Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Xi 1526, where's the catch?

Greetings, found your site through the great review of Amilo1526:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3395 and read all the nice opinions on the machine.

Here's what is puzzling me:
The configuration that I can buy here in Latvia for roughly 1250 Euros is as follows:

Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 1.83GHz (some local pages say 1.8Ghz)
Single 120 Gig Drive 5400RPM (this would mean there is room for another drive)
2x512MB Memory (this would mean, I'd have to take out 512s to put in 2x1gb)
Dual Layer dvd+-rw

Price/Perfomance wise I can't find anything close within 300 Euros in Local internet shops (1546 runs around 1500 Euros, Toshiba, IBM, Dell way more).

According to official spec sheet from: http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/home/products/notebooks/amilo_xi_1526.html
some 1526 models can have older Core Duo T2400 CPU which also runs at 1.8Ghz. If the shops are lying this would be where price savings could come in. Otherwise I don't see why other notebooks cost more.

Considering buying 1526 as a desktop replacement(5 year old 1gig P3/shared video) for wife who mostly works on Autocad plus some gaming for me.

So what else could account for the low price?

 

Theres practically nothing else that accounts for the low price. The build quality is very good, and there is no problem there. The shops aren't lying when they say it has a T5500 or T5600, because all Fujitsu Siemens have donw, is upgrade the BIOS so it supports the new Core 2 Duo processors. If you look around, you may be able to find a few with 2 GB 667 MHz RAM, and a T7200 processer. With those specifications it would put the price a little higher, but it would still be very good.

The plastic is not the best. It is very sturdy and strong, but it just feels a little plasticy. Other than that, there is nothing that I can think off. You may want to speak to Charlie (known as Notebook Solutions on this forum) for more information. He reviewed the model in the review you have linked. Hope this helps.

 

Thanks Zero, going to place an order next week and will see how it goes.

 

Thanks for mentioning me Zero, I really appreciate that It was great to make the review and I hope it will help a lot of people.

Toff, welcome to NBR and thanks for the complimants on the review.

Your notebook has a great price/performance ratio but I really recommend you to upgrade to 2 GB of RAM. Or else the RAM will surely form a bottleneck (in games for sure and also in Windows, XP will not be able to make full use of the Core 2 Duo 1.83 Ghz).

Upgrading the hard drive is easy, you just need to take out the cover at the bottom (using a screwdriver). You will see a slot for a hard drive, then you just plug the hard drive in and close the cover of the notebook. Then restart Windows and format the hard drive. And voila, you have 2 hard drives now with RAID option!

Charlie

 

Not a problem, Charlie. Your review is very good and thorough, and also very detailed. It also has lots of pictures .

Toff, as Charlie has mentioned, it is best to get this notebook configured with 2 GB RAM. It will really help the notebook achieve full performance, as 1 GB RAM will hold it back in some games such as Battlefield 2/2142.

 

Zero is true about that. I played BF2142 on the Xi 1526... The FPS was around 30-40 FPS at high settings and native resolution but I had a lot of stuttering at the beginning and also in combat. I am sure that it would run much smoother with 2 GB.

Charlie

 

Agreed, 2GB makes some games run on my regular desktop (2.4Ghz HT) so much better. As they say, there's no such thing as too much memory .

Unfortunately, they sell Notebooks in only one configuration here so I'll have to chuck the 512MB memory out and order 1GBx2 at some point from elsewhere.

 

Speaking of memory, wasn't getting any appropriate hits from google when searching for Amilo Xi 1526 memory.

Will any regular 2 x 1 GB DDR2 533 MHz memory sticks do?

 

The Xi 1526 you are getting is a Core 2 Duo which supports 533 MHz and 667 MHz DDR2 Notebook RAM (200-pins). I would just go for the 533 MHz, they are much cheaper and the difference between those 2 is not noticable.

Make sure you buy notebook RAM and not desktop RAM (those are much bigger).

Charlie