Skip to main content

Fujitsu UH572 review

This ultabook is barely relevant now; but, on the other hand, I've been using this ultrabook for about 6 months, which allows me to cover things not covered by other reviews. Perhaps, it would be of interest to people who consider buying used laptops.

Overview

 Fujitsu UH572 is a cheap and light ultrabook. For me, the weight is a very important factor, as I often move around with an open laptop in my hands (sometimes even typing while I hold it one hand). Anything heavier than 1.6 kg is unacceptable. On the other hand, I need fast CPU and lots of RAM for the work I do, so netbook-like devices are not an option. And I can't afford high-end ultrabooks, so I'm glad that devices like UH572 are available. Here are specs of the one I got:


  • Intel Core i5-3317U (1.7-2.6 GHz, 3 MB cache, 2 cores/4 threads, Ivy Bridge)
  • 4 GB RAM
  • 500 GB HDD
  • 32 GB iSSD (SanDisk i100)
  • Intel Centrino Wireless-N2230 b/g/n
  • (see the rest of specs in datasheet)

The alternatives were:

  • Dell Vostro 3360
  • Fujitsu UH552 (same thing without iSSD)
  • Lenovo IdeaPad U310
  • Samsung NP530U3B
All of these laptops have a lot in common. ( recommend notebookcheck.net for detailed reviews.) I ended up wtih UH572 for a couple of reasons:

  • It has good keyboard layout, similar to what I was using before.
  • Keyboard looks a bit weird, but I find it quite convenient, and I could type on it right away without any re-learning period.
  • I like to have an iSSD.
  • I planned to upgrade RAM to 8 GB, and Fujitsu appears to be easiest to ugprade. (It has one empty slot so I just need to buy 4 GB module
  • It has a slot for a wireless (3G) card.

Keyboard

I admit it does look a bit weird, and many reviews reported that it has cheap feel, it yields under pressure.

Well, it isn't important. It is important that it is quite comfortable and  it allows me to type fast without getting tired. (And it was an important factor that I didn't need to adjust to it.)

Also smaller keyboard with smaller keys is good for typing in less than optimal position, like when laptop is in your lap, or when you hold it with one hand and type with another.

So I'm quite satisfied with the keyboard. (Even though most review said that it is bad.)

Display

Just like with keyboard, most reviews report that display isn't good. However, I disagree: it's one of the best displays I've ever used.

Somehow it is perfect for displaying text: all letters looks very nice and I can comfortably read even small font, as all letters are very legible.

Otherwise, I can't say anything bad about colors, angles, contrast, etc. It is a cheap display, but it is a very good cheap display.

Operating system

I need to use Linux for work, so I installed Debian GNU/Linux 7. It was pretty straightforward aside from installation of wireless driver: I had to download it from Intel and supply it during installation. But somehow Debian installation script had problems with recognizing a flash drive with file on it. Anyway, I found some way to force the damn thing to eat my file and from that point it was smooth.

Also I had to add i8042.notimeout to grub config to get touchpad working.

Touchpad

This laptop is equipped with Synaptics Clickpad. I have mixed feelings about it.

When you just need to move cursor around if OK, it is also quite good at recognizing gestures.

On the other hand, clicking is a bit problematic. In theory, clickpad is convenient: touchpad itself is a button, so you don't need to move your finger. In practice, it's pretty much impossible to click with precision: neither touch-clicking, nor clickpad-clicking is very accurate.

Same thing with dragging: in theory you can do it with one finger and it is straightforward. In practice, it doesn't always work very well.

Right-clicking is even a bigger problem: you need to aim at a particular area of a clickpad, and it's even more finicky.

So, I would prefer separate buttons.

Also, sometimes (perhaps when fingers are a bit wet) touchpad goes totally crazy).

iSSD 

Part of iSSD is used for a special hibernate-to-SSD feature which is enabled by the chipset Intel created for ultrabooks. It is much faster than normal hibernation.

The rest is supposed to be used by ReadyBoost cache (on Windows).

But I decided to use whole disk for the cases when I need fast I/O (and I need it from time to time), so I formatted whole disk as ext4 (if you do this, note that it is important to reboot after you've deleted existing partitions; otherwise your fs will be corrupted when system hibernates -- it checks if partition exists only on boot).

SanDisk i100 has pretty good specs, both reads and writes are fast, and it's pretty durable. At least in theory.

However, in my case it died after 10 minutes of use. I believe firmware is shitty and it somehow managed to corrupt its internal state during intensive I/O. Now it stops responding soon after Linux tries to read from it.

I have to delete this device after each boot to make suspend working:

sudo bash -c "echo 1 > /sys/block/sdb/device/delete"

Maybe it works fine with ReadBoost, but it's disappointing that device with great specs can't be used.

Wifi

Well, it seems to work fine, and doesn't crash Linux, which is great. 

Video card

I rarely use 3D (if ever), so I can't say if it is good or not, but at least it works.

It has HDMI output, and this version of Debian with GNOME 3 has nice support for external displays. Basically, I can just plug in HDMI cable, close the lid -- and desktop moves to external display. Then I disconnect HDMI cable and it moves back to laptop's screen. Neat.

