Small review of the incredible F&S Xa 1526!

Hello forum members!

We, Notebook Solutions, had ordered a few notebooks from Fujitsu Siemens and one interesting model was the Xa 1526. I was very excited about this model, and when it arrived we opened it to take a look. The notebook is brand new and I may not start it (something which customers do) but I opened the box to take a look if the notebook was complete and if there was any damage during the transport.
Thankfully the notebook was in perfect shape.

After opening the box, the first thing you see is a box containing the adapter, DVI-TV out converter and manuals and CD's (NIS 2006, Nero, WinDVD, XP MCE, Drivers CD's).
But then I saw the notebook. And oh my... I have never see such a beautiful notebook. I have had dozens of notebooks in my hand (from a T4215 to the exlusive Q2010) but this notebook was different. It was beautiful. The notebook has an aluminium brush at the top and the palm area is also made of an aluminium brush. The notebook is rock-solid but at the same time very light (lighter then a Xi1526/Xi1546/Xi1554).

I realised that I could not make a review for this notebook so I decided just to take some pictures so you guys get an idea how the notebook looks like.
Enjoy the pictures!

I also made a short movie that I have put on Youtube. My phone camera isn't great, so don't mind the low resolutions please.

Notebook Solutions

P.S. I am uploading the movie now so it will be online in about 1 hour I think. I first need to covert it (file is 3GPP or something).

By the way: my 1337'th post! And what a 1337 post it is!

 

And the video is finished!

Take a look here:

<object width='425' height='350'><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ju57TjG4pHE"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ju57TjG4pHE" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width='600' height='350'></embed></object>

Notebook Solutions

 

Awesome, thanks for posting Charlie! Here's a link to the Fujitsu Siemens site for the 1526 here http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/home/products/notebooks/amilo_xa_1526.html

Go 7600 video card AMD Turion X2 inside.

 

I see my voice sounds a little strange there, as long as you don't think that I am a person of 30-40 years or something. Just 18 here

Thanks Andrew for that. Here are some more pics.

 

Just ordered one for :

€ 759,32 ex = BTW 19% € 144,27 =
Totaalbedrag:
€ 903,59 at bestelict.nl

Cheapest price I could find )
Turion X2-TL-56, Nvidia Geforce Go, 265MB DDR2, 2x120GB harddisk.

Your little video and pics/specs made me order one lol !!!
Good choice.

Soo XXXX cheap cant believe it for this beauty.

Will post some high resolution pics etc.. when I receive it

 

Wow, what a great looking laptop! How much does it weigh?
Can it be bought in the US?

I may have to get one of these. I have a friend that lives overseas that could pick one up for me.

Thanks!

 

Unfortunately the Fujitsu Siemens line is just Europe -- sometimes there are equivalents sold in the U.S. but not for this model.

 

The notebook weighs 4 kg. That is pretty light for a notebook with 2 hard drives, usually such notebooks weigh around 4.2-4.4 kg. You also get a F&S bag, nothing special but still looks good.

 

Hello.

Did anyone actually get a chance to use this thing?

I can't find any kind of reviews. Only for the Intel variant (the Xi).

I want to buy a fairly powerful notebook with an AMD cpu and this is the best I can find where I live. There's also a special rebate for the X series from F-S that puts this at an insanely small price.

Also, I'd like to know if there are some people here who know some tech details, like what chipset does it have. I need to know if there's a chance it'll support the new Tyler 65 nm Turions on S1 from AMD. As far as AMD is concerned they said most S1 mobos that support a TL-56 should support the Tyler core and I want to know if I can upgrade it later.

Also, does it support MXM cards?

Thanx.

 

Hello.


thusand thanks for this review im gonna buy that laptop next month

 

I am thinking about this model, but i like to know how much noise Xa 1526 produce and what about viewing angles of screen.

 

Sorry for the late reply. We could not test it because it was brand new, so we did not start the system. But the screen is great (when I started it while the customer was here) and the noise is like all 17" notebooks, not very loud.

 

they are selling the same computer under a different brand at office max for 699.99 in the U.S.

Here are the specs and website link to office max:

Everex StepNote XT5000T 17" Notebook PC

The StepNote® is a Powerful Desktop Replacement Notebook that Delivers an Enhanced Multimedia experience thru its 256MB Graphics and 17" Widescreen Display.

NEW EVERYDAY LOW PRICE!
Specifications:

* AMD Turion™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-50
(1.6GHz) (512MB L2 Cache)
* 1024MB DDR2 System Memory
* 100GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
* 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support
* 17.0" WXGA DiamondBrite TFT Widescreen Display (1440x900)
* NVIDEA® GeForce® Go 7600 Graphics (Discrete 256MB)
* Atheros AR5005G 802.11b/g WLAN
* Windows® Vista Home Premium OS
* 1-Year Limited Hardware Warranty


Also Includes:4-in-1 Media Card Reader

http://www.officemax.com/max/soluti...odBlockOID=1611550371&expansionOID=-536896933


And here is the link to a discussion thread about this nice laptop:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1174232

 

It's not exactly the same, but (corrected via Notebook Solutions Info)it is almost the same case and appears to be the same motherboard, and video card but the Fujitsu does have a faster processor option.
But you can see from the pictures they are almost identical
Amilo

Everex

picture shown from a more simliar angle

 

Fujitsu Siemens also has a model with 1.6 GHz, it depends on the configuration. It indeed is the same model, 100% sure.

 

Hi all, this is my first post at this forum.

I have the same notebook.

Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Xa 1526

Mine has AMD Turion X2 at 1.8 GHz (Taylor), 2 GB RAM, 2x120GB HDD, Nvidia GeForce Go 7600, SiS163u based wireless card, and it came with Windows Vista Home Premium.

