Fujitsu ESPRIMO Mobile M9400

In a bid to increase efficiency, the company I work for recently invested millions of pounds on a large-scale upgrade of its computer equipment. As a field user, I was presented with a new laptop, router and printer for use at home in my spare bedroom office, and whilst out at meetings.

To help you understand just how important and life-changing an event this was as an end-user, let me describe my typical morning routine pre-upgrade:

6am Lean out of bed and boot up laptop. Use snooze function on alarm clock to check progress and enter passwords etc until finally "in" around 7am. Check emails (takes ages to send/receive), then print off reports etc, which takes until about half eight as machine is so slow. Check emails again then leave the house at 9am.

That’s three hours to look at my emails and print off about six to eight reports, all because everything moved so p-a-i-n-f-u-l-l-y S--L----O-------W!

Now, with my new Fujitsu Esprimo laptop, I can be in my email, printing stuff at the same time, within a minute or two of pressing the on button. In all my experience of using various laptops for both business and recreation, I have never yet come across one which does as its told quite so quickly and efficiently. I am not a techno-buff, so I cannot tell you which of its impressive specifications contribute to this, but I suspect its going to be down to the processor, which is an Intel Core Duo. I can now work on various different applications at once, whereas before if I tried to open more than one program, the whole thing would freeze, costing me hours in reboot time.

The other major advantage of this machine over alternatives is its highly impressive battery life. As well as printing off information for business meetings, I like to have my laptop as backup in case further info is required, or an adhoc email needs sending. In the past I would have no option but to seek a powerpoint, but now I can work parked up n my car if need be, or in cafes without endangering innocent consumers with my trailing wires.

Its not a hugely glamourous computer - its smallish and black, with a 14.1" screen that's fine for work purposes. Its very portable - weighing only 2.3kg - and again this make life much easier for me, as I have a rubbish back, and used to really struggle with my previous laptop, often having to carry it in front of me with both arms!

Although I don't use it for music or video very much, its more than capable when I do. The volume is quietish at its maximum, but if you are that bothered you can always get standalone speakers.

I have only two minor narks with it. Firstly it has an annoying wireless button which you have to switch on when you boot up - I'd far prefer for this to be automatic. Secondly, the power lead plugs in on the right hand side of the machine. As I am in the right-handed majority, I tend to have pens, papers, coffee cups situated to the right of my laptop when it’s in use, and it would make more sense to me to have the wire trail from the opposite side so it doesn't knock things or get in the way.

Other than that, I really can't complain. Having had nasty accidents before with hardware, it reassures me to know this one has a special "spill-proof" keyboard (though I'm not going to test it for you!) and a strong casing making it less prone to breakage. It heats up a bit when its been on a while, but not excessively, and I have NEVER had the machine crash or freeze on me in several months use. How many laptop-users can say that?

So I'd recommend this very highly. It's made a huge difference to my productivity at work, and freed up hours of my day for such useful activities as sleeping and relaxing. I didn't pay for this, but have checked online and it's available from £580. This is quite a chunky price for a machine if you intend to use it just for fun, but as a business machine it saves invaluable time, and the price seems more than reasonable.

Full product specifications available at:
http://ts.fujitsu.com/products/mobile/no​tebooks/esprimo_mobile_m.html