Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo Pa2666

Since I wrote the review below, the retailer john Lewis gave me a full refund, almost 2 years after I bought it. I can only speak in the highest terms of the retailer, but the manufacturers are rubbish.

Original review:
• 10p a minute for so-called 'free' technical support
• contradictory advice given, depending upon whom one talks to
• the machine instantly becomes unusable if you turn it off in the first 20 minutes of operation
• no warning on the box that this will happen
• no recovery or system disks provided with the computer
• an exorbitant 36.50 Euros to buy the recovery disks with a 4 day standard waiting time for delivery
• recovery disks can be sent only to America, according to the website
• the computer will not run Windows XP, the only known reliable version of Windows in current use
• I was more than once by tech support told the computer will run XP when clearly it will not, because Fujitsu-Siemens make the hardware to run only on Vista
• available drivers and firmware updates have no installation
• Firewire drive hangs when folder containing audio files is "opened" and computer won't shut down
• BIOS update 3.04 does not take past v 2.59 and chipset & audio updates bluescreened on restart, also machine would not shut down
• Computer won't shut down because of AppBar bullet, or MSN messenger running
• machine blue screened when MIDI interface unplugged
• Wireless adapter stops working if you put extra RAM in
• when the machine eventually stopped working altogether, and would not start up, the manufacturer returned it to the wrong address, the machine was in pieces, and bent out of shape, including twisted drive bays; it took them 6 weeks to *service*, but after that I had had enough and the retailer returned my money.