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Eye Catcher

The 14-inch Fujitsu computer combines solid speed, long battery life and security in a lightweight and durable design.

Razor-thin, lightweight ultrabooks are all the rage in corporate circles these days. As enterprises warm to the emergence of an increasingly mobile workforce, computer vendors are working overtime to introduce these new devices with business-friendly features. Japan?s Fujitsu has debuted its new LifeBook U772 ultrabook that combines a sleek design with business-class features and performance. It is designed to appeal to employees who are now able to choose their own computer because of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiatives in the corporate workplace. But can something so mobile be so secure? Let us find out.

At the outset, the 14-inch LifeBook U772 continues Fujitsu?s long heritage of ultra-portables for individual professionals, which began with the sub-1 kg Q Series in 2006. The new Fujitsu machine comes with a red or silver shell and frameless display. Recently, we got an opportunity to review the red model. My initial impressions of the test-unit were good: it does what it says on the cardboard. The display is bright, and the processor seems fast enough. It is perfect for professionals on business trips and in the office.

The fully-featured Fujitsu notebook uniquely combines an outstanding small form factor with a stylish frameless display. The 14-inch glossy screen is nearly edge to edge, which means there?s a very thick bezel. The machine is ultra-slim at only 15.6 mm with a weight of only 1.4 kg. Its extended battery runtime, high responsiveness plus advanced security features offer you the mobility you need. And you?ll find it?s a real eye-catcher.

At a physical level, the Fujitsu U772 features a fairly large black matte island-style keyboard. The flat keys are large and nicely spaced. The ClickPad delivers responsive and accurate movement. The right side of the notebook houses two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, an SD card reader and a mini-Gigabit Ethernet port. A USB 2.0 port, headphone jack, secure lock slot and AC adapter jack sit on the left. A SIM card slot is on the back edge, and a docking connector and a tiny reset pinhole are on the bottom of the notebook.

In my test-run, the Fujitsu machine delivered solid performance. Colours looked bright when watching movies from the internet. Thanks to its 1.7-GHz Intel Core i5-3317U CPU with 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD, the U772 ably streamed video from YouTube with a full system scan running in the background. Its high definition Web camera captures stills and video at 1280 x 800 using CyberLink YouCam. The images exhibited a good amount of colour accuracy.

Another appealing aspect of the Fujitsu notebook is its emphasis on battery life. Battery life is an obvious necessity for travelling employees and the U772 offers professionals a long 10-hour battery life. In-office employees can benefit too. Eight to nine hours happens to be the length of the average work day and those who spend their days running around the office instead of tethered to a desk will find that not having to stop to plug in every once in a while can be a liberating experience and ensures continued productivity.

Fujitsu claims to be the first company to ship a new-generation ultrabook with business-class, enterprise-standard features such as Intel vPro technology?providing advanced manageability and security. Professional users also gain peace-of-mind when it comes to mobile security thanks to features including a fingerprint sensor and FDE (full disk encryption) SSD drives. In my experience, the fingerprint reader was a pleasure to use.

Other security measures include BIOS-level password protection and the Portshutter utility. This software lets administrators lock down certain ports to prevent someone from copying sensitive data to such devices as a USB stick. A Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip is available on other configurations. Also, the U772 comes with a 90-day free trial of Absolute Data Protect security software.

All in all, the new Fujitsu machine combines the portability and near-instant power-on time of a tablet device with the power and usability of a traditional notebook. It makes light work of heavy tasks, even on the go.

SPECS

Dimensions: 327 x 225 x 9.0-15.6 mm (W x L x H)

Display: 14.0-inch SuperFine HD LED Backlit

Resolution: 1366 x 768 pixels, 200nits brightness

Processor: Upto 3rd gen Intel Core i7 vPro processor

Operating system: Windows 7 Professional or Windows 8 Pro

Memory: 2/4/8 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ? DIMM Slot x 1

Battery runtime: Upto 10 hours

Weight: 1.4 kg

Estimated street price: Rs 75,900

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First published on: 15-11-2012 at 04:45 IST
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