dual layer DVD +/- RW drive. For audio, there is a headphone/SPDIF digital output, line in and microphone. The audio ports can be configured for 5.1 surround speakers by changing the headphone to front speakers, line in to rear speakers and microphone for centre/sub.

There is also integrated 802.11g wireless for connecting to wireless hotspots and networks, and infrared to connect to phones, PDAs etc. Unfortunately there is no integrated bluetooth, but a USB dongle can be cheaply purchased.

Battery Life:
The battery supplied is an 8 cell 4400mAh lithium ion pack. It slots into the right side of the notebook. I purchased this laptop as a desktop replacement, so battery life was not a major issue as it would be almost constantly plugged into the mains. I remove the battery when running on mains constantly to prevent damage to it.

When it is on battery, the processor throttles down from 2000MHz to 800MHz and the screen dims slightly.

I get around 75 mins watching a DVD and 150 mins when browsing the net or word proccessing.

Conclusion:
Overall this is a great value desktop replacement notebook. With a few simple upgrades of RAM and hard drive, it would be perfect and last me a good few years (especially with the 64 bit processor).

I have also purchased a digital PCMCIA TV tuner and 200GB external hard drive to use as a TV and PVR. I also purchased Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 which makes it easier to watch and record TV.

Click here for a picture of the laptop:
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a38/wicker_man666/mce1.jpg

After this laptop, I am going to custom build a powerful desktop for gaming and buy a 15" Apple Powerbook for portable computing.