Are Fujitsu notebooks reliable and long lasting?

Hi guys.

I recently bought the LIFEBOOK AH530 in a store because I loved the specs/build for the price

I haven't found much on Fujitsu other than they're pretty popular in Asia.
Is the Lifebook series and the Fujitsu company known for good reliability?

 

Yes. I used to work for reseller in los angeles. They are usually overlooked by other brands and make great products. I actually still have a lifebook i got from 2003. thing is actually just being used as an FTP server. lol. has been running for almost 2 years without rebooting. hahaha. They also make great hard drives. their build quality has usually been top notch in my book.

 

It's not clear so far how reliable the current Lifebooks will be. Back in the days when Fujitsu had its joint venture with Siemens the Lifebooks were very reliable because it was their business series. But the Amilos, Fujitsu Siemens former consumer series, were discontinued after Siemens stopped the joint venture, so Fujitsu had no own consumer segment anymore.
Recently they started to sell pretty cheap laptops under the Lifebook label which might also indicate lower quality standards.

 

Mine was made in Germany, it cost just under 800 dollars and its the model listed in my signature.

 

Don't give too much about that! I'm from Germany myself, and I give nothing about that label.

I know. This is one of the cheaper Lifebook models I was referring to. I'm not saying that it is of minor quality, it is just that there have been changes in Fujitsus portfolio and it's too early to judge the consequences..

 

Fair enough, guess I'm one of the few guinea pigs that bought a fujitsu, not a fujitsu-siemens :]

as for germany, I just found it unusual for a european country to be putting laptops together, they're usually assembled in China and sometimes Taiwan/Japan.

 

Actually when Fujitsu-Siemens was still alive, the design of the consumer series came from Germany while the business class models came from Japan.

 

Couple ones I've seen were basically just rebadged Amilos.

 

Well it says on the base of my laptop "Made in Germany" so that is a clear indication they're still doing it that way.

I have to say for a consumer class notebook this thing isn't half solid.

 

The Amilo D1845 that we own runs fine. The case is a bit..... well, we'll gloss over that, but the hardware itself is functioning fine.

 

I have a Lifebook P770. First impression even before buying - this is an expensive brand!

However, they put a lot of stuff into an ultraportable, including an optical drive. I think they are the only company that has an optical drive in a 12.1" ultraportable.

There are issues with the design - the lid flexes enough to give me conconern about how protected the screen is. The keyboard flexes enough to effect typing.

However, the unit if proving to be a real workhorse. I recently replace the optical drive with a far-east cheapie drive bay, and have two drives for a total of 1.25Tb storage. Boot drive is a Seagate Momentus XT hybrid 500Gb drive, and the second drive is a WD 750Gb drive. Works well! Battery life is still around 3 hours or more.

The CPU is a bit anemic - ULV i7. However, since it is an i7, it compensates with dual cores and hyperthreading giving an effective four cores, and it's overall speed has been better than I would have expected.

So far, I have learned to like it, and put up with it's shortcomings. The alternative was an HP 2540p, which is heavier, no optical drive, and I read a LOT of reports of issues with it and issues with HP's support. The HP was up to $600 cheaper (with an i5 processor), or equiv price with an 1.8" very slow and not upgradable hard drive. I think I got the better deal and the better product.

I have used a lot of Fujitsu hard drives in the past - typically they ran hotter than other brands, but lasted just fine. You just had to be sure of cooling, since their heat could change the internal case temperature a bit.

 

Reminds me of my Amilo Si 1520. Small and with the same lid and keyboard problems yet powerful and it runs and runs and runs. It was my main computer for almost 3 years before I bought my current Dell. And I still use it when I need mobility and power, since neither my Dell nor my netbook can provide both.

 

I purchased a Lifebook e4010 in 2003. Its build quality is ...horrible! The palm rest is discoloured, keyboard and chassis flex like crazy, the hinges and joints are cracked etc.

However, it has never been repaired! It's the most reliable notebook I have ever owned. During the 7 years I have owned it the OS has been reinstalled once and I have also purchased a new battery.....that's all! The harddrive is still going strong after 7 years of daily use and I have had no problems installing software and external equipment.

