Fujitsu’s stunning ultraportables always bring a smile in our office and the Q2010 is arguably the best we’ve seen. It’s just under 2cm in thickness and weighs only a kilogram. Its magnesium alloy chassis and titanium hinges make it sturdy and look gorgeous (although the lid does flex a fair amount and will struggle to protect it from a full-force direct blow).

Ergonomically, there are compromises though. At only 12.1 inches it means all of the keys are reduced in size and some non-lettered variants will be a struggle for those with podgy fingers. The mouse buttons are also a little small, though after getting used to it we were happy to work on it for extended periods of time. The 1280 x 800 LCD is bright, sharp and well lit, though viewing angles are poor. The stereo speakers are surprisingly good, offering decent volume and distinctness albeit with a total lack of bass. There’s also a dual digital array microphone to enhance VoIP calls.

Naturally, power isn’t a strong point: the 1.2GHz Core Solo U140 processor combined with 1GB of RAM and the 80GB 4200rpm hard disk to score 0.56 in our benchmarks, which is easily enough for general office applications but will leave hardcore encoders yawning.

But gains are made in portability. Consider the three-cell battery only for show, though: with it, the Q2010 weighs only a kilo but the battery lasted only 1hr 44mins in our light use test. Our intensive test ran for only 45mins. However, if you add the six-cell battery, at the expense of an extra 300g, you get a whopping 8hrs of light use and almost 4hrs of intensive use – superb.

Connectivity is a mixed bag. The notebook itself sports two USB ports, mini FireWire, an SD card slot and PC Card reader. There’s also a fingerprint reader (with TPM) between the mouse buttons and 802.11a/b/g WiFi and BlueTooth 2 are included. A separate dongle attaches to support Gigabit Ethernet and a VGA adapter. But the optical drive (a dual-layer burner with DVD-RAM support) is only available on the (included) docking station – which also offers four more USB ports, Gigabit Ethernet, VGA adapter and Kensington lock. This pushes the weight up to 2.2kg with the extended battery.

All in all, it’s a great ultra-light ultraportable. However, over recent months we’ve seen stiff competition from Asus, Lenovo and particularly from Sony and Dell. Dell’s D420 costs over $400 less and, despite being considerably heavier, offers a three year onsite warranty over the two-year C&R Fujitsu warranty. But if you want ‘ultralightness’ we’d still go for Sony’s (4:3 aspect) G-series, which weighs only 1.15kg. It is just as powerful, has an integrated optical drive and an even better battery life for only $260 more.