Sleek lines, beautiful metallic, fiery red body, compact, solid and ready to go - you might think we were looking at the latest rocket to come of the Ferrari production line. Instead, we're looking at Fujitsu's latest, and we reckon greatest, netbook the M2010.

Tale of the Tape

The M2010 comes in three colours: Fiery Red, Diamond Black and Pearl White. The 258 x 189 x 35 mm body weighs in at 1.3kg with the six-cell battery. Build quality was excellent with all the panels fitting together neatly although we question whether the plastic casing will stand up to a couple of years of use. While it didn't seem to scratch easily, it was a little soft. In particular we were concerned that an impact on the lid might damage the LCD.

Given the way the netbook market has settled, the spec sheet is about the same as most other 10-inch units. Processing is powered by an Intel N280 Atom CPU clocked at 1.66GHz. a gig of memory with room for another and 160GB Toshiba hard disk that was split into two, equally sized partitions out of the box. Connectivity to other devices was covered off with three USB ports, ethernet, 802.11 b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, 3.5mm jacks for speakers and microphone and a SD/Memory Stick/Memory Stick PRO slot.

Software

The software side of things was interesting. Fujitsu bundles the Java-based ThinkFree Office Suite with their netbooks. The suite includes Write, Calc and Show - word processor, spreadsheet and presentation respectively - and they all look a lot like their Microsoft Office 2003 equivalents. This is a smart move as it means that folks switching between a full powered desktop system and a netbook won't need to learn how to use different office suites. To aid syncing files between the netbook and a desktop, ThinkFree offers an online file syncing service. If you're already a GMail user you can use that account to access the service.

When we first powered up the M2010 we went through the usual process of connecting it to our wireless LAN. Rather than using Windows XP's wireless LAN setup, Fujitsu includes, and enables by default, the Atheros Client Utility. After messing about for a few minutes we were able to get the M2010 connected. However it was far from straightforward. We'd recommend disabling the Atheros app and using the regular Windows one as it's far simpler to use. For a frequent traveller that's some heartache you just don't need to suffer through.

One thing that was missing was anti-virus software. We're a little betwixt and between on whether every computer running Windows should ship with AV but it is one thing that buyers will need to factor in with their purchasing decision.

Performance

At 1024 by 600, the M2010's display is good enough for most video and the VGA port can be used to either mirror or extend the in-built display. For those planning to use the M2010 as a portable presentation unit, that's very handy. However, to do that you'll need to install PowerPoint as ThinkFree's Show app doesn't have a presenter view.

Video playback was very clear. Our test video, a 1280 by 720 Xvid MPEG-4 scaled nicely and played back without missing a beat. The internal speakers weren't particularly loud but at least they weren't tinny and were good enough to watch a movie.

However, trying to watch HD content on YouTube was an exercise in frustration. The M2010 became almost unresponsive to mouse movements or keystrokes as it laboured under the heavy processing load even when the movie was fully loaded. All this tells us that local playback of video compressed using an efficient codec will be fine but don't look to the M2010 for HD playback.

While we found the WiFi setup to be painful, Bluetooth was a breeze to use. We setup a speaker system and connection to another computer without any problems. Fujitsu use a Bluetooth stack and software that's designed by Toshiba. This is far easier to use than the software that is part of a standard Windows XP system.

Fujitsu clearly believe that the M2010 is a winner. They're backing the M2010 with a two year national wide pick up and return warranty that includes parts and labour. We liked the M2010 a lot as well. It looks great, performs well and is ready for productive use, straight out of the box. For most netbook users Fujitsu has hit on a winner.

By Anthony Caruana

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