Fujitsu Lifebook NH751 review

Fujitsu might be better known for its business laptops, but the company also makes models that focus on multimedia. The NH751 is the latest addition; the 17.3in giant may not be ideal for taking on the move, but the internal Blu-ray writer and Full HD screen make it ideal as a desk-bound machine.

The plain looks and unassuming black lid belie the multimedia powerhouse underneath. However, open it up and the two large speaker grilles above the keyboard tell a different story. There are a further three speakers hidden on the underside of the laptop, including one to handle bass, but it struggled to produce decent power, even at full volume. Overall sound quality was reasonable, but still no match for a set of speakers or headphones.

More impressive than the underwhelming audio was the Full HD screen. The small text was initially difficult to read, so we increased the default Windows font size to compensate. Viewing angles weren’t great, with a noticeable lack of contrast unless we sat face-on to the screen, but colours looked natural and brightness was high. You can also connect an external display using the VGA and HDMI outputs.

The NH751 is no slouch when it comes to 2D performance. Its second generation Intel Core i7-2630QM processor, which can use Turbo Boost to increase its four cores from 2GHz to 2.9GHz, and 4GB of RAM, completed our multimedia benchmarks with an overall score of 73. This places it among the fastest laptops we’ve reviewed, so it will easily cope with any application. A 750GB hard disk should also be large enough for a sizeable multimedia collection.

Even though the dedicated Nvidia GeForce GT 525M graphics card is more than capable of playing HD video, it isn’t as well suited to playing games. In our Dirt 3 test it managed a smooth 36.3fps, but once we raised the resolution to 1,920×1,080 it couldn’t deliver a playable minimum frame rate without sacrificing quality levels.