Kind regards
.lars

 

Definitely NO! Terrible build quality!! Cheap plastics, cheap construction. Never again.

 

Speaking for myself, my mother bought me my Fujitsu A6020 LifeBook around June of 2007, and everything is still working. The only thing that I have noticed is that the battery is to the point of maybe 5 minutes of charge. This is probably due to the fact that I use it as a desktop daily. Other than that, I take pretty good care of it. I keep it out of extreme temperatures and it mostly just sits at home on the desk all the time. All the ports, chips, dvd/cd burners/readers and so forth all seem to be fine with the exception of the battery like I already mentioned!

 

Besides an insane number of work laptops (DELL and HP mostly) that die with a depressing regularity, I've had two home laptops that have lasted me a combined 14 years. Both Fujitsu lifebooks. The one lived 1997-2005 and the second 2005-present. Both were top of the line when I got them, the first one was way sturdier and better built -- but the second one still works notwithstanding the cracked plastic on the bottom and the permanent dents in screen where it comes in contact with the keyboard. I am totally on the fence about buying a third one because of the reports of general flimsiness - if i could get all the fujitsu hardware packaged inside an mac book pro case... Ahhh.....

 

I agree (as stated earlier) that my P770 could be said to match your description - but it keeps working, has been dead on reliable, and very very compatible with the stuff I have thrown at it.

If I could shim the keyboard to make it flex less while typing, the rest is just fine. Does mean you tend to take better care of it since it feels flimsy...but maybe that is a good thing! Other brands that feel solid are still plastic and glass and will break just as easily, and may tend to fail more because you are not babying them as much.

Overall, having used my P770 a lot and changed it's internals far more than common sense would allow, I have changed my opinion and would say the only true negative is that it is on the expensive side.

Latest adventure I am considering is upgrading the main hard drive from a 500Gb Momentus XT to the new 7200rpm Seagate 750Gb 9.5mm unit. Since this unit is booted into both XP and Win7 Pro 64bit, and since I run a wide variety of applications, the drive will never see a pattern that would allow it to optimize the SSD portion of the hard drive. Therefore, no real gain in used the XT drive. I might as well put it into another system that runs a less wide gamut of applications and OS's, and will benefit from the SSD part of the drive.

Besides, the Seagate 750Gb 7200rom drive has come down in price, and is under $100CAN. It will work well with the WD 750GB 5400rpm drive that is not in what used to be the optical drive bay of my P770, giving me a total capacity of 1.5TB. Now THAT is neat!

 

Like every other company I'd suspect Fujitsus to have different lines with varying build qualities. I don't think HP Compaqs have say the same level of quality as HP Envys.

Seems Amilos are run of the mill consumer grade laptops(aka the cheapo kind) but Lifebooks from what I've heard seem better. Mine so far is holding well and my friend's is holding out well too.

 

My fujitsu siemens c1020 is still running strong after 5 years the casing is falling apart but the machine is still running

 

Fujitsu P7120 5+ years now, looks brand new and nothing broken. Used as uni laptop (before netbooks came around) used as backup pc, even 24/7 torrent machine at one time.

on Win7 now and going great, original battery lasts 3hrs.

In the end it depends on the line of laptop and how well its taken care of.

 

The image speaks for itself...
this is how it ended.



Cheap, cheap, cheap. Cracked 3 months after purchase ... was repaired (had to argue with Fujitsu! Apparently a crack is a "cosmetic defect" to them, which is not covered by the warranty ----> AEH!??) and cracked 3 months later again... and kept cracking for the rest of its life until the MB stopped responding because of the constant bending.... almost no metal in the construction - just cheap plastics!
And this was one of the most expensive Amilos at the time.

No. Never again.

 

Unfortunately this image says nothing but that someone ripped the whole thing apart - which might have been a perfectly working laptop before.
I can't see any cracks. The kit doesn't even seem to be complete. There's either the upper base unit cover or the display back cover missing - depending on what this part on the very bottom is.

