Anyone own the T732 or T901? Considering purchasing, having trouble finding any owner-impressions

Hey Folks,

I've been all over this forum looking for laptop advice. A refurb T901 or T732 seems pretty good for my purposes and price range, but I'm having trouble finding any reviews or any practical experience from people who actually own one.

I'll post specific questions as they occur to me. For now:

1) How's the trackpad? I just tried out a Thinkpad X230t and found it unusable-- I'm trying to figure out if that's because I'm spoiled macs or b/c the X230t has a bad trackpad. Does it support stuff like three-finger swipes?
2) How's the build quality?

 

Try the sister forum: Fujitsu Tablet Forum

As for your questions:

1) Fine, I guess. The trackpad is my least favorite method of input, though I do use it more often than a mouse, and I've never had any trouble. I don't use it for anything more than the basic point and click though- no swipes or other funny business. Since it's Synaptics, I'm inclined to say that yes, it should support three-finger swipes, but you may have to download additional drivers to get that functionality.

2) I personally think the build quality is fine, but people seem to have wildly different or unreasonable expectations as to build quality, so I'll point out stuff other people tend to nitpick at. It's plastic feel all around. There's a bit of flex at the left palm rest due to the fact that they stacked the SD card reader, expresscard slot, and smart card reader all on top of each other. If your modular bay is empty, you may get some flex there too. My largest concern is the flex in the display. The hinge isn't good enough to allow the display to rest completely on top of the keyboard- but that's fine, that's what the latch is for. However, due to the flex, even when latched, the corners of the display still don't actually rest on the base. It's not big deal. I've rested my arm on the display (with quite a bit of weight behind it) and the display handled it just fine, so I don't think the flex is something to worry about. The machine overall is pretty solid. It's not Apple solid, but I wouldn't want it to be, considering the trade-offs.

If you've got anymore questions about the T901, I'm perfectly happy to answer them.

 

Thanks selofain.

Does the screen wobble much? I know some of these twist computers sometimes have that problem.

Do you have any experience with Fujitsu's onsite warranty?

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk

 

If you shake the base, the screen wobbles a bit, yeah. It stops pretty quickly. Was there a more specific scenario in which you're worried about screen wobble? I'd probably have a better answer for you then.

Sorry, no experience with their warranty. I bought mine refurbished from their ebay outlet, which only includes a 90-day warranty by default. I don't need a warranty, as I'm able to troubleshoot myself. I've dismantled the thing a couple times, and that's much more fun if I don't have warranty to worry about. I've never had any trouble with my machine.

 

One last thing for now: Does the t901 have a backlit keyboard?

 

No, it doesn't. It was never offered with that option.

 

I have the T732. The trackpad is fine, thankfully it has actual buttons instead of touch buttons which I find troublesome on other notebooks.

I have had quite a few build quality issues with it;
1. WiFi dead on arrival.
2. pen stopped working
3. debris under lcd screen
4. (as a result of sending it for 3) screen no longer turns off when lid closed.

I have made 3 warranty claims so far and for 1 and 3, had to send it into Fujitsu. I am based in the UK, but purchased the notebook from the USA. It gets sent (at for free at least) to a service centre in Germany. I had to wait about 3 months for the first repair and a few weeks for the 3rd repair. I haven't made a claim for 4 yet as I am travelling, but i will when I get back.

It -is- a business class machine, so build issues aside, it is a solid machine. I have done some youtube videos of it here
T732 Review video pt1
T732 Review video pt2