Fusion-T 14" Laptop Review

Hi all,

A few months ago I was looking for something to replace my 5 year old Dell Inspiron 1525 as my main laptop (which has lasted extremely well but was/is beginning to struggle), for general but not overly intensive usage (internet, playing music/video, some programming, virtualisation, etc.) with Linux as the primary OS. In particular, I was looking for a 14" Ultrabook with 4th generation Core i7 processor, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, at least 1600x900 resolution touchscreen, at around £900, to last at least 3 years (hopefully up to 5 years again like the Dell has). Checking Dell, Lenovo and others, I either could not find this spec or it was far too expensive (closer to £1500 or above) so was pleased to discover PC Specialist had a 14" Ultrabook that could be appropriately configured. This customisation/personalisation is a vital unique selling point from my perspective - it's why I bought from Dell 5+ years ago though they do not seem to offer this any more. Also there is the bonus of not having to pay the Microsoft tax (Windows license) that is bundled into most manufacturers' costs. While I hadn't heard of PC Specialist before, I was convinced by the openness of information (average wait times and links to reviews on website, link to this forum) so thought it was worth a go.

Specification:

In the end I went for the following specification, which came in at just under £950:
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Chassis & Display
Fusion-T: 14" 10-Point Multi-Touch Glossy HD+ Widescreen (1600x900)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Dual Core Processor i7-4500U (1.80GHz, 3.0GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
16GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
INTEL® HD GRAPHICS MEDIA ACCELERATOR 4400
1st Hard Disk
250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
mSATA SSD Drive
256GB Plextor PX-256M5M mSATA SSD (upto 540MB/sR | 430MB/sW)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-7260 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery
Fusion Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (44.6WH)
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 65W AC Adaptor
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
DVD Recovery Media
NO DVD RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Keyboard Language
FUSION SERIES INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
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As you can see, I decided to go a bit overboard on the spec - 16 GB RAM and 2 x 256 SSD - as it was still more or less within budget and should make it last longer.

Delivery, Packaging and Accessories:

Regarding the delivery time, the build and delivery was exactly within the 8-10 working day estimate (despite reading on the forums that PCS were quite busy at the time):
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Processed Date 26-03-2014
Pre-Production Date 01-04-2014
Build Date 04-04-2014
Test Date 04-04-2014
QC Date 04-04-2014
Awaiting Dispatch Date 08-04-2014
Dispatch Date 08-04-2014
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The next-day delivery by DPD was great and on time as always - from my experience they're probably the best delivery company in the UK right now (online tracking, options for delivery via text, relatively small delivery windows).

The packaging was adequate (see photos), with the laptop protected by plastic and polystyrene in a small package, which was then packed with polystyrene again in a larger package. As well as the laptop, battery and power cable, the smaller package includes a welcome booklet, quick-start guide and driver disc.





(main review in next post due to character limit...)

PS: Apologies for the huge photos, not sure if there is a way to dynamically resize using BB code or if I would need to resize locally and re-upload.

(continued from above)

Appearance / Chassis / Build:

First impressions were good - the laptop looks solid and feels sleek with with a grey brushed aluminium appearance. There is no external branding which gives it a clean look. The only thing I would say is that it was a bit large and heavier than expected for an Ultrabook (however, my reference point was a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon - see photos), but on the plus side this added to the solid look. Despite this it is still very portable, much more than my old 15" Dell anyway (see photos)! The chassis seems well-built with no noticeable gaps/squeaking/etc. and the hinge holds the screen up well (don't quite know how to describe it, but it all works as expected).













Performance (Processor and Memory):

As expected the laptop is extremely fast compared to my previous one - the Haswell i7 and 16 GB RAM easily handles having large number of tabs open in Firefox, multiple videos playing, programming IDE running and Windows within a VirtualBox with no noticeable slowdown. And the fan only comes on rarely during quite intensive periods of use. Just for the record, all of this is using Arch Linux, I did very minimal testing in Windows (there was a test version of Windows installed on one of the drives).



Hard Disks:

The system was set up to use BIOS and boot from one of the two SSDs - I have since changed it to UEFI which is working well with GRUB and Arch Linux. I haven't done any speed tests on the hard disks but they seem extremely quick and boot times are in the region of 10-15 seconds, which is good enough for me. The hard disks have around 233 GB and 239 GB of capacity respectively when partitioned.

Video (Display, Graphics and Webcam):

The screen is very clear and bright and works best in darker conditions (late evening or night) where it is more than sufficient to have the backlight at around 40%. I wondered if 1600x900 would be high enough resolution but I have been very pleased with the video watching experience (see attached photo). The downside to the glossy screen is that it is quite reflective when there is a lot of ambient light, almost acting as a mirror in sunlight.