If anyone has some questions about this laptop, I am willing to give a user's point of view.

I'm thinking about writing a small review myself. I've had it for 3 weeks now, and I've discovered quite a bit about it, since it currently is my main computer...

Viktor

 

hi i too bought this model on the 16th and am overjoyed at it in looks and performance..what an awesome screen..looks like glass..and the casing is all brushed alluminium..has that wow factor .

i bought mine when ebuyer.com had them onsale for £718 inc vat/delivery

now i see they have rose to £850 ish so i got mine at a bargain..

my spec is same as yours but has only one hardrive a 160gb sata and am looking around for manual as to where and if i can upgrade any inside parts at later date such as another drive but havent found anything yet such as diagrams and the multi language maual doesnt explain any of the upgrade potentials

only upgrade i know i have got my eyes on is new p/express sound card when it comes out.

oh and as i have grown used to xp for years i was dreading vista with everyone telling me horrid nightmare stories but i am happy to say i am okay with it and im sure after 1 or 2 service packs it wil be fully stable after all xp took 2 packs and that was supposed to be bomb proof when it came out

 

the bottom front panel contains the hard drives and the one slot should be empty for you to add a second if you want.

 

Hi guys. I am new here. I need informations about Fujitsu Amilio Xa 1526 battery life. It is only 2 hours. Is it true? What about your experience? I am going to buy this notebook but is not the battery life too short? I am waiting for your replies. Thank you.

 

Well I could not test the laptop myself but the battery life is approximately 2 hours which is not bad for a 17" like this notebook. But I hope you understand that it depends on several factors like which program is active etc.

 

hi, yes it is around 2hours tho in most cases around 1h 40-50min which aint bad as notebook solutions above mentioned.

im looking at buying an higher capacity cell battery soon for when im out and about but in doors i use this mainly on mains.

anyone recommend a fast 7200rpm 100-160gb sata drive as second drive for this notebook as mine has a slot free to fill

most appreciated.

 

Hi Rhino,

Good choise for going for a 7200 rpm hard drive. You can use that for Windows and programs and the others for music, movies etc.
160 GB 7200 rpm hard drives are not out yet. The highest capacity you could get is 100 GB now. But 160 GB's are announced and it shouldn't take long before they hit the market. I guess around June (when Santa Rosa is out).

Good luck.

 

do they make a higher capacity battery? If they do that would be pretty sweet, because it seems this is identical to the Everex XT5000T and I know a bunch of people are looking for better batteries for it.

As for the hard drive i've always like the Western Digitals

 

got a reply back from fujitsu

they only sell the standard battery replacement that comes with the laptop.

they dont sell anything higher in capacity so i am pretty miffed at that

cant believe they dont do a higher capacity model

well anyway i can look forward to saving up for a new drive in june

 

I've seen this for sale on NicePC:

http://www.nice-pc.co.uk/acatalog/mid_range_laptops.html

Is this the best price/spec anyone on here knows of? The lappy sounds fantastic. Sounds like it can handle your average game of yesteryear, but also seems like its got enough GRUNT to handle things like Ableton Live and whatnot.

 

Wow 997 euro's for the 2 GB version is really cheap. Especially in UK, where notebooks are usually more expensive then in the USA/The Netherlands or Germany.

The hardware is not DirectX 10, but sure capable to handle Vista with ease. It depends on what games you are going to play. Oblivion and FEAR shall run great on this system. So will Crysis I think, with low settings at native resolution.

I searched Google and I found that those programs are music editting programs. They should run great with 2 GB and a dual core processor. You might want to buy an Creative X-FI for notebooks (which will be out in a few months) if you work a lot with music. Search this site for that sound card.

Good luck!

 

hey i bought my laptop from them..i jus had a look around and it does in all honestly look to be a good price...if you wanna check prices from other stores use froogle
or
www.pricerunner.co.uk

and have a look and see if you find a better price...i froogled the xa 1526 and the cheapest i could find was £700 so that definitly does seem to be a bargain...

 

Wow! Thanks guys. Now just have to wait for my LARGE cheque that I'm expecting to come through.

I was hoping to get one of the uber F&S ones like the Xi 1554 on that site. But I had to ask myself, I pretty much was doing it for a) more HDD space and b) to play games with bells and whistles on. It was a case of is twice the price a worthy price to play to play some games on (especially when I'm hankering after a PS3 at some time in the near future)...

 

The Xi 1554 is nice but I really prefer the looks of the Xa1526. It looks awesome. I wonder if the 160 GB is one hard drive or 2. If it is one, you are a real lucky guy because you can put another hard drive in it. That will make it 320 GB.

 

I'll ask once I get my £-age in!
Nothing in the near future about F&S superceeding this model at all? Would be crushing if I shell out and just as I do it, another model comes out!

 

Dear Widge,

F&S has already announced the Xa2528. Precisely the same design, but with a webcam (1.3 MP). It does have the 8600GS but that card is pretty weak actually. Just 2200 3dmark06 points, the same as the 7600Go I reviewed! The only good side is that it has DX 10 support.

But that price is pretty good.

 

Right, I will keep my ear to the ground just in case. I found out that I don't get the cash I'm getting until probably mid July. So have to hope that price stays where it is, and of course do a review of whats on offer at that time.
So the DX10 card really doesn't have much of a better time over the DX9 one? I wonder what effect it would have on a DX10 game like Crysis...

 

The effects on Crysis is not measurable yet. Crysis is not even out. The 8600GS is not a very strong card. Just wait until July, prices will surely drop. And until then a lot of reviews of the 8600GS will come out.