my quick E8210 review

Thanks to nice people in Fujitsu, I had an opportunity to test their Lifebook E8210. I was very interested how it will perform, since I considered it as one of my favorites, besides HP nc8430 and Toshiba Tecra A8.

I was not running all the usual tests like 3D mark, super PI and others. Instead, I tried to use it as usual and see what fits my needs and what not; so take this short review as my notes made during regular one-day use.

First of all, I couldn’t wait to see the legendary Fujitsu displays that everybody talks about. The only LCD that I was using before this Fujitsu one was old and cheap notebook HP nx9005, which I bought about 3 years ago. Looking to the specifications of HP nx9005 (±35 degrees Horizontal, +15 /-35 Vertical, 150 nits, 150:1), I thought that Fujitsu would be an easy winner. Fujitsu was equipped with a 15.4” 1680x1050 matte display.

Here are both notebooks, side by side:



Horizontal angles look nearly the same for both, with Lifebook better in extreme angles:





Looking from the top, the E8210 is an easy winner:





Bottom view is nearly the same, again with the E8210 a bit better:






Looking from a random high angle, both look the same:



Leakage is much better in the E8210:



To be honest, I am little disappointed from the results. I thought that the Lifebook display will be nearly perfect in all aspects, but unfortunately, this is not true. I am still working with big 21” CRT monitors, so I am used to perfect colors, speed and viewing angles.

My conclusion is that choosing a notebook from the quality of display is useless, because the best ones on the market are “bad quality” and the others are “even worse quality”. For any serious graphics, I need an external CRT/LCD anyway.

Since I was looking for a very well built business notebook, next step was testing of the build quality. Unfortunately, the E8210 was not very convincing.

First thing that everybody notices is a poorly build DVD drive and the surrounding area. Every time you want to take your notebook or just to move it a bit, you have to hold the DVD drive, which then moves freely about 3mm in random directions. While holding, the drive is making strange noises and the notebook looks like it should come into pieces. The DVD drive and the bottom surrounding area is made by some weak plastic:




The DVD drive is located on the right side, which means that the right side of keyboard is also not very stable:



The frame around the display is made by a weak plastic with too much of flexing:






It’s interesting that the lid from outside is very hard and built very well.

A little LCD is used instead of LED’s to indicate hard disk access etc.:



Unusual, and I have to say not very happy solution. It’s located too high and thus bad visible. It is unusable in the dark, because there is no backlit. With the LED’s, you don’t need to focus on them and you know that the HDD is working etc.

I also didn’t like location of some keys on the keyboard. For example, Home and End keys are doubled with PgUp and PgDn keys pressed together with the Fn key. The Fn key is onthe opposite side, so pressing Home/End with a cup of tea in your left hand is not possible:



I can’t understand who placed the Pause key in the right bottom corner:



The Del key would be much more useful there.

Fortunately, there some parts that I liked on this notebook. First of them is a buckskin cover of parts on the bottom that get most hot during hard work:



The notebook can be placed on your knees without any problem.

The docking connector has a nice auto-opening cover, which can’t be lost:



During operation from battery and with low load, I could hear some periodic ticking sound coming from the notebook. With higher load or while charging, the sound went away. I think it was some noise from a switching supply inside the notebook. It was loud enough to notice it in a quiet room though.

At the end of the day, I was not very impressed with this piece of hardware. There were no serious problems during my work, but I simply didn’t like all the small problems that I had seen during this quick test. I think that a business notebook should not have such a bad build quality. When I was returning the E8210 in my local shop, I took a look on a Lifebook S. It’s interesting that the S line looks much better built, I can say it’s a different class!

I will try to get also the HP nc8430 and Toshiba Tecra A8 and compare the build quality to the E8210.

 

wow, there is alot of flex in that notebook that is good to know

 

Wow cool pictures, I very much enjoyed them. The animated image showing keyboard flex is innovative. I am suprised by the build on the machine. I had higher expectations of fujitsu.

 

Thanks

I was suprised as well. I have read an older review of the Lifebook C1320 with similar results: too much of flexing, bad build. I hoped that the E line is a bit higher class, but it's not. The S line is way better as I have quickly checked in the shop.

 

Not a very accurate review, in my opinion. I've compared my E8210US to dell D820 and the Fujitsu is stronger-better built.
The top lid is aluminum and the bottom is magnesium with high quality plastic used in certain areas. There is no wobble on the screen the hinges are steel, and the NB feels very srong and heavy.
The flex you show in the pix is the lcd frame cover which doesn't hold anything, it's just the lcd frame lid. Also, the dvdr/w drive is removable and the bottom lid of the drive is flexible. The modular bay is made of magnesium.
I see your keyboard is not the US version but i don't have any flexing there
unless i press really hard - remember the modular bay is on the right side.
Could this notebook be better build? Absolutely, but then it would be half inch thicker and two pounts heavier.
Show me a NB with better construction and with all the legacy and future ports the 8210 has, and i'll have it on Ebay tomorrow.

 

True, I am not working with notebooks often and this is only my second notebook that I want to buy. I am used to classic PC's, so maybe I was expecting too much?

I agree with an overall good outside build, but except of the DVD drive and also right bottom part of the chassis, where the DVD sits. Yes, the E8210 felt strong built, but as sson as I took it in my hands (you usually hold your fingers on the DVD bay), the solid feel is away. The DVD drive is just free there and is moving 3mm up and to the left, with terrible crunching.

Concerning the LCD frame cover, maybe it's just a cover and I was really expecting more solid build on notebooks, that just can't be reached even in the business category.

Don't get me wrong, first I wanted to buy this notebook, because, as you said, it has all the ports etc. This was simply my favourite. Maybe I will try some other notebooks and find that my expectations are unrealistic, so I will return to this one and buy it. Who knows.

Anyway, when I was returning the notebook to the shop, I showed all I discovered to the guy there and he was surprised, the same as me. He said this should not be a business notebook. We took a Lifebook S from his table and this one felt so solid in my hands. No DVD drive movement, no noises when holding in my hand, no flexing in the LCD frame cover etc. If the E line was build the same way as the Lifebook S, I would buy it immediatelly. Really, there was a huge difference between the E and S line build quality.

Maybe my sample of the E8210 was somehow faulty? I don't know.

 

Ill second Basteks comments, I was using an e8210 just this past week and noticed many of the same strengths. I also did not notice the degree of flex seen in the photos on the keyboard I used (US version) Personally, I think the NB was much nicer and more solid than this review makes it sound.

 

Which S Lifebook was that? With the white or black keyboard?
I've heard that the previous line of the E series (Pentium M processor) was better buid than the new Core Duo Lifebooks, but was also thicker and heavier. I guess you can't have everything.

 

There was a white keyboard on the Lifebook S. I also checked some Amilo Pro in the shop and there was also no flexing in the keyboard. I was soo suprised, believe me

 

The keyboard flexing issue has been a major concern for me in deciding whether to purchase an E series machine. A fellow co-worker purchased 2 E8110 machines last year and both suffered from unacceptable keyboard flexing in the middle right portion of the keyboard.

This appears to be a known characteristic of many Fujitsu machines - they even have "taping" procedures to "fix" the problem. I had hoped that the new machines (US market) would have had keyboards that were in the IBM thinkpad class. Hopefully other E8210 owners can provide further input on this matter.

Thanks,
Harvey