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Solomon, Howard

September 24, 2003

Originally Published:20030808.

Fujitsu LifeBook's Wi-Fi 802.11b connectivity a charm

The latest round of laptops from this manufacturer are serious desktop replacements, but they're a little on the hefty side

Businesses are increasingly replacing desktop PCs with laptops in hopes of saving space and at the same time give employees computing portability. One of the latest moves by notebook manufacturers to encourage that trend is to add wireless networking connections.

Fujitsu Ltd.'s entry in this race is its Lifebook N-series, which come equipped with an 802.11b Wi-Fi local area network. They also include the company's implementation of the IEEE's draft version of Wi-Fi's 'g' specification, which theoretically means downloads of up to 54 megabits per second, five times faster than the 'b' version.

With that, surfing the Web wirelessly should be effortless - assuming there's an 802.11g connection around. For the next year, however, most access sites will likely only have the slower 'b' version, which allows only a maximum of 11 Mbps, depending on the number of users.

The hope is that offices, airports, hotels and homes will be equipped with Wi-Fi transmitters so users can do away with connecting wires tethering their machines, and instead freely tote them around. But toting a fully loaded laptop these days is like carrying around a concrete block.

Take the Lifebook N-3010C I tested. Like all in the series (which runs from $2,279 to $2,849), it has a 15-inch SXGA active matrix screen, a Pentium 4 processor (2.8 gigahertz on my model) and 512 Mb of memory running the home version of Windows XP. There's a standard modem, an optical drive that burns DVDs and CDs (some models burn only CDs), and a floppy drive, Ethernet, four USB 2.0 ports, a Firewire and S-video connections. The ATI Radeon 9000 graphics card has 64 Mb of memory. There's even a PC card slot. A swift touch pad is used for mouse control. Depending on the model, you have a choice of 2.66GHz or 2.8GHz processors and hard drives up to 80MB.

This is a serious desktop replacement.

But the price is in the weight: 8 lbs, without the light power brick. That makes it one of the heaviest among the machines in its class.

You'll also have to pay extra for real productivity software: It only comes with Microsoft Works. All models also come with Quicken 2003, Netscape 7.0, a special edition of PowerQuest, Veritas software for writing to the burner and a free trial of McAfee AntiVirus.

Among the extras are four dedicated buttons above the keyboard which can be programmed to launch applications.

Battery power is an estimated two hours. To save energy, it runs at half speed unless the laptop is plugged into a wall.

But the real feature is the Wi-Fi connectivity. It worked like a charm at a Bell Mobility access zone in Toronto's Union Station. A switch above the keyboard turns on the wireless. Clicking on a network icon on the system tray launched the search function and within seconds it had found the network and opened a menu. All I had to do is click once again and open a browser. The initial connection speed was 11 Mbps, but it averaged between 2 and 5 Mbps, which is a function of the number of users linked to the access point, not the laptop.

(C) 2003 Computing Canada. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved

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