I'm not saying that your story isn't true, but your image doesn't support it at all.

What model was it?

 

I had a C-series Lifebook that I bought in 2002, which I used heavily for 4 years and then my mom used for another 2 years, and we never had an issue with it. I bought my wife the NH570 last January and we have nothing but good things to say about it so far. I just purchased the AH531 for my mom and it should arrive in a week or two, so I'll let you know if anything goes awry with that one.

 

While the image may speak for itself, it may say more for someone's lack of anger management than say anything about the laptop itself....

There have been more times than I would care to admit over my many years in this field that such actions seemed reasonable and appropriate! And not always in terms of just equipment......

 

Gracy123's sig mentions a Amilo M6453G.

Cracks are a manufacture fault, unless they had proof you dropped or or mishandled it, it should have been replaced.

 

Thanks! I missed that part of her signature.

 

I agree with the general consensus: Lifebooks were, once upon a time, reliable. I'm typing this right now on a S6120-- amazing little machine, I don't think I've ever loved a keyboard or the portability so much. But from merely looking at the current models, I can't say that they still have the same level of quality or of competitiveness that they used to have.

 

Amilo M6453G

3 months after purchase and taking care of it like after a baby - cracked base (next to the hinges).
1 month later - defective DVD-drive (which hardly has anything to do with Fujitsu-Siemens but still...)
1 month later - cracked frontal screen frame next to the screws
1 months later - base cracked on 4 places around the hinges again
6 months later - MB dead
4 months later - base cracked on the same places again
2 months later - BIOS battery dead and DVD-tray bezel/cover broken - cracked plastics around the button.
and so on and so on, until the MB got damaged because of the 0 support the construction/base was giving it and the way it got twisted every time I was using the laptop on uneven surface or on my lap.

Here one of the cracks just 3 months after purchase.



After sending this image to Fujitsu (as they returned my laptop unrepaired after almost 3 weeks waiting!) I was told that his is "just a cosmetic defect that has no effect over functionality"

Do I really need to say more?

At that time we used to have 2 brands laptops at work - 10 x Fujitsu Lifebook and 10 x Dell Latitude. Just 6 months later we had 9 x Dell and 2 x Fujitsu for obvious reasons. This was the first and last time they bought fujitsu. Dell remained the only brand for the next few years.

 

I know a lot of similar stories about broken display covers, base units and mai boards in M-series Amilos. Usually they were announced by a creaking hinge. I Sad to hear you are another one in that long list.

 

After I had some difficulties with my Amilo K7600(HDD died four! times within 2 years), I realised that I needed a new laptop and I was willing to give Fujitsu a second chance. However, it seems like the Amilo K7600 and Amilo M6453G were cheaply made.
My Amilo MB died after about 3 months. 2 months after that the battery died (after about 30 charges).
A friend of mine has had a similar experience. He also had a M6453G. After 4 months his CPU died (overheated). Only 2 weeks after he got his laptop back, his HDD died.

 

On Sunday (July 31, 2011), I DJ's an outdoor wedding and dance. My P770 is the primary music source, while an ASUS M70Vm is the backup.

This was an outdoor wedding on a rather hot and somewhat humid day. The ceremony was at 1:00PM, and I was set up and running before 11:00AM. Music was ended and shut down at 1:00AM on Monday morning.

The P770 ran straight through, providing background music or dance music, except for the 1PM ceremony and speaches during the 5PM dinner. At those times, it was silent but still running. Audio quality is excellent, but that is as much a function of the sound reinforcement gear as the laptop. Both laptops feel USB sound cards, rather than using the internal sound cards, since that provides better audio quality and much higher output levels.

I use DJPower 2008, which is a very finicky product. It runs very well on the P770 when booted into XP. I have dual boot set up , so the laptop runs Windows 7 64 bit at all other times.

