Fujitsu-Siemens Xi series

How good is it? Build quality, screens, heating etc.
I am especially interested in Xi 1526 model, so if anyone has comment?
Thanks..

 

They are very good, but thats my opinion. I don't think build quality is an issue with large notebooks like these. Fujitsu Siemens build quality generally is very good though. Some of the plastic is, well, a bit plasticy, but otherwise it is built very well.

The screen is very good. It displays everything with amazing sharpness and clarity, and is also bright. There is a bit of heat on the right side of the notebook, just the upper right of the trackpad. This is where the graphics card resides, so it will be a bit warm. Although, it has never got to the point, where it is uncomfortably hot. SInce you are interested in the Xi 1526, the Go 7600 in that shouldn't get as hot as the Mobility X1800.

On the whole, I'm very pleased with the notebook. Some people on other forums have complained against random shut downs, but that was because of a dodgy BIOS, and has now been fixed, I believe. See if you can go to a store and see the notebook in person. You will certainly have a much better idea of whether you like it or not. I hope this is useful to you.

 

Fujitsu Siemens makes high quality, well built notebooks, in general. The Xi 1526 is no exception.

 

I saw it and i really like it.Nice looking and not too haevy for 17".
I hope i want make mistake buying one..

 

Review coming up in a few days

Charlie

 

Are you reviewing one Charlie? I would really like to read that review.

You won't be making a mistake if you buy one. They are very good notebooks: Very powerful and there quite thin as well, when compared with some other 17" notebooks on the market.

 

Nice to see a review, hope it is on the Xi 1526.
Although I'm getting my Xi 1526 on Monday. I will be away most of the day/evening, so i will let you know about it on Thuseday if you guys want to. Just cant wait to see it
Just tell me what you want to know, and ill try to get it for you

 

Of course...
All you noticed about it (colour, is powwer cable included,is it resistan on dropping from fith floor....)

 

Haha, i will report how it is, but not dropping it from fifth floor cuz I live in a 2 floor building I will try to get some photos on it too, although my camera aint the best one... But hopefully you get a grip of how it looks

 

Indeed guys I have finished my review today. The review is 18 pages long! I have tested 3 games and done a lot of tests like 3dmark03/05/06, PCmark05 etc.

I have finished the review I hope that Abaxter will post it in a few days.

Charlie

 

Amazing to have a review Charlie!
Good job on that, 18 pages are a lot Let us know when the Review is posted and set. Just one question, I didnt get which comp you did the review on, the Xi 1546 or 1526?
And again; Good job

 

I reviewed a 'basic' model of the Xi 1526 featuring a T2300, 1 GB, 256 MB 7600Go and 2*80 GB. It is a great notebook, especially the WXGA+ screen is beautiful.

Thanks for the complimants mate.

Charlie

 

Okey thx for the fast answer
Im getting the Core 2 Duo comp (T5600 1,83GHz) 2gb memory, 2*80 gb, and a 7600Go, similar to the stuff you review. I dont know if i get the WXGA+ or just a WXGA screen... According to Fujitsu there should be a WXGA+ screen, but the company im buying it from writes in the info that it "just" has a WXGA screen... Hopefully its just a "non-correct info" that the company has. Will see what i get on Monday, delivery-day

Edit: You dont got any pictures that you can upload and post here? Would be very nice

 

Haha you cannot wait I see. Yes here are some pictures specially for you!

Your notebook is just perfect!. Core 2 Duo and 2 GB of RAM is a perfect combination for power!
The screen must be WXGA+ (1440*900), you dont have any 17" notebooks with WXGA screen (1280*800). The 2 options are WUXGA and WXGA+, I prefer the WXGA+ because 1920*1200 makes everything in Windows look so small. And a WXGA+ screen gives you the possibilty to play games with high settings!

Let's see these pictures as a teaser I have not received any mail from Chaz or Abaxter, I am still waiting for their reply.