The graphics card seems fine to me - I'm using the standard Intel driver for Linux and had to turn on a setting to prevent horizontal tearing while watching videos, but otherwise it works out of the box. The HDMI output also works well (for both video and audio, though for audio I had to manually choose the correct output) - I have tested with various resolutions up to 1920x1080.

The webcam works very well for video calls - it might only be 1 MP but is more than sufficient. Also worked out of the box with Linux.

Audio (Speakers, Sound and Microphone):

With such a small chassis, I wasn't expecting too much from the speakers, but they are adequate for laptop speakers - not the best quality or the loudest but they do the job. The speakers are under a smooth-feeling grill above the keyboard (next to the power button / light) and below the battery. The headphone socket (on the left hand side of the laptop) and HDMI out (on the right hand side) both work fine. The audio works out of the box with Linux, including the integrated microphone (which is also of reasonable quality for VoIP calls).

Communication (Networking - Wireless/Wired, Bluetooth):

Both the wireless (up to AC) and wired networking (up to Gigabit) work out of the box with Linux, and seem to be relatively fast and stable. The LAN port (like most of the ports) is on the right hand side, and has a flap that needs to be opened to fit the cable, presumably to save space when it is not in use. I have noticed the wireless to occasionally drop out, but I don't know if that is the access point, the card or the driver so I haven't been able to test it thoroughly. The Bluetooth also works well (and with the standard Linux module) - I have a Logitech mouse connected which works great.

Inputs (Keyboard, Touchpad and Touchscreen):

The keyboard is a fairly standard UK layout, compressed a bit for the 14" chassis - so obviously there is no numpad and some of the keys are spread across the the top-right area (see photo). The keys are well-spaced and have quite a nice feel and response when pressed. There are the expected Function (Fn) keys for volume, brightness, display, etc.



The touchpad has the same feel as the rest of the hand-rest, and also allows gestures (two-finger scrolling at least works out of the box). There are two mouse buttons under the touchpad for left and right clicks in a smoother material.

The touchscreen is really good as far as I can tell - very accurate without any calibration (single touch and drag). I haven't tested the multi-touch yet because I haven't found any software on Linux to easily do so.

Battery:

The battery isn't the largest so the laptop doesn't have spectacular battery life, but it is sufficient for my needs. With what I would consider normal usage (internet browsing) you could probably get around 5-6 hours on the battery in Linux, and I have tested with fullscreen video it lasts around 2-3 hours*. I have heard Windows is better for battery life but I haven't tested this.

* EDIT: Seems I was either a little harsh before or had the brightness up higher because I tried again today and got over 3 hours of fullscreen video with output to HDMI at full HD 1920x1080, with the screen brightness around 40%.

Other Connectivity (USB and Memory Card Reader):

The USB ports and the memory card reader are both on the right side of the laptop. It would have been nice to have at least one USB port on the left but I use a USB hub anyway so this didn't matter too much to me. I don't have any USB 3.0 devices to test the speed but they seem to work fine with USB 2.0 devices. Both the USB ports and the Memory Card Reader also work fine out of the box with Linux.

Overall:

Generally I am very pleased with my Fusion-T and impressed with PC Specialist. I have been using this as my main laptop for the last couple of months and it has been great - no hardware issues to date and most of the time runs almost silently and without ever getting hot.

The main positives are the form factor (14" Ultrabook, solid build and slick appearance), performance (due to being able to configure with a 4th generation (Haswell) Core i7 processor, 16 GB RAM, SSD) and excellent Linux compatibility.

The points where there is potential for improvement are:
- Screen: An option for non-glossy/matte (for use in sunlight/brighter conditions) full HD (1920x1080) multi-point touchscreen - I would be very tempted if such an upgrade were available (hint );
- Connectivity: An extra USB 3.0 port or two on the left hand side of the laptop would have been nice;
- Chassis: For future versions, a lighter and smaller chassis with less bezel around the screen (such as that found on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon or similar);
- Battery: This might contradict with the chassis above, but some way of squeezing in a higher capacity battery would be nice as well.

Hope someone finds this helpful.

Nice thorough review!

Just a quick note to say thanks to PC Specialist for sending me a free 8GB USB drive for writing a review for posting on the website.

And I also neglected to say in my main review - thank you to everyone involved in building my laptop, it is working extremely well so much appreciated!

Good review, glad to see Linux working well out of the box with another machine.