We reviewed the Esprimo Mobile M9400 with a 14.1 inch display (35.81 cm). Its weight of about 2.2 kg is moderate. So, the M9400 is a good notebook for mobile business-customers, for who a 15.4 inch notebook is too heavy,  too unhandy, and too bulky. Accordingly, the M9400's size is compact too, i.e. 33.5 x 24.5 x 3.8 cm³. So, the Esprimo Mobile M9400 is sure to fit into all notebook bags.

Design and look of this general-purpose business notebook are business-like - decent and without ornaments. Black and silver dominate the colour of the case, whose workmanship is good - looking for striking colours is in vain. Nonetheless, the Esprimo notebook looks elegant. However, take care of it, because the finish of the lid is sensible to signs of wear and tear. If you want to avoid that the M9400 looks battered after a short time, you should definitely put it into transport bags with caution.

This notebook does not have a transport hook and the closing mechanism of the firm hinges works perfectly. Nevertheless, opening and adjusting the opening angle is easy  and every adjusted position is excellently supported by the hinges - brilliant. Furthermore, the Mobile M9400 has a plastic frame, which appears to be solid instead of the highly usual thin inner frame around the LCD. However, the nowadays nearly usual webcam in the top part of the frame is missing. The reviewed notebook just had a cover there.-

The choice of materials and the workmanship are good. The used plastics fell nice to the touch and appear to be of high-quality. Furthermore, the parts of the case fit precisely to each other. Despite plastic parts were used, there aren't any creaking noises, if you pick this 14.1" notebook up. We only detected a small weakness at the bottom trough. If you pick the notebook up and apply force near the optical drive on the type plate, you can hear a clearly audible creaking. The palm rest area yields only a little bit.

Because the indicator LEDs for charge status, wireless modules, and mass storage activity are before the touch pad in the centre of the front edge, it is even during typing easy to keep track of them. A hot key beside the power switch makes it possible to switch all wireless modules, i.e. Bluetooth, UMTS/HSDPA, and Wireless LAN, off at once. In addition to this hot key, the M09400 does not have any other hot keys, e.g., to ease launching some system functions.

Regarding interface equipment the Esprimo Mobile M9400 has an equipment  typical for this notebook category. Fast Firewire (i.LINK, IEEE1394) and a digital video out like DVI or HDMI are not available at the notebook itself. But, there are a S-Video out (TV-Out) and four USB-2.0 ports and an up-to-dates ExpressCard/54-slot for expansion cards and a 4in1 card reader (MS, MS Pro, SD, xD) which makes using up-to-date flash memory cards possible. However, a built-in webcam for video telephony with business partners is missing.

However, the communication equipment of the Esprimo Mobile M9400 is complete. Intel's Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN, makes a stable wireless operation possible. Bluetooth 2.0 is available and can be used for modern wireless telephony. Wired communication is possible via Gigabit-LAN port, which provides today's fastest transfer rates provided the network has a proper topology. The compulsory modem port is of course also available. Furthermore the Esprimo Mobile M9400 supports fast internet access via UMTS/HSDPA. The SIM card slot required for it, is inside the first battery slot.

Whilst Lifebooks support a supplement battery in the modular slot of the DVD drive, the M9400 is equipped with a second battery slot at the bottom side instead. You can attach a second wedge-shaped battery (S26391-F405-L841) to it. Positive side effect: The M9400 bends down to the front, so, long typing gets even more user-friendly. Furthermore, a port replicator port is available at the bottom side of the M9400. So, you do not need to connect and disconnect all the cables, furthermore, additional ports like DVI-D and PS/2 are provided by the port replicator.

However, the more expensive Lifebooks are clearly better than the M9400 regarding security features. The M9400 is neither equipped with a  fingerprint reader nor with a TPM security chip (Trusted Platform Module). A system recovery CD for Microsofts Windows Vista Business and a driver and utility DVD are included. But, a manual in written form is not in the box.

In return the Esprimo Mobile M9400 performs better regarding illumination. We calculated very good 84.34 percent. The difference of the brightest part (in the middle of the screen, where we measured 142.4 cd/m² and the darkest part (left top corner), where we measured 120.1 cd/m² is only 16 percent in mains operation. When we examined various differently bright backgrounds, we could, depending on the viewing angle, also hardly to only slightly detect an unevenness.

The horizontal viewing angles are good. Vertically, the area of operation is clearly smaller. Directly compared to our reference screen, a high-quality 20 inch MVA-LCD Viewsonic VP2030b – we felt that the colours are, considering the notebook category, rather neutral. However, due to the poor contrast the colours of the reference pictures are not really vivid, but, comparably sallow. So, running multimedia applications cannot be enjoyed, however, overall the picture representation is alright for daily office work.

Typical true business notebook for genuine businessmen, the Esprimo Mobile M9400 is not equipped with a bei dedicated video solution. As mentioned above, the user has to be satisfied with the performance of an integrated video chip, an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 (GMA X3100). The main focus of the  GMA X3100 is on energy saving and space-saving. It is not designed for 3D applications or computer games.

If you like to take pictures and like to edit them in full resolution or like to publish your funniest videos, you should consider a notebook with dedicated video solution. Nevertheless, the GMA X3100 can handle this tasks - but, there are more powerful video cards available for this tasks.

Loudness

The Esprimo Mobile M9400 is not really quiet. The periodically running fan causes that the noise level rises and falls.

Idling and with activated energy saving mode, the noise level of the Esprimo Mobile M9400 is in between 29.9 to 33.6 dB(A), which is hardly audible and it does not really disturb that the fan is sometimes switched on and off. However, the situation changes immediately, if the user works with usual office applications, like text processing, does some non-demanding picture editing, and browses the Internet at the same time.

Even if the demands on  calculation power are low, e.g., if you browse TV web pages, which advertise by displaying colourful fireworks, the noise level of the Esprimo Mobile M9400 reaches up to 41.8 dB(A). Even if you only watch the small video clips on these pages the noise level gets that high, whereas it is sufficient to watch these videos in full-screen size. The fan starts to run audible at once, emitting a high-frequency noise. Disadvantageous: The fan control periodically turns the fan up and down, so, it might also annoy only slightly sensible users.

Considering it is a business notebook, the Esprimo Mobile M9400 will probably not be run under permanent full load most of the time. Nevertheless, it's important to know that the noise level increases even further, if average to full load persists. Under full load the maximal noise level is 46.6 dB(A) (!), whereas it is permanently as high as 45.9 dB(A). Considering that this 14.1 inch notebook comes with an integrated video card, the Esprimo Mobile M9400 is very loud.

We think that a mobile business notebook should only be decently audible, especially if you work away from your desk. So, the rating of the loudness is not as good as it could be, because of the high-frequency noise and the periodical switching of the level. Overall, this Esprimo notebook looses one percent in the total rating because of this. Fujitsu Siemens should definitely improve the fan control, e.g., by a BIOS upgrade.

Temperature

Despite the small size of the 14 inch Esprimo Mobile M9400 the temperature was at least at the top side alright during our test. The maximum measured at the left palm rest area was 26.8°C, measured at the left palm rest area. The temperature at the right side is 23.5°C. Besides a small hot spot at the left side near the back, the top side is about hand-hot, whereas the average temperature is about 30.7 degrees Celsius.

At the bottom side the Esprimo Mobile M9400 gets clearly hotter. Next to the RAM slots and the cooling system the temperatures range between 44.7 and 48.7 degree Celsius. Therefore, you should not work lap top, if there is a high work load for the Esprimo. The average temperature of the bottom side of 36 degrees Celsius is therewith clearly higher than the one of most other 14.1 inch notebooks.