Charlie

 

Much much thx for the pics!
Do you get the remote in all options? Didnt know the Xi 1526 got it, thought just the Xi 1546 had. And what do you use it for? Maybe this is in your review, but anyway
Thx again

Edit : It seems like its Huge!
Edit 2 : Whats the batterytime on that one? Ppl says about 2 hrs of batterytime, is that right? Ofcourse it depends on load and stuff, but whats your info on that?

 

Almost all of the Intel and some of the AMD models Fujitsu Siemens selld have those remotes. There really useful. You can use them to play, stop, forward, reverse, mute, adujust volume, subtitle on/off, notebook on/off, skip, reverse skip and pause. (I may have missed a function or two).

I have the Xi 1546, which in terms of dimensions, is the same as the Xi 1526, and yes, it is quite large. But I don't really mind it. I often move around the notebook within my house, and its perfectly okay to carry around. Battery life is around 2 hours, with the usual, wireless and Internet surfing.

 

Notebook On/Off, thats cool! Seems to be a perfect tool when watching movies. Btw, can i use it when i play movies from the notebook at the LCD-Tv? That would be amazing

Okey, thx for that info Zero. Good to hear that i can take the notebook for a spin in the house if i want to

 

No problem for the pictures mate.

Yes the remote comes with all the Xi and Pi series of Fujitsu Siemens notebooks. So the Xi 1526 also includes a remote control (which fits in the ExpressCard slot). It can be used for many many things.

For example: the notebook comes with Power Cinema (a program which gives you the ability to watch DVD's, listen to music without booting!). You can use the remote control to control this program.

You can also use the remote to regulate the sound volume, or to switch to the next sound. You can also boot using the remote. It uses Infrared technology.

The notebook is big, but certainly not very big. I have seen much much bigger 17" notebooks. Believe me, it is very sleek and nice designed for a 17".

Here is another teaser:

 

I think you can. Although I haven't tried it, if your notebook is connected to the TV, and the source of the DVD playback is the notebook, then certainly. It really is a nice little feature, and its very useful (for lazy people anyway ).

 

Cant wait to get my notebook This seems to be a very good notebook my first one And the remote and program seems to be very amazing! Thx a lot for the pictures and info guys!

 

No problemo Pierre, it is our duty

I want to congratulate you with your new notebook, you have bought a perfect price/quality performance notebook.
I do not know if you play any games but I tested 3 games: Oblivion, BF2142 and HL2. I can give you some impressions if you want.

Charlie

 

Im very greatful Charlie!
I like games in all kinds, so please tell me some inpressions Havnt even tried BF2142 on my desktop PC, is it a fun game? I have played the other Bf games thinking they are nice.

 

Great job man! Can't wait full review...
I am getting one with T7200, 2x120 Gb an 1GB ram(2x512).
Is there any difference between 2x512 at 533Mhz and
1x1GB at 667 Mhz (except for later upgrades)?

 

There shouldn't be much of a difference between the speed. Memory frequency, it seems, matters almost nothing when comparing 533 MHz with 667 MHz. The only thing you lose with the 1 GB module, is dual channel, but it was never really all that succesful. Increases in speed brough on by dual channel, were quite small, and the ability to upgrade to 2 GB without selling any modules, really overturns the lack of dual channel.

 

Oblivion is the most demanding game of this moment. I could play it at 1440*900 with Bloom, 2x AA and 8x AF with high settings. It played beautiful!

Laki Ge I am really advicing you to get 2 GB of RAM. You really need 2 GB of RAM , or else the RAM will surely form a bottleneck and you wont notice the real speed of the Core 2 Duo.

I prefer a 1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo with 2 MB L2-cache and 2 GB of Ram (just like Pierre's configuration) then 2 GHz Core 2 Duo with 4 MB L2-cache and 1 GB of Ram.

The difference between 533 MHz and 667 MHz is not noticable in application. It will give you some more information but it is truly not worth the costs (100$ !)

