Fujitsu Siemens AMILO Pi 2540

This review is for the Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pi 2540 laptop.
In the box

In the box which you are given you have initially the laptop. The laptop is safely secured and fastened down by some tight plastic sheeting.
On the outside of the sheeting you have the power connector and you have underneath the laptop plenty of manuals. The manuals are guides on how to use the laptop and also information about registering your laptop online.

There is also a few discs included and one of them is a power management disc which is to be used when you need drivers reinstalling on the computer which might be lost and the other disc is for you to install some programs which might have gone missing as well.
All of these items are securely packaged and in a very solid box.

Design
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One of the key reasons for my purchase of this laptop was because of the colour. You have this solid black colour and on the screen and the backing you have this shinier colour which is fantastic.

On the front of the laptop you have the latches which open the laptop and they are very easy to use and will open the laptop instantly without any hassle at all. On the outside of the laptop on the front panel you have got the wireless connector switch which is quite large and not that hard to miss.

Down the right hand side you have got memory card slot and a USB connection. On the left hand side you have the CD Rom section which is easy to see and next to this you have got speakers and headphone connections.

On the back you have 2 more USB connections and an Ethernet port to connect to the internet. You have the power cable which goes in the back and also the connection to connect your laptop to your television.
Underneath the laptop is where the battery is situated and if you ever need to take the battery out there are two easy switches which release the battery for any reason.

On the inside of the laptop you have some silver buttons at the top and one is the power button and the other one is the fan button which does nothing at all. The keys on the keyboard are black with silver digits imprinted onto them to give them depth. The touch pad is black and at the front just below the keys. You have plenty of room to rest your hands when typing with this laptop which is also a key design feature.

Setup
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The setup process is fairly easy to use for this laptop. You begin by pressing the power button and you are given details of the laptop and then it takes you after five minutes to the screen which tells you to set up the windows Vista package.

You need to type in your name, the date and other key information. The most important information is you setting up a profile and a password which you need to remember. Once you have done all this which can take a short amount of time your computer will restart and when it loads back up it tells you it is going through stage 1 of 3 in installing all the software it feels it needs.

After every step is complete you will find the laptop will restart and then load back up again. On the final 3rd time it will load up to the username section and ask you to log into the system with the details you supplied earlier on.

Once the system finally loads up into the computer itself you are given random pop ups which welcome you to the system and some give you a guided tour of the computer and what it offers you. You will find that the antivirus you have is Norton but only for 90 days before the subscription runs out and that will run a scan on the computer and let you know of any problems.

You then have got to try and understand the computer and it will ask you to do backup discs. The backup discs are essential because if the computer has major problems in the future where the computer fails to work accordingly you will need the backup discs to set the computer back to settings which worked before.
Once you have done this you are then complete and ready to explore the computer and have plenty of fun.

Features
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The laptop weighs 3kg and to me that is not too bad and you will not notice this because the weight is spread out all over and makes the laptop very even.

The laptop is 3.7cm in height, 27.2cm in width and 36cm in depth. Overall the laptop is an average size which you would expect to see anywhere.
You have a 15.4 inch which is about standard for most laptops and nothing which is over the top.

The screen resolution is 1280 x 800 pixels which in my view could be better but it is overall a very good resolution to have for a computer.

There is 320 GB of memory on this computer. The memory is spread over 2 hard drivers and each with 160 GB attached to it. I think the amount you get in memory is very good and most laptops have half of this total.

There is a 2mb cache which again is very good most laptops have just 1mb cache and with it being 2mb cache means the computer runs better.
The processor itself is only 2 GHz and I have to admit I think it lets the computer down slightly. You have fantastic values for everything else but the overall processor sort of lets it down a bit.

There is 3GB DDR Ram which means the computer runs very fast. The higher the DDR Ram the better the speed of the computer and this speed is fantastic.

The laptop has 3 USB ports which is good; you could use one for a mouse, another for an external hard drive and another for perhaps downloading music onto a walkman, so there are good possibilities there.
The battery life is 2 hours and 30 mins and I think overall that is not the best at all and could do with improving.

The graphics card has 256mb dedicated for the graphics and a further 787mb shared graphics so overall you are getting a large figure for the graphics and it shows with this laptop for sure.
You also have a memory card holder which can have SD cards, memory sticks, multi media cards and more all used inside to work on the laptop.

Key Parts
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The mouse pad is one the key parts to the laptop and it is very easy to use. The amount of sensitivity is quite good in my view. The mouse pad is quite clear to see, it is very easy to use and the buttons underneath do make a rather annoying clicking sound but other than that it does work extremely well.

