The good: Beautiful, nonreflective screen; good application performance; low price.

The bad: Pathetic battery life; lacks media controls; remote control requires external receiver; speakers sound tinny.

The bottom line: Inexpensive but not cheap, the Fujitsu LifeBook A6010 offers a gorgeous screen and enough performance for basic home use--just plan on buying an extra battery.

Read full review of the Fujitsu LifeBook A6010 »

By Michelle Thatcher
Dec 8, 2006

The Fujitsu LifeBook A6010's muted gray case looks so conservative that on first glance we mistook it for the business-friendly Dell Latitude D520. Despite its staid appearance, the LifeBook A6010 is no business machine and competitively priced for the home user. The LifeBook A6010 does exhibit a few flaws--most notably, an undersize battery that can't power the system much beyond 2 hours--but its solid construction, gorgeous screen and strong performance make it a decent, if not overly flashy, choice for consumers who want an inexpensive laptop for basic use inside their homes.

	The LifeBook A6110 ha ssimilar dimensions to the Dell Inspiron 6400. (Click for larger image)

Design
Measuring 360mm wide, 265mm deep, and 37.8mm thick, the Fujitsu LifeBook A6010 is nearly identical to the Dell Inspiron 6400. At an even 2.75kg, the LifeBook A6010 is definitely the lighter unit; with its modest AC adapter, the LifeBook hits the road at a manageable 3.13kg.

Like most 15.4-inch widescreen displays, the one on the Fujitsu LifeBook A6010 features a 1,280 x 800 native resolution. The screen is remarkably bright (271cd/m2), and its finish (Fujitsu calls it Crystal View) makes colors pop. Even better, Crystal View is not as reflective as the glossy screens found on competitors' models, such as the Dell Inspiron 6400--a big plus if you intend to use your laptop in a variety of lighting environments.

Features
Usually the keyboards on budget-friendly midsize laptops are flimsy and flexible, but the keyboard on the Fujitsu LifeBook A6010 feels solid and is one of the most comfortable we've used in a while. The LifeBook's trackpad and mouse buttons are amply sized, and we rarely experienced the frustration that comes from accidentally grazing the trackpad while typing. We love that the laptop's fingerprint reader, which rests between the two mouse buttons, doubles as a scroll. Above the keyboard sit four buttons: Volume up, volume down, and two programmable application-launch keys. We were surprised that there weren't more onboard media controls. We were also disappointed in the LifeBook A6010's speakers, whose tinny sound could not do justice to music or movies.

As expected for such a low-price system, the LifeBook A6010 keeps it simple when it comes to ports and connections. You'll find only the standard video and audio jacks (VGA, S-Video, headphone, and microphone) common to almost every laptop on the market today. You'll also get a mini-FireWire port and three USB 2.0 ports--two of which are stacked, making it more difficult to use them at the same time--plus slots for Type II PC Cards, ExpressCards, and flash memory cards. Networking options include Ethernet, modem, 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. A double-layer DVD burner rounds out the somewhat basic feature set.

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