Charlie

 

Thanks guys, but problem is that it's already configured and i can't change anything.
Is it smart to connect disks in raid 0 mode? Is any application going to profit on it? Any performance gain? Disks are 5400 rpm's.

 

Seems like the 7600Go does what it suppose to do Now i really want it to be Monday! Thx

 

RAID 0 is just an incredible feature of this notebook. You can gain a huge performance by putting the 2 hard drives in RAID. It does not give you security for your data but the performance gain is very high.
As for the RAM, go for the 1 GB 667 RAM so you can insert another 1 GB 667 RAM. Then your notebook is really featureproof and you can see its real performance.

As for you Pierre,

The hard drives are not configured in RAID, well at least mine wasn't. So I think, if you want RAID, you need to reinstall Windows.
As for the videodrivers, I really advice you to follow Chaz's review about updating video drivers. The drivers that come from Fujitsu Siemens (CD) is pretty old, check www.fujitsu-siemens.com for the latest drivers. If those are old, install the drivers of LaptopVideo2Go or XtremeG drivers.

For further question just post, I will try to help you guys as much as I can.

Charlie

 

Running Raid 0, is it good? What i have understood you just get the disks to work togeather, right? But in raid 1 you clone the disk to make a backup, right?
Is raid 0 recommended? Some ppl say it is, and some it isn't... btw, what about 3dmark? Would like to see some scores on that, please

 

RAID 0 offers no back up, so if a hard disk fails, then the data stored on both, becomes useless. because it requires both the run properly. RAID 1 on the other hand, splits the data like RAID 0, but one hard disk stores the complete image. So, if one drive fails, so should be able to recover the lost data.

RAID 0 offers the best performance, however, it mostly depends on what program is using it. Start up time for the notebook may increase somewhat, however, generally the speed won't be felt. Programs which use the hard disk quite a lot will probably see an increase in speed, brought onby the efficientcy of both drives.

 

Okey... then i have 2 options...

1. To have 2 separate hdds without raid. Partition the first one with 15 gb windows, 5 gb swapfile and then the rest to games/apps and stuff like that. Second disk will be a Only Games/downloads/music etc. I will partition the second disk to 2 partitions, one thats about 15 gb to make a clone of the windows. That way i can restore the Windows when it fails or something like that.

Or 2. to run raid 1, and get performance but no backup. Or something like that... Im not so good at hdd configs

Thx

 

RAID 1 is for back up, and also a little bit of performance. RAID 0 is total speed, but most of the time, the speed isn't used. What I suggest it, is to put both hard disks into RAID 1. That way, you can still recover any files, if something happens to a hard disk, and you also still get a bit of speed.

 

But, when i go Raid 1 i kinda loose one disk, because its a copy of the first one... Then i only get 80 gb of diskspace, instead of the 160 total gb.
Well... will see how i do this later on. Thx for info!

 

The increase in speed over taking a RAID (0 or 1) isn't all to good anyway. An increase in speed is only going to be seen in really hard disk intensive programs, and very little in normal word processing and even most gaming.

I'm not saying that RAID will give you nothing at all, but I'm saying that it will only help a few people who use there system for more hard disk intensive applications. See how you find the performace without any RAID, and if you don't feel satisfied, then maybe you might want to think about moving over to RAID.

 

Thanks, will do!

Cant wait to get it

 

I can assure you, you will love this notebook. When I was waiting for mine, I woke up early, just to see the delivery van come. I had to wait all day, until about 4 pm, until it actually came. I spent most of the day infront of the TV. When it finally came, it was amazing.

 

Well, my monday aint to good either...
First school from 8 to 16 pm, then im home for about 1 hr, after that im taking the bus to go on a floorball match. The comp comes when im away. Ill be home around 20-21 pm, then im going to put the notebook up and maybe have it running for the first time Then sleep, but im afraid i wont be able to sleep cuz im going to think about the comp all night ^^ Then my thuseday wont be so nice
How should i do with the rechargening? Let it be over night from monday to thuseday? or just plug it in and start running? First notebook so im newbie at this Something specially to keep in mind? Do you guys unplugg the comp when its full in power, or let it be connected to Ac? And when i disconnect the notebook, should i let the comp get down in battery and then recharge it?
Hope you guys can answer some of this
Thx!