The webcam is the worst feature for the laptop in my view. It is situated on the lid which you open and faces you and is 1.3 mega pixels. You turn it on via pressing the F7 key on the computer and the light shines on and then you can see yourself on webcam. The problem is that you're sitting down and no matter how hard you try you cannot get level with the webcam and if you do you find you can hardly make out of the images displayed by this. So the webcam is pointless and a waste of time using.
The sound for the computer is superb and without speakers you can hear the sound from a long distance away. The sound has integrated HD audio which is evident throughout the laptop and how the laptop sends out those sound waves.

The screen has got widescreen capability which is good and when you are watching DVDs on the laptop it displays a superb image and it has the true bright features which makes the screen one of the best features for the laptop. If you happen to clean the laptop and find that you worry it might cause damage I can assure people I have spilt water on the screen by accident and it remained working perfectly well.

The wireless feature was another huge reason why I purchased this laptop and I find that with the wireless connection it is very easy to use and you can find wireless device fairly easily with this laptop. The problem is when you are typing on the computer your hand only needs to touch the switch gentle and you are then taken off the wireless as the switch has been turned off. So there is a slight issue there but it is a good feature to have.

The graphics card is a really good one. You have the potential for HD graphics on the laptop itself which sounds impressive and it is. The graphics are always displayed with crisp images and state of the art HD quality and even when you play games you notice how good they are with this laptop, so the graphics card is a huge bonus.

The dual layer DVD rewriting drive is definitely a great feature as well. I think the speed at which this device can rip music or other items to a disc for storage is very good and one of the other reasons this item is definitely worth purchasing. Please not this is not a blu-ray DVD player.

Good Points
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The laptop is very easy to setup which is certainly a good point to have. The way it allows you to know step by step what is going on and what will happen is a huge benefit especially to the new users of laptops who are unsure of what is going on with the initial power up.

I think the features are good for what they include. You have superb graphics which are definitely going to be the highlight of the computer for me. I like playing the odd game here and there and some laptops struggle to keep them going and the graphics looking good and this laptop manages to do that.

The actual laptop in terms of speed is superb, and when you want to load an application up they instantly pop up and they are so easy to use as well. I think when you have a laptop which is fast it saves you frustration and makes you aware of a great purchase decision you made.

The laptops colour is good as well and I say that because it doesn't look so dirty and it looks more stylish. I do not like the boring silver laptops and I find they are everywhere and this laptop being black adds more style to the laptop and much more appeal to potential buyers.

The sound is fantastic and I find that I can hear music without the addition of speakers added on the side so the sound is very strong and extremely easy to use so that certainly is a great feature to have overall as well.

I find the buttons very nice as well they seem to go down when pressed very easily and none of them feel stiff or to solid to move and they are easy to clean as well. If you happen to find you want to clean the keys for any reason you can remove them and clean them very quickly and place them back as well in the same positions quite simply.

The final good point I like is how the connections are all scattered round the laptop. You do not have all the connections on one side of the laptop which makes it much easier to use. You have the USB connections in a few locations and you have room to have extra connections if they wanted to place any more there.

Bad Points
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I think the bad point is the webcam. Some people might buy this laptop purely for the purpose of having a webcam installed on the system and yet the graphics displayed are very poor. You will struggle to find a way to improve the graphics and even get yourself on the screen either so there is a big issue with the webcam.

I think the other problem is the heat. The laptop does not get warm underneath but where you place your hand to rest on the laptop itself, which has this area for you to do that, the heat you can feel is immense and you end up picking your hand up because you get to warm. I think they could have put something there to protect you and not encourage you to get burnt.

I think the battery life is poor. The battery has life for 2 and half hours and I find if you use wireless internet then the battery life is just 45 minutes at most. The wireless internet rips into the battery and makes it very weak extremely quickly so that is a major issue for this laptop the overall battery life you receive.

The laptop does not have a good antivirus either so after 90 days you will need to find a new antivirus so I would advise seeing if you can get an offer on antivirus when you purchase the laptop as this is key for when you are online.

The wireless connection which continues to go on and off all the time is frustrating as well and if you are downloading something important or sending an email you might accidentally turn off the wireless switch without realising and lose work so that is another small issue with the laptop.

Summary
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I would say the laptop definitely has features which are worthwhile and some which are not. The webcam is something which you can solve by purchasing your own so instantly you can make this bad point disappear.
Sadly the battery is bad but I think with the great graphics, speed and overall style of the laptop you will find it a huge benefit for any purpose you might need it for.

My advice is that if you want a laptop which is easy to use and has great features this laptop is definitely worth purchasing.
I got mine for £400 in December 2008 and recently saw this laptop going for just £325 and that included additional items as well.
©Tink-er-bell

Summary: Its a superb laptop with a great price tag attached to it