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Introduction
Already being the owner of a very nice Dell Inspiron 9300 I none the less opted to buy my AMILO Xi1546 when I got a very good offer through my job. My trusty Inspiron is only a year old, but as we all know a year these days is enough to make most computers feel outdated. Besides that I need the cash I'll get from selling my Inspiron

Anyway, I think I'll start this review by listing up some specs...

Dimensions
W x D x H: 408 x 289 x 41.6mm
Weight: 4.0kg (8lb)

Specifications
Chipset: Intel 945PM + ICH7-M
CPU: Intel Core Duo T2400 (1.83GHz, 667MHz FSB, 2MB L2 cache)
RAM: Samsung 1GB DDR2 (553MHz)
Display: 17.0" CrystalView WXGA+ (1440x900)
Video: ATI Mobility Radeon X1800 (256MB GDDR3, HDTV ready with HDCP)
Hard drives: 2 x 80GB Fujitsu-Siemens (5400RPM, 8MB cache)
Optical drive: Philips 8x DVD burner (double layer)
Audio: Azalia codec (7.1 SPDIF, 5.1 via analog, 2+1 internal)
Modem: Motorola fax modem (56K, V.92)
Network: RealTek 10/100/1000Mpbs LAN
Wireless:
- Intel PRO/wireless 3945ABG (802.11a/b/g)
- Bluetooth 2.0 (integrated)
I/O:
- 1xIEEE1394
- 4 x USB 2.0
- 1 x DVI-I
- 1 x Modem
- 1 x LAN
- 1 x S-video out
- 1 x Expresscard slot (34/54mm)
- 1 x 4-in-1 card reader (SD, MS, MMC, MS Pro)
- 1 x headphone out / SPDIF
- 1 x Microphone out
- 1 x Line in
- 1 x Power supply
Battery: 8 cells, 14.8v, 4400mAh

Review
My first impression of the laptop was "Hmm.. Ok". Don't get me wrong, it's nowhere near ugly, it's just not gorgeous either. To me it's rather common looking, it simply looks a lot like many of the other laptops out there. Fortunately it also radiates quality and thus it reminds me a Toyota It just happens to be a fairly fast Toyota (not quite a Supra but not exactly a Micra either)

Opening up the display lid I'm happy to see that it's got a keyboard with a proper keypad. That's something I really missed from my Inspiron (it did have a keypad, but you had to press Fn + a key, which sucked). Still, the Xis keyboard does have a few quirks (well, they're quirks to me). The most annoying quirk is the placement of the Fn button which sits exactly where Ctrl usually sits (lower left corner). This leads to some confusion and a lot of irritation if you, like me, uses a lot of keyed shortcuts. The inclusion of a keypad also forces some of the keys to be rather small. The arrows are particularily noticeable. A few important keys (Home and End) has to be activated through the Fn button, which for me is going to take a while to get used to. I would have preferred them to be regular keys as they are quite often in use. Positioned between the keyboard and the display are four quick launch keys (DVD player, Internet, Email and fan control) as well as the power button. There's also a strip of LED lights which indicate various states (power on/off, wireless on/off, sleep mode on/off etc). All of this is more or less common on most laptops, so nothing special there.

The layout of the various I/O ports could be better. On the left side there's the connector for the power brick, one USB port, the DVD writer, the headphone/mic/line in ports aswell as a volume controller. All good so far. The rear has only got three connectors: the modem, the DVI-I and the S-Video out. Still good, but this means that the right side (which is usually where the mouse is) has 7 connectors (one LAN, one card reader, one firewire, three USB, one express card slot). Almost all of these ports interfere with the mouse but the location of the three USB ports is especially annoying (as we all know, USB cables tend to stick out a bit). I know, I know, it's not that big a deal, but it's not ideal either.

The display is wonderful and is one of the best I've seen on a laptop so far. The colors are clear and bright, the black & whites looks good and there's hardly any light leakage at all. It's glossy and smooth and I just love it The video card should also be quite good though I've yet to put it through serious benchmarks. I did run it through 3DMark06 a couple of times though. For the first run I used default core/mem clock speeds and balanced performance/quality settings and a resolutoin of 1280x720. The result: 1925 marks. For the second run I set all the sliders to maximum performance while still keeping the default clock speeds and the same resolution. The result: 2886 marks. So I should think there's a lot of potential in this video card when it's overclocked. I'll try to update with more benchmarks later.

The Xi is also rather quiet and it best of all, it doesn't squeak nearly as much as my old Inspiron used to. My overall impression is that the build quality seems to be very good. Like most things high tech it has it's quirks and downsides but overall I'd say it's a damn fine piece of technology.

