Get your greasy mitts off my machine (Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Li 2727)

Member Name: Fiver29

Product:	Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Li 2727
Date:	12/01/09 (463 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, reasonable sized storage.

Disadvantages: Badly designed port placement, casing shows every mark

My previous laptop died on me during the Christmas period. I actually thought that it was the perfect time since the January sales were coming, and according to the news the sales were to be massive. Needless to say there were very few laptops in my price range on sale, so after hunting far and wide I came upon the LI 2727.

~The Product~

A quick overview of the laptop itself. It has :-

A 15.4 inch widescreen
1.86GHz Dual Core Intel Processor
1024MB RAM
160GB Hard Drive
DVD Rewriter
and comes with Vista Home pre installed.

That's the dull bit out of the way. The outer casing is a silvery colour, whereas opened up the laptop is black inside. I'm not sure of the exact weight, about 2 or 3 kg I would imagine, so its pretty light weight, although if you had to cart it around, you'd need the power supply so it could be quite bulky for long walks.

The battery lasts approximately 2 hours using the Eco Settings, basically this means it goes into standby quickly when its not in use, and the screen is much dimmer than it would be if it was plugged in. These settings are adjustable if you find its difficult to see when its so dim.

~My Thoughts~

My immediate thoughts are that there are a couple of irritations with the machine. Firstly, there is no SD card reader, whilst not an insurmountable problem, as a photographer I prefer to download my photos directly from the card, rather than have to plug the camera into the laptop each time.

The second minor problem is the positioning of the USB ports. There are four ports, which is great, however all the ports are on the left hand side of the machine. I am right handed, meaning I have my USB mouse on the right of the machine. The mouse I have is one with a retractable cable, luckily it just makes it around the back of the laptop, leaving a tiny bit of leeway for movement. Had the cable been any shorter it would have been useless.

The third is more a cosmetic annoyance than anything else. The inside casing is a textured black plastic. Whether its because its textured or because its black I'm not sure, but there are now oil marks from the heels of my hands where they rest on the casing as I'm typing (I obviously rest my left hand more because the print is much bigger lol). And there are marks on the mouse pad buttons from when they've been clicked.

Finally the fourth irritation is the networking. This isn't automatic, it has to be turned on every time the computer is booted up. I've lost count of the amount of times I've just booted up the machine, clicked Firefox and Thunderbird and then wondered why they won't connect, but I guess its something that you eventuall get used to.

There are things that might irritate other people, I have read on other reviews about the fan noise. This could be off putting to many people, however as I had a Fujitsu Siemens PA1510 before this I was quite used to the fan noise. And to be perfectly honest this one barely makes any noise at all compared to the old one. But it might be something to bear in mind if you are looking at this machine.

Overall, apart from the minor annoyances mentioned above, it seems likes a very decent machine. I would have preferred a little more RAM because 1024MB is pretty much the minimum spec for running Vista (I'm lucky because I will be able to transfer a stick from my old laptop when I get round to it). But it still runs smoothly even with several programmes running at one time.

160GB hard drive isn't the greatest amount of storage, but I generally transfer important items to an external hard drive once a week anyway.

For the money I think its a decent machine, certainly good enough for a student or someone who needs to do accounts etc, or for surfing the web. Built in graphics mean its unlikely to play any high spec games, but its fine for the type of games I have such as Agatha Christie mysteries, Broken Sword, Preatorians.

~Price~

I almost forgot this bit! I bought it at Comet for £293.

Summary: A good buy for anyone wanting a cheap laptop.

Processing/Quality:
Reliability:
Ease of use:
Installation:
Battery life:
Features: