New N6010 to replace my old zd7000...

Hi all,

Preface...
I've been silently reading these forums for a few weeks, decided what new notebook to get. First I would likt to thank all of you out there for convincing me NOT to get a Dell XPSG2. I almost got one, and then found these forums... I actually called Dell and they said they were unaware of the 'Sparkle' issue That was enough for me to stay away, but I also had a friend that had just bought one, so I took a look at his, and I was sold (against the Dell).

So it all came down to an HP zd8000 (I've been happy with my zd7000) or an N6010. After careful scrutiny, I elected to get the Fujitsu based on what I read here.

3.2ghz, 60gb/7200rpm drive, 1gig, tvtuner, yada yada yada. I got it at portableone, since I didnt wanna mess with installing the 7200rpm drive (call me lazy). OK, it arrived. Honestly, I am not as happy as I expected to be. That isn't to say that I don't love it, but I guess I expected certain things to be waaaay better than my HP. Here is my 1st take:

The Screen:
Yes, this is the best screen I have seen, with some reservations. The brightness is awesome. The colors are rich and vibrant. Gobs better than most, and definatley better than the HP, but not by very much. On the downside, it has a lower native resolution.

The Case:
The case is sexy. The keyboard has a great feel. Compared to the HP, this one has a much better mechanism for opening. On the downside, the HP has a MUCH better and larger touchpad, as well as a convenient off button for it. The buttons feel a bit flimsy compared to the HP. One pretty big drawback is the silvery-gray keybord area. I use this as a TV at night, and you need to be careful about positioning, as the light keyboard will cause glare off the screen. Also, the colorful lights are very 'in your face' in a dark room.

The size is interesting... It is bigger than the HP, but no matter how much I look at both, the HP LOOKS bigger and heavier. Odd!

The HP wins on ports hands down, especially when you have the docking station that comes as an option with the hp... it rocks, and I will miss it.

Noise:
This was a major issue for me.The HP sounds like a jet... all the time. I was hoping that the Fujitsu would be better. Well, it is and it isn't. The fan is on much of the time, and it IS loud... more or less AS loud as the HP. However, it does go off sometimes. In a way, that is bad, because after a while you get used to the fan sound, but when it goes on and off, you are frequently remonded.

Sound:
The sound is a bit better than the HP. I wouldn't say MUCH better, but better nonetheless.

TV Tuner:
This was a MAJOR motivator for me. I liked the idea of having an internal TV Tuner... I was REALLY EXCITED about this. So you can imagine how I felt when I logged into my MSDN account, downloaded XPMC 2005, installed it on the Fujitsu, and discovered that the tuner used in the Fujitsu doesn't work with XPMC. Major bummer there, but I kinda had a feeling that was why Fujitsu didn't offer XPMC as an option. Oh well :-(, using WinDVR is better than lugging the external USB encoder HP ships.

Battery:
This was also a big concern for me, and I am glad to report that I do get nearly double the life out of my battery.. Woooo Hoooo
Also, I travel, and airline power is mucho important to me. The zd8000 has some new power connector (apparently to address the fact that the old one on the zd7000 came loose all the time -- a fact I can attest to). The Fujitsu is supported by the 3rd part ariline adapter market.

Heat:
I am happy to say my wrists will never burn again. Man, my HP was HOT!!! The Fujitsu doesn't burn your wrists

OK, so my review is pretty mixed. Enought that you may wonder which notebook I prefer.The truth is that I don't know. All in all, I think I prefer the Fujitsu, but I am not sure why. I am happy with it, just not as happy as I thought I would be. HEY!!! My fan just went off! Ahhhhhhh Ooops, there, it went on again!

-m

 

On the keyboard buttons. they do feel flimsy because they sort of jiggle in place. but in fact they wont pop off easily, i think they jiggle in place just becuase of the way they are mounted.

I had to remove my keyboard the other day because I dropped some biscuit crumbs in it ... woops [ )] and I was impressed by the manufacturing. The whole keyboard lies on a metalic plate that seperates it from the components bellow and thus avoids heat leakage and prevents any flex. If someone says that the N6010 keyboard flexes he must be hallucinating cause the only way that can happen is if a 3mm metal board bends !!!

As you can tell I am fond of the Keyboard. That is my most important feature along with the screen that determine my purchase. And the heat, or the lack of it. I have sweaty hands so add heat and "Houston we have a problem" [ ]

After a bit over a month I wouldn't trade my N6 for anything. The HP was out of the question when I heard about the heat problems. And dell ... well lets not even go there!

Oh ya and the thing I love the most as part of the package of any fujitsu laptop is P1. Great place to buy and get after sale support.

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N6010: P4M 3.2G, 512MB Dual 333MHz, 60GB 7200RPM, ATI 9700M, 17" WXGA+
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Hey Sensei. It's actually pretty simple. Notice the top border of the keyboard, it's actually not connected to the rest of the border (the white one). Just slip in your finger nail from its top side and you will notice that it's atached by 4 notches (or whatever you call them). So with a little pressure it comes off. Under it there are 5 screws holding the keyboard down. That's all there is to it. but if you do ever remove your keyborad be careful not to yank it out of place too quickly since there is a ribbon wire connecting to the mother board (I didn't disconnect that bec my crumbs were out as soon as I flipped it).