It didn't work that well on my previous laptop: it required a reboot to initialize external display properly.

Sound

Internal speakers suck.

CPU

I was surprised how fast it worked compared to my previous AMD Neo laptop. Automatic frequency scaling, 4 threads. Nice!

Case

More-or-less standard for ultrabooks, particularly, cheap ones. Aluminium. Lid isn't particularly strong, yields under pressure. Base is pretty rigid, which is good.

Fujitsu engineers had a brainfart when they designed indicators: all indicators are inside, so it isn't possible to tell whether notebook is on, sleeping or off without opening lid a bit.

Hinge is pretty stable and angle isn't bad, but plastic cracked a bit around hinge. (Might be might fault.)

Thermal

Fan works only if CPU is in use. Fan can be pretty loud if CPU usage is high, but it doesn't get very hot.

Battery

According to Fujitsu, it can work on battery life is up to 7 hours. But that's on lowest brightest setting and without wifi/bluetooth/3G.

In practice, it last for ~4 hours. (Maybe more on Windows?)

Charging is surprisingly fast. Charger is unusually compact.

Conclusion

It is hard to say whether I recommend this ultrabook, as it has both good and bad sides.




Comments

galaineuhde said…
The safest means to do this is to find a reputable useful resource that offers with all one of the best paying on-line on line casino standards. Normally this would 카지노 사이트 추천 to|this may} contain discovering casinos with the very best RTPs, or recreation payouts, but does extend to ensuring the on line casino pays out often and on time. Casinos with fast payouts place a priority on making certain the withdrawal process is streamlined.
jackbabine said…
Ducky Luck knocks it out of the park with an enormous welcome bonus that is certain to turn some heads. When you sign up and make your first deposit, you can to|you probably can} opt-in for Ducky Luck’s huge welcome on line casino bonus of 500% match a lot as} $2,500. On high of that positively monstrous match bonus, you’ll get 50 bonus spins per day for 3 days. That’s why we’ve dug deep into the internet and pulled up 9 of the easiest free spins on line casino bonuses the web on line casino industry has to supply. Play Now Sail away into a tropical new variation on traditional five-card stud poker. In this steamy poker recreation, the 슬롯머신 게임 dealer should qualify with an Ace and King or a pair or higher.
Anonymous said…
Both players now expose their cards and the upper valued hand wins. If the entire it is a tie and players' stakes are returned. Now, if the banker's whole is 7 or much less, the banker must determine whether or not to attract a third card. Note that at this level, the banker has not seen the player's first two cards. The banker 메리트카지노 decides whether or not or not to attract utilizing a call table just like the one for Punto Banco, however with freedom of choice in just a couple of cases.

Popular posts from this blog

Lisp web tutorial?

"PHP vs. Lisp: Unfortunately, it's true..." article initiated quite active discussion on reddit , one fellow asking : Can someone post a tutorial for taking a clean install of Ubuntu (or windows or anything) to finish with serving a basic CRUD application using lisp? Maybe a TODO list with entires consisting of: incomplete/complete boolean, due date, subject, body? actually i had an impression that there are more than enough such tutorials, but as nobody replied i've tried finding one myself, starting with Hunchentoot tutorials. surprisingly, none of them covered a short path from clean OS install to working examples. neither i've found my ABCL-web  tutorial suitable for this, so i decided to try myself.  my idea was that Linux distros like Debian and Ubuntu contain a lot of Lisp packages, and it should be fairly easy to install them, as it automatically manages dependencies etc. i've decided to try Hunchentoot -- i'm not using it myself, but it's k

Lisp syntax is great!

lots of people complain about Lisp syntax -- they find it too weird and verbose, they call LISP "Lots of Irritating  Silly Parentheses"; and sometimes they even pop up with proposals to "fix Lisp" on comp.lang.lisp -- "Lisp is sort of cool, but this syntax... let me show you my great ideas." on the other hand, most lispers (and I among them) actually love s-expression syntax. who is right here? are syntax preferences a subjective thing, or one can decide which is better quite in an (more-or-less) objective way? or, perhaps, that's just a matter of taste and custom? i've got a good example today.. i'm using Parenscript -- cool Common Lisp library that automatically generates JavaScript from Lisp-like syntax -- and i've wrote a function that caches document.getElementById results (that makes sence for dumb browsers like IE):   (defun my-element-by-id (cache id) (return (or (slot-value cache id)     (setf (slot-value cache

Belief markets: short conspiracy theories using prediction market technology

Overview This article introduces a new concept called 'belief market'. The closest relatives of belief markets are prediction markets, thus I will introduce the concept by describing how prediction and belief markets differ. Prediction markets allow participants to make bets on outcomes of events. More generally, bets can be made on answers to questions which can be unambiguously answered in future. A participant can update his position until the market is closed and a question is resolved, which makes it different from other kinds of betting. Belief markets allow participants to bet on answers to questions which cannot be reliably resolved. In other words, belief markets allow participants to bet on something they believe should be true, even if an answer cannot be determined in such a way 100% of participants would agree with. Instead of that, a virtual resolution is based on a consensus among a subset of participants. To make this possible, belief markets rely on cryptocurre