Overall, the P770 has been performing it's job as a DJ tool very very well, and doing lots of other stuff running Win7. Except for the spongy keyboard, I am very pleased with the P770, and would consider buying another Fujitsu product when the time comes. Even running two 750Gb drives internally (I have a third party optical drive replacement frame that allows installing another hard drive), the battery life is acceptable. Having a laptop this size with 1.5Tb of internal hard drive is neat! I gues that could now be 2Tb, since they are shipping 9.5mm 1Tb 2.5" drives....

If the worst flaw in the P771 or whatever comes next is the spongy keyboard, then they represent a good product. So far, the performance of mine has justified the premium price charged for Fujitsu laptops.

 

Well, i purchased a P7230 for a family member just over three years ago and it's still going strong. It's had a lot of use as well and proved to be more durable than some other ultraportables i've owned.
Given past experience and user feedback i was happy enough to advise my sister to purchase the P770 a few days and she has now bought a P770 with an ssd and built in wwan. I could have opted for a Sony SB but i rejected it in favour of the P770.

 

Why a P770 instead of the P771? Just curious.....

 

I got a really exceptionally good deal on one and my sister needed a laptop now for her work. The P771 won't be discounted for some time.
The 1.33- 2400 MHz 660UM processor is a decent performer and with the ssd as well. USB 3 is also not a requirement.

 

I have to agree, my P770 is far more of a workhorse than I would have expected. And much quicker than one would expect.

I could wish for eSATA and USB3, and will get them on my next ones. The SSD is not for me yet - between XP and Win7 boot partition plus my music (this is my main DJ machine), a 500Gb drive is insufficient. I was running it with a 500Gb Seagate hybrid and a second drive, which worked well, but a hybrid drive does not work well in a dual boot config.

The 750Gb WD Black is running very, very well. If they get around to shipping a 1Tb WD Black, I will likely line up to get it.... maybe even two! The second drive holder is still installed. 2Tb of install hard drive is really not all that useful, but the bragging rights are awesome!!

 

My P7230 which is over 4 years old now and basically use it 10-12 hours a day and carry it from site to site, haven't had any issues with it so far except for the HDD being slow due to it's 4800 rpm speed but am getting ready to install the Kevlar KE SSD drive so I hope this will resolve the speed issue.

I've drop this baby many times and is still kicking and there are no broken parts on it, perhaps due to my carrying case.

I've own 2 Toshiba laptops prior of this one and were also good but the P7230 has been more reliable especially the way that I abuse it, still can't understand how that laptop (broken in pieces) could have been a "manufature defects" Think more like Anger Management.

Yes, they do tend to break (plastic) pretty easy but usually it's due to abuse.

Beside owning this P7230, I also service in field other Fujitsu laptops and haven't seen one as bad as previously posted!!

 

My S6240 is 5 years old and still works.
I can get maybe 30 to 45 minutes out of the battery.
Although the fan is becoming noisy.

I just bought a replacement notebook because I wanted to update my software and get a lighter notebook. Although it was pretty good in its day. I think it's around 1.7 kg or something.

 

This Fujitsu is the best laptop I have ever had. It has outlasted the laptops my friends and co-workers have purchased....mostly Dells and Hp's. This fujitsu is assembled in japan. It runs flawlessly everytime. It is over 6 years old. I am convinced through using other laptops....that Fujitsu makes a very good machine. Definetlyan overlooked brand.

 

Sorry for digging out this old thread. I didn't want to create a new thread. I'm looking to buy a Fujitsu Lifebook LH 532 & would like to know if there is any serious issue with this product. LIFEBOOK LH532 - Fujitsu India

 

After reading some of the horror stories about Fujitsu I shouldn't complain, but I will anyway. This is a story how Fujitsu took my laptop virginity and it's not a pleasant one. The only good thing I learned from it the hard way - never trust guys working in computer shops and read everything you can find about a laptop before buying one.

Back in the day I hardly knew anything about laptops and laptop manufacturers. But I needed a portable computer. Guy from computer shop recommended Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pa2510 as cheap but good laptop. So I trusted that lying chocolate starfish and bought it.