Pros:
+ excellent display
+ build quality seems to be very good
+ fairly quiet
+ fast video card
+ HDTV Ready with HDCP supported
+ DVD player remote control included

Cons:
- the right palm rest gets very hot
- the layout of the I/O ports could be better
- large and unwieldy power brick
- the volume controller (scroll wheel) feels cheap

I hope this review, though far from a professional one, will help some of you decide wether or not you want to invest your money on of these babies. If you've already decided to do just that, I'd go for the Xi1547 which has amongst other things offer 1900x1200 resolution. That's bound to be even sweeter but alas also more expensive.

Big props to you for reviewing this!! I've been looking for a review of it for over a week, and am quite sure you are the first one to review it (at least in english). Thanks loads! I'm now quite sure i'm buying it By the way, could you post some pics of it?

Thanks

I'll try to update my review a little this weekend and I'll try to add some pictures aswell. I'm currently working away from home so I haven't got access to a camera during the week.

Could you check the label on the back? Does it say 'P72' or anything of the sort?

Yeah, Ice Tea, the reg. number starts with P72 (it's six characters long).

Cool. That's the Uniwill model number. If you could list the entire number. You basically have the same notebook as a Alienware m5750

I just had a look at Alienware's site and it sure looks like you're right! So that's pretty cool except my FS doesn't look quite as alien as the Alienware lappy

Heheh... I flashed my 3438 with an alienware bios and I have an Alienware splash screen now

I have an Xi1526 wich is basicly the same notebook as your Xi1546, only mine has an Nvidia 7600. But I was wondering, the screen looks very nice idd, but you say that there is no bleeding. On mine there is no bleeding when I've just turned it on, but after some time the bottom of the screen becomes very hot and then there is some bleeding, quite a lot imo.
Do you have this too, or does your screenbottom remains cold?

And another thing, how long can you work with a fully charged battery? After 1h45 surfing is mine empty.

PS; excuse me for my bad english,..

I got this notebook after FSC finally agreed to send me a new laptop to replace my faulty M3438G. I have used it about ten hours and now I will be sharing my thoughts on this notebook with you.

Obviously this notebook is very similar than M3438G when it comes to the exterior. When you push the screen up you'll notice some of the differences. The style is a bit more modern and "sturdy" although I still think the whole notebook is kinda "plastiy". The keyboard feels about the same as in M3438G but I really don't like what FSC has done with size of the keyboard. They have made it narrower which makes it more difficult to type fast. I really like the touchpad since you don't have to switch it off each time you switch the power on (it always irritated me with M3438G -- especially since probably most users use a separate mouse). The display seems about the same -- quality. When you look at the left side of the notebook you'll see that improvements have been made to the audio inputs/outputs and to the volume control. One more important thing: the notebook doesn't make that creaking sound that M3438G made when you rested your wrists on it.

The performance is quite nice (3DMARK05 5655, 3DMARK06 3043) and almost double what M3438G can do. There were some nice additions such as Bluetooth (Great!!!) and a TV Tuner. And of course it's always nice when you get the latest Adobe Photoshop Elements (4.0). Overall, I think pretty much everything is in its place to make this a pretty great choice for the home user who wants a DTR notebook with style and performance. Of course there are notebooks such as Alienware or whatever that outperform this notebook easily but again one of the nicests things about these FSC models is the price which stays below 2000 euros.

Of course, it is fully understandable if people are suspicious about getting an Amilo. After all, how FSC handled the Mx438G-situation was both hottible and ridiculous. Luckily, FSC decided to be fair to me (although I think this sudden fairness was the cause of outside pressure to give justice to consumers) and some of the bad taste in my mouth vanished. Still, I think it's really stupid that first you pay a decent amount of money for multimedia notebook that doesn't work properly and then the manufacturer says that really there's nothing wrong with the notebook and that its hands are tied.

This is a very good notebook although keeping in mind the M3438G-incident I'd buy an excellent desktop computer rather than this if I wanted performance. Unless you absolutely are out of space and/or you need a computer that you can move from one place to another I'd pass notebooks altogether. Still, I can't help but recommend this notebook. And hopefully (knock knock knock) there aren't any hidden "issues" inside this notebook.

Finally, I was wondering about updating the drivers of this notebook. What drivers have you updated because the ones on FSC's download-page are really old. For example, where do you get the latest Ati driver?

EDIT: Also, the dvd drive makes weird noises every now and again, and in my opinion, is noisier than the one in M3438G.

hmmm....

im up to buy this notebook but there is 1 problem ...the battery lasts for 2 hours only ... so can i buy /new better battery for this notebook ?

there is no other battery or extended battery for this laptop

there is news of a new model (1552 I think that's the #) w/ a x1900 in it w/ MXM3

so hopefully we can upgrade the video card