Fujitsu LifeBook N6200 Notebook with Pentium M Processor

The tide has turned! Computer users now realize a high-performance notebook can replace that oversized desktop PC, without sacrificing power, storage and other features you want. Fujitsu sent us the LifeBook N6200 for review purposes, and it's sweet.

After a short while, you find you won't miss the desktop PC at all. The display is sharp, the processing power keeps up with whatever you throw at it, and you have hard disk storage galore.

It's not the lightest notebook (almost 10 pounds), but if you keep it mostly on your desk, who cares? Let's see what's under the hood, for you geeks out there.

The N6200 features the latest Intel Pentium M Processor, which offers desktop-like performance and extended battery life. The latter is important if you're a road warrior. But many buyers of this notebook will use it on AC power most of the time. Our unit had the model 750 (1.86 GHz, with 2 MB L2 cache).

How about the display? You get wonderful image quality with a 17-inch (diagonal) Crystal View display. It's reportedly 40 percent brighter than a standard TFT screen (but we didn't verify this). Fujitsu says the display doubles the standard contrast ratio up to 400:1, so we'll take their word for it. We suffered no eye strain after hours of the N6200 usage.

The video controller is an ATI Mobility Radeon x600 with 128 MB of dedicated video memory. It supports multi-displays, and uses less power. It offers maximum display resolution of 1440x900 and 16 million colors. It supports an external monitor up to 1600x1200 resolution.

Web surfing and networking is a snap. The N6200 notebook comes standard with a modem and LAN. So it's ready to go with dial-up (boo!) or broadband DSL or cable modem. We didn't use either, instead opting for faster Wi-Fi to connect. One of the best things about wireless is that free Wi-Fi networks are popping up all over. We were able to connect to one from home (although connection was spotty at times). But hey, it was free.