 

Alot of Internet sources say that when you do have a new battery, then you should charge it slowly, and not to leave it on charge for too long. These aren't the old Ni-Cd batteries, which needed to be charged for quite a while before first use, but newer Lithium Ion batteries, hich are far more advanced. They only need to be charged for about hours and there ready to go. So, when you do get it, start using it, and let is charge at the same time.

When my battery is full, I normally leave it on AC, but its helpful to us your notebook on battery about twice a month. Use the notebook on battery, and then when it gets to something like 20% or 30%, then put in onto charge. That should be okay, if you wish to keep your battery nice and heathly.

 

Okey thx
So when i get it i start using it after 30 mins or charging or so...
And then run it on batterys atleast 2 a month.
Thx for info

 

When you get it, put the notebook on AC power, and use it at the same time. This will result in a slower charge. This should be okay for Li-Ion batteries. Previous Ni-Cd batteries needed to be chrged for quite a while, before they could be used properly, and they also suffered form the memory effect.

 

Okey. I will do like you said
But if i can only use the notebook for about 2 hrs, should i disconnect the Ac from the notebook then?
Thx

 

This notebook is not something you will be using on a battery a lot. That 2 hours is propably a bit exaggerated. If you really want that kind of battery life, the notebook has to be really cribbled in performance, every possible component at their lowest (dim screen, undervolted and underclocked CPU/GPU...). I haven't used mine with battery at all. It's plugged to ac all the time and battery is just waiting on my bookshelf..

 

Okey
Dont think ill underclock/undervoltage the computer...
Notebook Solutions: hows the review process going?

 

There's this review about Xi 1546, which is basically the same as Xi 1526, but has different GPU. Gives you some idea of the quality. There's also review about Alienware Area-51 m5750, which looks is tuned up, but it's still basically the same.

But can't wait to see the throughout 18 page review of Xi 1526 by Notebook Solutions.

 

Thank you ronkotus!
I cant wait to see it either
Gah, still Sunday... Tomorrow is the big day, Deliveryday of the Xi 1526 Notebook Cant wait for that either. Will take pics on it while i pack it up, will have to force myself to go calmly when unpacking it Cant wait!

 

Hey Pierre,

Sorry for the late reply.

I can get up to 2 hours when working in highest brightness, CPU in Speedstep (which means it runs on 1 GHz), 7600Go downclocked by drivers, WLAN on. I was browsing the web and typing the review.

I am sure you can get up to 2.5 hours by using the Silent Function, turning WLAN off and by using it on the lowest brightness.

Charlie

 

Absolutely no problems mate

Okey thx for update
Atm i dont know if i need to have it running on batteries for long times. Although i will experiment how to get it running the most time from the battery. Does Wlan take much power? Cuz after christmas i will be on it almost everytime, exept when sending large files, then ill plug it in to the D-Link DGL-4300 with GB-lan that ill get to christmas.
No update about the review?
Thx

Edit: What about the remote? Do i need batteries to the controller?

 

The battery has its own battery, a round and small one. I use the remote for 1 year (not very frequently though) and I still didn't need to replace.

WLAN can take up to 15-20 minutes when working on battery. It can bring your battery life down to 2:10 from 2:30. Remember, when you enable WLAN you also enable Bluetooth.

Charlie

BTW I am sending the review now via GMAIL. I hope it will be on line soon.

 

Okey thx.
Then when i dont need internet, i shut off the Wlan. Easy and simple
I really want to read that review even if i get my own tomorrow night
Just post the link to the side here, and ill check it tomorrow morning (if its posted by then).
Thx Charlie!

 

Abaxter has received my review, he said thath it will be online at the end of the week. By the way have you received your notebook yet?

Charlie