Fujitsu Laptops - Any good?

[christhetech]

We have some really old HP laptops that should really have been decommissioned years ago that some of our teaching staff are still plodding along with.

We have been offered some Core i5 Fujitsu E458 laptops that one of our suppliers is currently offering on promo. I've not had any real experience of Fujitsu machines, so I have no idea what they are like, although I know that a lot of hospitals and councils use or have used them, so I would assume that they must be reasonably robust. I'm just wondering whether anybody currently has Fujitsu laptops and what the general opinion is of them. Are they any good or should I steer well clear?

 

They will be used for teaching staff and don't really need to be particularly high spec. These are Core i5, 4GB RAM, 256GB SSD with Windows 10 Pro, so they are more than adequate for their needs. They currently have old HP NC6320's which are well past their sell by date and should have been put out to pasture a long time ago, so anything a little more modern is going to be an improvement on what they currently have. They are persistently failing now and I'm really struggling just to keep them working now. They have a really flaky windows 7 build on them, which I'm surprised worked at all, because I don't believe that they were ever designed to support W7. They were originally purchased before my time with Windows XP and upgraded to 7, but they have never really been any good since I started here. I've been told to upgrade them to Windows 10. How am I going to do that when they don't even work properly on 7.

Edited September 19, 2018 by christhetech

[ICTDirect_Dave]

My experience of Fuji laptops and desktops hasn't been the most positive in recent years. Having given them a trial around the warhouse we've decided to send all fuji kit out on trade only orders.

 

Whilst the spec is similar to their Dell, Lenovo & HP cousins of the same age, we've found that the build quality is lacking by comparison.

[synaesthesia]

Ditto, they're a long way from the old lifebooks - I keep seeing the old Laptop for Teacher scheme models from 2003/4 knocking around in full working and good cosmetic condition. Modern ones not so much, flimsy affairs. Would certainly recommend Dell Latitude laptops, new or refurb for that spec and purpose.

[christhetech]

Ditto, they're a long way from the old lifebooks - I keep seeing the old Laptop for Teacher scheme models from 2003/4 knocking around in full working and good cosmetic condition. Modern ones not so much, flimsy affairs. Would certainly recommend Dell Latitude laptops, new or refurb for that spec and purpose.

 

I had some really bad experiences with Dell a few years back and it put me off ever using them again. Their support helpline was nothing short of a joke and I vowed that I would never, ever touch another piece of Dell hardware for as long as I live. A school that I used to support had a load of Dell tower PCs and they were awful things. They had purchased some additional warranties from Dell at the time of purchase, so if anything went wrong with them, it would just be a case of contacting Dell support and they would be repaired on-site under warranty. I think that they had some spare cash that they needed to spend, so bought these warranties thinking that they were being really pro-active and helpful. The aftersales support from Dell was absolutely shocking and I would always end up having to repair them myself, despite there being an on-site support agreement in place. Getting Dell to actually ship the correct parts was hard enough. Getting them to send somebody out, as per the agreement was nigh on impossible.

 

 

Looks like it's back to the drawing board on this one then. The bean counters were only on board because these were on promo and thought they were getting a bargain. I'm begging them for some cash so I don't have to keep botching the old HP laptops to get another couple of weeks out of them before they fall over again. Getting replacement parts for them is getting harder and harder by the day as they are so old and I'm running out of previously cannibalised spares rapidly.

Edited September 19, 2018 by christhetech

[DJ-1701]

My experience with Fujitsu laptops (specifically the A512 and A514 models) has been a bit annoying.

 

Only laptop brand I have known to have issues connecting to USB devices, specifically SmartBoards but also flash drives before we outlawed them. This was despite of trying a multitude of drivers and changing BIOS settings for USB, etc. Never had that with any other brand of laptop, very odd.

 

Some of the laptop screens we have had on those two models have also been prone to screen damage, large patches of LCD no longer functioning after time had to do replacements with some older compatible screens.

 

So, personally, not confident on their laptop builds myself. Though of course, ymmv and things do change over time. We did get those laptops about 3 years ago now.