It's already hot were you are. Damn so soon. Here in philly we are sort of having summer time weather, and all cooling is still off, so my N6 is toasting [ ]

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N6010: P4M 3.2G, 512MB Dual 333MHz, 60GB 7200RPM, ATI 9700M, 17" WXGA+
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Congrats on your New N6010 mkovnick.

I agree there are some downsides, but overall, I think I would take a Fujitsu over any HP any day.

Hey, Qwester, how did you remove your keyboard? I dare not try but would like to know how ... incase I do drop a diamond rock in there. [ )]

As for the Heat Problem, I think the fan will be running non-stop in the summer. I feel the Summer heat coming, and I was in a windowless room the other day with my N6010, the notebook did feel slightly warm, especially on the left palm rest. It wasnt burning Hot, but just warm.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by mkovnick

 

Hi Qwester and Sensei...

Thanks for the input. A few comments...

1) The keyboard. What flex? No complaints here!

2)The fans. Do you know if there may be a way to adjust the fans so they run at a constant speed? I think that may be the big issue

3) Summer... Yeah, well I am in Los Angeles... and in the Valley, no less. So it is already summer here

4) Dell... This board did a WONDERFUL job of dissuading me from a Dell purchase. I mean, WOW, how many people need to complain of 'sparkle' to make me believe it is a bona-fide problem ;-).. And after seeing so many people complain about it, to have Dell pre-sales support act so clueless... well, that speaks volumes. The other thing about the Dell was all of those lights! What is with that, anyway? When I saw my friend's, I felt like it belonged in a cheesy 70's disco.

OK, the big question is: Have any of you installed XPMC 2K5 on it? Is there a way to get it to work with the internal tuner?

Thanks in advance,
-m

 

Bummer. Oh well, I'll get used to it. Music is always the answer

Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to install linux (fedora c3) on it (via VMWare), we'll see if I can get it running

-m

 

I don't have a tuner so cannot help you there. my tv is just a few feet away from my notebook so I saved my $ and got no tuner.

The fans seem to be totally hardware controlled. Users on this forum, including me, have failed to reach anyway to speed them up or slow them down. If you feel better having them at high RPM, you can get speed switch xp and force your cpu to run at 3.2GHz all the time, that way the fans will always run at high RPM, but I think it's a bit loud. Best solution I found is always have winamp in the background, either MP3s or streaming radio [ ].

About the keyboard and the flex. I didn't mean that you said it was flexing. I was just so impressed with the build. Especially after the other day I saw my friend typing on her dell 8600 and boy was that thing flexing. I could see the flex with my eyes, it was that much. I bet it feels even worse! I didn't even want to try it out, my fingers are too precious to have them try a dell [ ] [ ] [ ]

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N6010: P4M 3.2G, 512MB Dual 333MHz, 60GB 7200RPM, ATI 9700M, 17" WXGA+
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For the heat issues you should try the suggestion viewfinder made over in the sony forum for noisy S360. He had a link to some program that would let you adjust the voltage on your cpu and by undervolting their cpu's they could shave a few degrees off their temps. and keep the fans off a little more. He mentioned optimizing voltages when multiplier is at max and when it's at min values. Had something to do with all chips running at one voltage when they could perform just as well at lower voltages without losing any performance.

 

I believe you would be referring to RMClock,
http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml

I have tried it, IMO, it doesnt really shave a lot of temperature off. The only way to control the processor is limiting the processor frequency used by Windows, which doesnt physically change the internal frequency in the CPU.

//**
Can you feel the photons striking your face?
**//

 

Hi all and thanks for the replies. I'll try some of the suggestions for the heat issues, but based on your responses, 'Get Used To It' will probably work best

Qwester... Fedora Core 3 installed in VMWare like a dream! I couldn't believe it. I had previously tried RedHat9, and went through hell trying to do it (on the HP). Note that this latest install is in VMWare 5, whcih just came out a few days ago, so that may have made a difference. The only tough part was getting VMWare tools installed, but that only set me back about 20 minutes until I realized the CDROM is /media/cdrom, rather than /dev/cdrom.

The next big hurdle I face is to try to see if I can get a set of working video drivers that will let me run the VMWare linux on this machine at the native 1440x900... THAT will be sweet

For those of you that wonder why getting Linux running is such a big deal to me, the answer is the obvious one: To know that I can ;-)

For those of you that wonder what VMWare is, it is a program that basically allows you to run a virtual computer within your computer, and lets you take 'snapshots' of varous states. So, for example, I now have XP Home, XPMC 2005, Win98, WinMe, Win2K Pro and Linux running on my N6010. The native operating system is XPMC, and the rest are 'guests'. I can load up any one of them, crash them to hell, fill them up with viruses and click a button to restore it to a previous state in about 10 seconds. Maybe it doesn't sound like a big deal, but I am in the software biz.

-m