When many people think of ‘netbooks’ they often picture devices like the ASUS . Cheap and simple to use, ultraportable notebooks have proven to be a hit thanks to their convenient size, despite their frequent lack of high-end features.

Although Fujitsu’s LifeBook U2010 is just as portable as the EeePC, it’s completely different in almost every other respect. More features, better performance and a much higher price tag mean that this small notebook is a tempting, albeit pricey, solution for those craving more from their tiny machines.

The most impressive aspect of the LifeBook is its tiny stature. Measuring just 172x135x34mm and weighing just 590g minus the power supply (800g all together), the U2010 is barely the weight of two smartphones. It’s also aesthetically impressive, avoiding the bizarre wings of its cousin, the .

The 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor that powers the U2010 has been designed for this type of unit. Small and energy efficient, the relatively powerful Atom compares favourably to previous CPUs and runs the Windows Vista Business operating system very smoothly during basic office tasks. Heat isn’t an issue and the device remains comfortable to hold throughout use.

One of the major upgrades to the U series is the jump to the Atom platform. Not only does it perform much faster than the previous 800MHz processor, it surprisingly uses less power at the same time. Thanks to the new chipset, the rated battery life has also been significantly improved from around 2 hours on the U1010 to up to 8 hours on the LifeBook U2010.

As an interesting aside, this LifeBook uses the Atom z530 chip instead of the newer Atom n270 processor. The main difference between them is that the former supports virtualization technology and generates less heat at 2W (compared with 2.5W for the Atom N270). However, since both models have the same clock cycle and 512KB L2 cache, it’s unlikely that there will be any discernable performance difference during usage.

Thin and light notebooks haven’t been all that popular with consumers over the past couple of years. Desktop replacement systems with their large 17″ screens and not moved much were the best sellers. The systems were still popular with corporations who needed powerful and mobile platforms. Fujitsu is not well known for consumers as most of its systems are geared towards businesses. Find out in my review if their latest thin and light notebook, the LifeBook S7110, is more consumer friendly.Fujitsu’s LifeBook avoids the trend of widescreen thin and light notebooks, but the features are more geared towards a corporate user that needs lots of battery life.Notebooks are coming into our life, both at home and at work. It’s getting more difficult to choose a model for your requirements. Sometimes manufacturers try to help us and offer their classifications. But this is often done by marketing departments, which bring further confusion to beginners, who operate with “consumer” characteristics rather than CPU clock or wireless card type. The situation is complicated by the fact that hardware configurations of most mass-scale notebooks look alike. Truly exclusive models are extremely rare.

Memory size is also not a limit to most applications. Especially as it can be easily upgraded to 1.5-2 GB in many models, it’s quite sufficient now (and even tomorrow – for Microsoft Vista).Capacities of modern mobile hard drives are sufficient for everything, even for medium-sized video libraries. Besides, you can easily use external storage devices with USB 2.0 and FireWire interfaces.CPU clock makes a difference only in those tasks, where it has to give all it has got. Efficient performance and power management systems reduce its frequency the rest of the time. They try to increase its battery life and reduce the load on its cooling system. But in fact, there are not so many significant tasks.The LifeBook S7110 weighs in at a mere 1.8kg (with weight-saver option)– fairly impressive for a full-featured mainstream notebook as such. The S7110’s high-speed performance and array of features are as expected for a notebook of this price range.

The Pocket LOOX T830 is running Windows Mobile 5.0 and it has two major differences from other pocket pc devices we have seen so far. The first difference is that the Pocket LOOX T830 has the richest set of connectivity features you can find on a pocket pc device. First of all it is a pocket pc phone (GSM/GPRS Tri-Band 900/1800/1900 MHz), a PDA, a 3G-enabled phone with built in Wireless LAN (Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g) and Bluetooth  2.0, and it also has an integrated GPS receiver. It has all the connectivity features currently available for pocket pc devices. Other pocket pc devices have some but not all of the features included in Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket LOOX T830. For example the ETEN X500 has built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and built-in GPS receiver but does not have support for 3G. The HTC P3600 is 3G enabled but does not have a built-in GPS. For sure the connectivity features of Pocket LOOX T830 are one of the greatest advantages of this phone.

In what appears to be a solid bid to achieve technological nirvana, Fujitsu Siemens has unveiled its Pocket LOOX T800 series comprised of the T810 and T830 models at the ongoing 3GSM World Congress 2006 fair in Barcelona. Launched as the most capable Windows Mobile 5.0 devices to date, the two integrate antenna-less GPS reception, UMTS based 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.0, USB 1.1 with host capabilities and a SDIO capable SD/MMC card expansion slot for an unparallelled connectivity setup.Setting the two devices apart is the omission of a 2.0 Megapixel camera with autofocus in the T810, while both support video calls courtesy of their front-mounted 0.3 Megapixel camera. A touch-sensitive 2.4-inch, 262K colour screen with a resolution of 240 x 240 pixels provides a window to the Pocket PC Edition of Windows Mobile 5.0, propelled by a 416 MHz Intel processor, 64 MB of RAM and 128 MB of non-volatile memory. Lastly, Fujitsu Siemens’ trademark jog dial also remains present in the T800 series.

With Microsoft® Windows Mobile 5.0 software and UMTS functionality, Pocket LOOX T series users always have access to their e-mails, appointment calendar and other familiar Microsoft Office applications. And it’s user-friendly, with a standard QWERTY keyboard and brilliant TFT display. Incorporating these devices into the corporate network is straightforward, ensuring secure and reliable data transfer, while the integrated GPS makes sure you never get lost. The new high-end handhelds will arrive at shops in July for prices of approximately €700.

Fujitsu today unveiled the world’s highest-capacity 2.5″ drive yet at 300GB. They showed off the drive in a USB-powered external enclosure. It runs at 4,200RPM and has a 16-point shock absorber along with an array of security software. It is expected to hit retail in Q3 at $229. There is no word on when the bare drive will be available.

The 300GB MAW3300NC is an enterprise hard disk drive offering 10K RPM spindle speeds and features an 8MB data buffer for optimizing the overall drive performance. It utilizes Fujitsu’s Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) technology to assure remarkably quiet operation. Connecting via an Ultra320 SCSI interface, the MAW300NC provides accelerated performance, making it perfect for NAS, DAS, or SANs. It is also in compliance with the RoHS initiative, which calls for the elimination of hazardous substances from the manufacturing of electronic equipment.

It’s difficult to dispute the practicality of a 2.5in external hard disk, and the HandyDrive is a case in point. It weighs only 255g, and at 82 x 22 x 142mm (WDH) it’s small enough to fit into a pocket. Although it comes with an extra USB cable to plug in to draw power, in practice the three laptops we tested with all supplied enough juice to run the drive. It also supplies 300GB of storage, which is ample for use as a photographer’s friend, or simply for toting around very large documents. It’s fast, too: writing 100MB of files took only ten seconds, so getting large folders across is painless. Consider the exceptionally low price of £110 – just over 36p per gigabyte – and this is a must-have addition to any traveller’s bag.