 

Edit: Just to be clear though, USB issues where right from the get go, and screen issues about a year or so later.

Edited September 19, 2018 by DJ-1701

[ICTDirect_Dave]

I had some really bad experiences with Dell a few years back and it put me off ever using them again. Their support helpline was nothing short of a joke and I vowed that I would never, ever touch another piece of Dell hardware for as long as I live.

 

Dell make some really nice laptops these days, but you do need to buy at the top end of the range.

 

I've sold just over 1,800 Latitude E5440's into schools in the past 18 months and they've been little short of brilliant!

[DJ-1701]

I had some really bad experiences with Dell a few years back and it put me off ever using them again. Their support helpline was nothing short of a joke and I vowed that I would never, ever touch another piece of Dell hardware for as long as I live.

 

Companies do change over time, Dell was a bug bear of mine a decade ago (HDD failure, Motherboard failures, bulging capacitors). Their quality has improved over time, as I have found has HP (which always seemed to have issues with their DVD Writers and false positives with CPU fan failures) and Lenovo.

[christhetech]

I think I'll go back and recommend that we either stick to HP and see if we can get any deals on a bit of new HP kit, or see what Lenovo have to offer.

 

Wish me luck!

[mavhc]

Should be able to get £200 off each HP laptop by sending in old computers, including desktops.

 

Not had any Fujitsu laptops for ages, the 4 desktops we have are fine. Dell Vostro (although the range of options is terrible currently), and HP ProBooks seem decent enough

[christhetech]

Should be able to get £200 off each HP laptop by sending in old computers, including desktops.

 

Hmm that's interesting.

I'm sure that I could cobble together a nice batch of broken equipment for them to pay me to take away. Do they have to be in good working order or will they take any old junk?

[HTCPCP]

I've used the Lifebook A544 before now in schools where money is tight for staff laptops (wouldn't even dream of using it for kids devices) and they were OK. Not outstanding, but also, not terrible. Yes, they aren't as well engineered or designed as your Thinkpad X or T ranges, or your Latitude 5000/7000 series, but they aren't your dell inspiron/Lenovo V Series/HP 200 series kit either.

If you don't mind about IO, have a look at the latitude 3380 - its designed for education (as in it doesn't look great, has a glossy top that fingermarks easily, but does have a rubber like bit around the rim that should take a couple of scuffs) and got a reasonable price for 2 of them at work. Our account manager did say the price comes down significantly when you go over 10, but couldn't tell me how much.

[mavhc]

Hmm that's interesting.

I'm sure that I could cobble together a nice batch of broken equipment for them to pay me to take away. Do they have to be in good working order or will they take any old junk?

 

Working, but can be as old as you want, I just put the old hdds back in the old desktops.

[gshaw]

We got the E458s cheap this summer, look pretty solid so far, TPM included and better than the A-Series models, which actually have lasted well for us (A544).

Proper driver pack support on the E-Series as well vs. roll-your-own method on the lower end kit.

 

Much better than the Lenovo V110 garbage from a year or so back (ironic really given Lenovo recently bought out the Fujitsu desktop PC business)

 

All that said if you can stick to Dell or HP Probook kit then do (avoid the cheapo consumer 250 G6 though, plastics were very brittle on that)

Edited September 19, 2018 by gshaw

[christhetech]

I've used the Lifebook A544 before now in schools where money is tight for staff laptops (wouldn't even dream of using it for kids devices) and they were OK. Not outstanding, but also, not terrible. Yes, they aren't as well engineered or designed as your Thinkpad X or T ranges, or your Latitude 5000/7000 series, but they aren't your dell inspiron/Lenovo V Series/HP 200 series kit either.

If you don't mind about IO, have a look at the latitude 3380 - its designed for education (as in it doesn't look great, has a glossy top that fingermarks easily, but does have a rubber like bit around the rim that should take a couple of scuffs) and got a reasonable price for 2 of them at work. Our account manager did say the price comes down significantly when you go over 10, but couldn't tell me how much.

