Fujitsu AMILO Pro V2010 Edition

What Fujitsu Siemens have to say...
"The AMILO Pro V2010 Edition is the professional companion for price-conscious, casual user. This notebook is the ultimate balance of valuable performance and best-in-class mobility at very attractive prices. It features a large display for a maximum viewing comfort and an ergonomic full-size keyboard and is ideal for users working both on the road and in the office."

What Angeelu ...
...I've had a computer from Fujitsu Siemens. I'm assured these were very reasonably priced laptops, and a little searching on the net suggests you can get hold of one for around the £500 mark.

LOOKS
The laptop itself is fairly sleek looking. The outside of the lid is a matt silver coloured finish with just the Fujitsu Siemens computer logo in the centre. The lower half of the laptop is matt black. The contrast in colours makes ... more

What Fujitsu Siemens have to say...
"The AMILO Pro V2010 Edition is the professional companion for price-conscious, casual user. This notebook is the ultimate balance of valuable performance and best-in-class mobility at very attractive prices. It features a large display for a maximum viewing comfort and an ergonomic full-size keyboard and is ideal for users working both on the road and in the office."

What Angeelu has to say...
Since I got my first laptop almost 2 years ago I've been hooked. My desktop computer stands redundant in the spare room whilst I sit in front of the TV using my wireless network to surf the net or get on with my work. Lazy maybe, convenient definitely. So when the school I work at announced they would be issuing all staff with a laptop it sounded great! I'd have a new toy to play with and my other half could use mine. Bet you can picture it now... two net nerds sat in front of the TV, laptops on their laps... ok, it's not quite like that but it's certainly very convenient.

The AMILO Pro V2010 is my new toy. I had no choice in the make/model of the laptop issued to me and this is the first time I've had a computer from Fujitsu Siemens. I'm assured these were very reasonably priced laptops, and a little searching on the net suggests you can get hold of one for around the £500 mark.

LOOKS
The laptop itself is fairly sleek looking. The outside of the lid is a matt silver coloured finish with just the Fujitsu Siemens computer logo in the centre. The lower half of the laptop is matt black. The contrast in colours makes it appear slimmer than it actually is, though it's still only around 3cm - 4cm tall when shut.
Opened up the 15.1" monitor is surrounded by a narrow black frame ensuring you get as large a screen as possible.

The keyboard, in contrast to the black surround, is pale grey with darker grey lettering. This is one aspect of the laptop I'm not too keen on, as my experience with pale keyboards tells me that they can get grubby, but I'm sure a bit of TLC will keep it in a satisfactory state!

The power button and quick access buttons for internet, email and turning on the wireless network facilities are matt silver metal to the top right of the keyboard. And, under the touchpad, the left and right mouse button equivalents are made from the same silver metal. The touch pad itself incorporates a scroll function to the right hand side, shown by up and down arrows on the touchpad. All indicator lights are in the bottom left of the laptop, showing power, drive access, whether the wireless network card is switched on, caps lock, shift lock and number lock.

FEEL
As with most laptop type computers, the keys are very flat, which may get a bit of getting used to if you normally use a standard keyboard with your desktop PC. The touchpad is reliable and easy to use - like most it allows the user to tap the pad for the equivalent of left mouse button, as well as being able to use the actual button (this feature can be disabled if you don't like it). The scroll function on the touchpad can take some getting used to as it's built into the same pad you use to move your pointer around the screen - it takes a technique of sliding your finger up or down the side of the touchpad to use it, which takes some getting used to, and even now I occasionally find it's easier to use the mouse button and the scroll bar at the side of the screen I'm looking at!

It weighs in at 2.9kg, which is quite light in comparison to many laptops, less than my older one, although still not the lightest you can get. It certainly makes it easy enough to carry around without your shoulder aching!

WHAT IT'S GOT
The processor within this laptop is the Intel Celeron M, which apparantly offers more power and speed than the original Celeron processor. It has a 40 GB hard drive, which is more than plenty of storage for the average user.

As already mentioned, the screen is 15.1". I cannot fault the clarity, and the fact it's flat and not glass like traditional monitors means that there's no glare or reflection. No matter what position it's in, just tilting it slightly towards you or away from you ensures you can see it clearly. It's certainly much better than looking at my old desktop monitor.

The laptop has a DVD & CDRW combo - that is, you can use both DVD's and CD's in the same drive - you can also copy and write to both DVD's and CD's, which is certainly a very useful feature. There's no floppy drive on this laptop, although there is space to add your own should you wish, however, as you can write to CD's and DVD's then I certainly don't miss the presence of the floppy drive.

Having four USB ports is great as I can always use my memory stick and plug in any other devices I want to use such as printer, scanner, digital camera. I very much doubt with this laptop I'll ever have all four in use at once, but it's always good to know they're available! My previous laptop only had 2 USB ports and there have been times when I've really needed to use 3 so at least I'll avoid that situation.

The operating system it comes pre-installed with is Windows XP Home Edition, however through work I've updated this to the Professional Edition.

The laptop holds about 1.5 to 2 hours of charge when it's fully charged up, and has a little smart indicator program built in so you can see an icon in your task bar showing the battery life slowly draining away - hovering your mouse above it shows roughly how long you've got left in minutes before you'll need an alternate power source. You can use the computer whilst it's charging up, but it does make it take slightly longer to become fully recharged.

Another aspect of the laptop I'm pleased with is the speed at which it will switch on and boot up when not plugged into a power source - always under a minute, unlike my current laptop which takes about 3 minutes when not plugged in!

THE VERDICT
All in all, I am very pleased with my laptop. I feel it offers good performance and reliability and is robust enough to withstand long periods of daily use (I probably use it for around 7-8 hours a day). To explain the title - the laptop is the winner of a What Laptop Gold Award, so it can't be all that bad. Definitely a good laptop at the price for a regular user.

4 stars (points lost for minor things such as the fact the indicator lights are all under your wrist when typing so you can't see any of them, and the keyboard being light grey is likely to look grubby eventually).

Thanks for reading.
 

...less