I used it quite a lot and laptop managed to handle almost everything except gaming but that's AMD at fault, not Fujitsu. However, there's one major issue with this laptop that I sadly didn't know before buying it - temperature. 50°C at the bottom and 40°C at the surface in idle is really unacceptable for such a weak laptop. This terrible heat might be the reason why after almost 4 years one day my Fujitsu never woke up from sleep (pun unintended) - fried mobo or so they told me.

Now some may say that you get what you pay for, but to me 464 euros is quite a big sum of money. Not to bash on the whole Fujitsu brand, but making laptops with such enormous temperatures and a lifespan of less than 4 years is a deal breaker for me. This whole "Engineered in Germany" thing is pathetic. Won't buy another Fujitsu ever again and certainly won't recommend it to others.

tl;dr: Fujitsu notebooks are unreliable and short lasting.

 

To be honest 4 years is a long time and you prob didn't clean the heat sink which probably result in high temp and ultimately death by heat


Sent from my Z10 using Tapatalk 2

 

Well for me 4 years ain't that long. Sorry about that.
And of course I cleaned the fan and heat sink from time to time but that didn't help much because laptop had heat problems from the beginning. You can read about its heat issue in this review so that you don't think that laptop died simply because of my neglect. Otherwise I wouldn't be complaining.

 

^ Pretty much every laptop prior to Centrino Core had heat issues. Our old pre-Core Dell laptop heats up so badly sometime, you could cook an egg on it!

Anyways, Fujitsu now isn't the same as the Fujitsu-Siemens partnership back then. I think it's pretty safe to say that the current Fujitsu models made in/coming out of Japan pretty much represents the kind of quality you would expect from a top-tier Japanese product... My previous Dell lasted 7 years and is still going strong. I'm hoping (expecting) the Fujitsu I bought last year will be what I need for the next 12 years b/c it is one of the last models to still have drivers for Windows XP...

 

Yet another example of Dell's reliability. Hope your Fujitsu lasts more than 4 years...

 

Dream on.....

 

Let's just say, there's a whole slew of reasons why I made the switch from Dell to Fujitsu, one being, the hinge on a Dell isn't sturdy enough to allow me to do this...

 

My old Dell has crap innards (the components looked shoddily put together) and still lasted > 7 years. My Fujitsu made in Japan looks like it was made of premium materials on the inside (and care was put into soldering the parts). I'm estimating the best Dells have a lifespan of 12 years, and the best Fujitsu a lifespan of 24 years. Especially the newer Fujitsu models that have magnesium covers and "ruggedized" to capitalize on Panasonic Toughbook ideas, those might last 36 years... (but only the ones made in Japan).

 

Oh boy, I don't even want to know how it's being used by some guys...

On topic: Since PC hardware becomes obsolete so rapidly, don't really see a point in laptop lasting 24 or 36 years. Not that Fujitsu could ever pull a stunt like that

 

Touch laptops that drain more battery and retain fingerprints? No thanks. Long live the real laptops that have traditional non-chiclet keyboards and non-touch displays!

 

Well, to get on with this old thread: my first laptop, an Amilo D1840 lasted from 2003 to a few weeks back. The lid was cracked and the graphics (the Mobility Radeon 9600) overheated and displayed some artefacts on screen. I had passed it on to my dad in 2007 and he used it since then. Now I bought him an old Celsius Mobile H (with a Pentium 4M (!) built in 2002 and that thing is still going strong. The cassis is tough as nails, magnesium all around, it heats up a lot, but in the manual it says that the metal body is part of the cooling concept, so it's normal. It has a detachable bluetooth keyboard, so the heat doesn't bother at all, the KB acts as an insulator. Any case, very impressive for a 11 year old laptop and it seems that it will last for another few years.
My old Lifebook T4215 from 2007 is still in perfect condition, runs W8 on an SSD, it's a good backup machine for my T902 that I bought this year. The build quality on the 3 Lifebooks is very good (better than the Amilo, which btw was not built by Fujitsu itself. The Amilos used customized barebones. They were only assembled in Germany.) It really depends on the series: Celsius were buit at a time in Germany and the Lifebook T series were and are being built in Japan at the Shimane plant.