 

 

At the moment, I wouldn't be able to get anywhere near 10 of them. I think if I can find the right spec at the right price, they may let me replace the last 6 of the really, really old HP NC6320's that are still just about working. I've been cannibailising spares of the ones that have given up the ghost completely since day one and we only have 6 left that are completely beyond hope. We've got at least another dozen slightly newer HP 6710B laptops that will probably need doing next, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Touch wood, they are currently working without too many major issues. Previously when a laptop was beyond repair, I would replace it with one of the previously loved Surface Pro 3's that the school bought on a whim for the SLT and selected staff that were deemed worthy, that they ever really liked using and decided to ditch just as I got the build just right for them. However, I've got no more of those left, so if something fails and is beyond repair, I'm well and truly stuffed for something usable to build and give out. It's quite maddening really because they spent an absolute fortune on the Surfaces, only to decide that they didn't really like them and replaced them with nice new Core i7 HP ProBooks about six months later and I ended up lumbered with a box of them to re-use. If they had just stuck to refreshing laptops with what we actually needed then, we probably wouldn't be in this position now and everybody would have a working, if not super flashy, piece of hardware that is actually usable.

I'm actually not all that impressed with the i7 ProBooks that SLT have. I didn't see the point of an i7 at the time, and I still don't see the point now. For what they actually use them for, they could probably have got away with an i3 or i5 unit with 4GB RAM, rather than the 8GB that they opted for.

[AlanD]

...kind of depends which generation i5 these laptops are - there is a world of difference between the latest generation of if i5 and the original ones - which now seem dog slow. Also you might want to factor in the cost or replacement batteries.

[christhetech]

The Fujitsu ones that we were offered were 7th Generation processors, and are still a current model. Supplier advised that they had them on some sort of promo and were offering them with around £125 per unit off their normal price, which was the reason why the powers that be latched onto them and thought they were getting a bargain. The supplier also normally offers buy-backs on our old kit, so I think they were under the impression that they might get another £100 per unit there (yeah, right), when in reality the buy-back on the machines we would be getting rid of is likely to be nominal and somewhere in the region of £10-£15 each, although I suppose that's £10-£15 each more than we would get just disposing of them.

 

The idea of HP offering £200 trade in per machine has got me interested though, as that would put new HP laptops a little more within our reach. Now that we have had pricing for the Fujitsus that there was a chance of me actually getting funding for, there is some scope for me to go back and argue the toss a little, dangling the carrot of a £200 trade in into the bargain to gently loosen the business manager's grip on the cash.

[HTCPCP]

I'm actually not all that impressed with the i7 ProBooks that SLT have. I didn't see the point of an i7 at the time, and I still don't see the point now. For what they actually use them for, they could probably have got away with an i3 or i5 unit with 4GB RAM, rather than the 8GB that they opted for.

When I was in edu - i7 was only given to us, or anywhere where there was going to be video/photo editing. 8GB of RAM was standard on all new machines (offers you more flexibility, and is, for the money a sensible step), but key is the SSD. Most of the machines we got were i3, 8GB, 120GB SSD. For finance, and anyone who spent their whole day on SIMS etc, that was i5. All on a replace when broken situation. As for ProBooks, I class them as I would the Dell 3000 series, for the most part not worth the agro. Now, HP Elitebooks, now that's a different story.

 

Now, having left edu - it's i5 across the board, with i7 for IT, Finance, and directors, and a 3-5 year refresh cycle.

[ITGURU]

Always had fujitsu laptops. odd one died and 1 doa out of the 200+ we have. some are 7 years old still used as teacher laptops off site.

[ITGURU]

Ditto, they're a long way from the old lifebooks - I keep seeing the old Laptop for Teacher scheme models from 2003/4 knocking around in full working and good cosmetic condition. Modern ones not so much, flimsy affairs. Would certainly recommend Dell Latitude laptops, new or refurb for that spec and purpose.

first bank of laptops we were going to have years and years ago were Dell. nothing but issues and even a Dell engineer on site couldn't get them working properly on the wireless reliably so never been back there whether they have improved or not

[witch]

I've got several A544s and havent had an issue with them