CNET Asia Review

Business travelers know that, on the road, computing power takes a backseat to portability. Fujitsu's LifeBook P1120, a supremely small notebook, will satisfy many business users, but it makes more trade-offs than most to achieve its feather-light weight.

Our test system came with an anemic 800MHz Transmeta Crusoe TM5800 CPU. The P1120's components also include 256MB of SDRAM and a 30GB hard drive spinning at 4,200rpm. The underpowered graphics subsystem is driven by an 8MB ATI Radeon Rage Mobility-M graphics chip. To save space, the P1120 has no internal optical drives and instead relies on an unwieldy external PC Card-interface CD-ROM drive, as well as an external USB floppy. The notebook's 8.9-inch, wide-format TFT screen, though small, is bright and lovely to behold, even if its native resolution of 1,024x600 makes text hard on the eyes.

Measuring only 231 by 149.5 by 26.5 mm and weighing a phenomenally scant 0.99kg, the P1120 stands somewhere between an ultraportable notebook and a large palmtop organizer. More reminiscent of a PDA is the Fujitsu's touch-screen capability, though this feature seems targeted towards vertical markets. The laptop's cramped keyboard is minuscule and composed of tiny, mushy-feeling keys that flex under slight pressure.

Don't confuse the P1120 with the bigger LifeBook P5010. They're both in the LifeBook P family, but the P5010 has a bigger, 10.6-inch screen and a built-in optical drive. If you don't mind a tad more weight, a built-in optical drive is extremely useful, and we recommend several small notebooks over the P1120, including the Sony Vaio TR series and the Panasonic ToughBook CF-W2.

Due to the P1120's scaled-down parts, the system turned in slow performance on MobileMark 2002, with a score of 51. That said, during anecdotal testing, the notebook proved able to handle mundane business tasks, such as Web browsing, document editing, and even 2D strategy games. Battery life is also decent, with the P1120 coasting along for 2 hours, 33 minutes before its main battery gave out.

The P1120 is endowed with the essentials for mobile connectivity. Ins and outs on the subnotebook include two USB 1.1 ports, Ethernet and modem jacks, one PC Card slot, and an adapter for VGA out. Most handy, though, is the Fujitsu's integrated 802.11b wireless networking.

Fujitsu covers the P1120 with a standard one-year warranty that includes parts-and-labor repair, as well as phone support. Business users may find this warranty a bit short given the rigors they'll put the system through.

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Fujitsu LifeBook P1120 (Crusoe 800MHz, 256MB RAM)

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