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It’s been over a year since I reviewed the Lifebook P7010 from Fujitsu-Siemens and things have moved on in leaps and bounds since then. The new model – the Lifebook P7120 – has taken the best parts of the P7010 and then had the latest in mobile technology added to it. Sure, it’s not dual core – although I would expect a Core Duo version later this year, but nothing has been announced as yet – but this is one of the thinnest and lightest notebooks out there that still offers a built in optical drive.

The Lifebook P7120 is no powerhouse by any means, but it is more than powerful enough for everyday office tasks, Internet access and general multimedia usage. The processor is an ultra low voltage Pentium M 753 which is clocked at a comparably slow 1.2GHz. However, the ULV processor means that you get less heat and longer battery life. Interestingly, the Lifebook P7120 is passively cooled; there isn’t a single fan inside it. This makes it the quietest notebook I have ever had the pleasure to review.

The only audible noise that comes from the Lifebook P7120 is from the 60GB Toshiba 1.8in hard drive, but you have to put your ear quite close to the notebook to hear this. Slightly disappointing is the fact that the P7120 only ships with 512MB of memory, the same as the P7010. However, there is a spare slot that can accept another 512MB module, so you could upgrade the memory quite easily later on.

The optical drive is manufactured by Matsushita and writes to DVD+/-R media at 4x, DVD+RW at 2.4x, DVD-RW at 2x, DVD+R DL at 2.4x and finally DVD-RAM at 3x. It will also write to CD-R discs at 24x and CD-RW at 16x. This is one of the strong points of the Lifebook P series and has been as long as I can remember, since many slim line notebooks like this comes with an external drive. As the drive is removable you can add a second battery here – which is about £117.50 inc VAT – instead of the drive, which would increase the battery life considerably.

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