FirstLite 3100 Ultimate Series
Price: AU$4,677.
Distributor: Formosa International Group
Ph: 07 3846 7979; Fax: 07 3846 7878
www.fig.com.au
The FirstLite 3100 is hard to miss in amongst all the other notebooks. Its greenish-grey case definitely set it apart, but at the same time it looks very elegant and professional. The FirstLite shipped to us with Windows 2000. Because of this we can only fairly compare the performance of the FirstLite to the Mitac 6120. The Mitac also shipped with Windows 2000 and had a native screen resolution of 1024 x 768.
At the heart of the FirstLite 3100 is a Pentium III 750MHz processor, 128MB of RAM and a 12GB Hitachi hard drive. Four out of the ten notebooks we reviewed had a Hitachi hard drive. These are not the fastest hard drives around but they do a good job and are quite reliable. The FirstLite was slightly faster than the Mitac in Winstone and all the WinBench tests. Both the FirstLite and Mitac shipped with 24 speed CD drives. The Pioneer DVD drive that was in the Mitac, however, performed a great deal better in CD WinBench than the Torisan DVD drive that was in the FirstLite.
While the notebook itself only weighs in at 3.2kg, its power supply is fairly heavy, its half a kilogram lifts the notebook up to 3.7kg. Adding the supplied carry case makes the package tip the scales at 4.5kg. The vinyl case looks quite good; it features two pockets that are large enough to fit your battery charger, manuals, and any other extras. The case also provides good protection for your TFT.
The FirstLite was one of the easiest notebooks to service or upgrade. A small cover on the base of the notebook screws off to give you access to the DVD-ROM drive. The hard drive, floppy drive and battery can easily be removed by sliding a latch and pulling them up or out.
There are two SO-DIMM sockets, located under the keyboard and access is not as difficult as one might imagine. Two simple clips at the top of the keyboard allow it to swing up and lift out of the way. You can upgrade the RAM to 256MB by putting in another 128MB RAM module.
The PC Card slots were both used up by a CNET 10/100 Fast Ethernet card and a CNET 56k fax modem. The cards were easy to eject. We have come across many notebooks which have tiny eject buttons that can be a pain to use. With these we have found that a pen or pencil is best used to eject the cards, but in the FirstLite's case, we had no complaints.
The front half of the notebook was devoted to a large and comfortable palm rest. The standard and function keys were coloured in different shades of grey and all the keys were located sensibly on the keyboard. The keyboard was quite pleasant to use and is very well supported by the base.
The 11.1v 4500mAH Li-Ion battery drove the FirstLite a little over two hours. This was quite disappointingâ€" the lowest score we recorded. Be sure to stay close to a powerpoint.
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