Fujitsu LifeBook S760 review

The Fujitsu LifeBook S760 is designed for business users who need a laptop that combines portability with fast performance. Priced at around £850, this 13.3-inch ultra-portable comes installed with the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Professional, rather than the Home Premium edition you'll find on the majority of consumer laptops.

Better for business

The S760 isn't exactly the most stylish ultra-portable we've ever clapped eyes on. The matte black and silver finish looks rather dated, but at least it's less likely to show up minor scratches than most glossy consumer-focused machines. It's light, at 1.8kg, and relatively compact, measuring just 314 by 22mm. For an ultra-portable that's packing a built-in DVD writer, it's rather slim at just 38mm.

Since business users are its target market, Fujitsu has sensibly chosen to use a 13.3-inch display with a matte finish on its S760. The matte coating helps to cut down on glare, so using the S760 indoors under bright lights is no problem at all. The display doesn't produce the same vibrant colours of its glossy counterparts, but it is still reasonably bright and its resolution of 1366x768 pixels is good for a screen of this size.

The circular scroll pad on the S760 is handy for zipping up and down through Web pages.

The keyboard is decked out with traditional tapered keys, rather than the isolated keys that are becoming popular on consumer models. This is no bad thing, however, as the keyboard feels large and roomy by ultra-portable standards. The keys are nicely responsive, so it's easy to get up a decent typing speed. The trackpad isn't exactly the largest we've come across, but its slightly textured surface feels good to the touch. You'll also find a fingerprint reader nestled between the two trackpad buttons, which doubles as a virtual scroll wheel when it's not being used for security purposes. Interestingly, Fujitsu has added a circular scroll pad to the right of the touchpad, which can be used for zipping up and down through Web pages and longer documents.

Step into my office...

When it comes to storage, there's a 320GB hard drive which has a built-in shock sensor that detects when the laptop is falling and parks the heads to protect your data. There's also an SD memory card reader tucked into the front edge of the laptop.

Connectivity is generally pretty adequate. The Express Card slot provides you with some expansion potential and is joined by three USB ports. One of these ports is sleep-and-charge enabled, so you can charge gadgets like phones and cameras when the laptop is turned off. Fujitsu has also kitted the S760 out with both HDMI and VGA ports for connecting it to an external display. Alongside the Gigabit Ethernet port there's also 801.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support.

The S760's connectivity is average, though it does have a useful sleep-and-charge port.

Unlike the ultra-low-voltage processors we saw on the PH530 and P770, Fujitsu has opted for a standard Core i5 processor for the S760. While this does affect the battery life somewhat, the laptop is still a decent performer in this area. In our Battery Eater test, the S760 managed to keep running for an hour and 18 minutes. This test places a constant heavy load on the processor, so in real-world conditions you're likely to get twice as long, if not more, from the battery. What you lose in battery life you certainly gain in raw performance, because this is a very speedy machine by ultra-portable standards. Its combination of a dual-core Intel i5-520M processor, clocked at 2.4GHz, and 4GB of RAM helped it rack up a score of 5,887 in the PCMark05 benchmark test. As a result, you're unlikely to be left waiting around even when you're weighing this machine down with heavy multitasking.

The S760's multimedia performance isn't as impressive, however. The laptop only has on-board Intel GMA HD graphics, which almost always struggle to produce decent frame rates in games. That's certainly the case here. The S760 managed to rack up a score of just 2,101 in the 3DMark06 benchmark. This means it's only really suitable for playing older 3D games. Given the laptop's slim dimensions, we weren't expecting the speakers to be all that impressive and, sadly, that proved to be the case. The speakers are tiny and the sound they produce is exceptionally tinny. If you're going to use this laptop for listening to music, we'd recommend you invest in a decent set of headphones.

Conclusion

The Fujitsu LifeBook S760 isn't designed to be used around the home for watching movies or playing games. It's aimed at business travellers who want a slim and light laptop that still packs a powerful punch when it comes to performance. On this front, it certainly delivers and, although the styling could have been more contemporary, it's still a fine choice for business users.

Edited by Emma Bayly