Fujitsu's German-made Lifebook AH562 turns up at CeBIT, we go hands-on

Dressed in black and white, bearing the national flag and the legend "Made in Germany," we weren't sure if this was Michael Ballack or Fujitsu's AH562 laptop. After weighing up the pros and cons if it transpired we tried to review the footballer, we decided it was only right that we dove in to take a look at this freshly minted budget notebook. Grab your number 13 shirt, glare derisively at that picture of Philipp Lahm and join us after the break.%Gallery-180381%

The model caught us by some surprise as it transpired that the unit was a pre-production teaser, loosed upon the unsuspecting show floor well ahead of its intended May launch. It's the company's first clamshell laptop with a touchscreen, produced at its facility in Augsburg. The specs and other details haven't been finalized, but Fujitsu is planning to aim this at small businesses as a desktop replacement model -- priced at around €699.

Internals-wise, it's packing a 2.65GHz Intel Core i5 CPU, HD 4000 graphics and a 1,366 x 768 touchscreen with glass that stretches right to the edges of the lid. It's also jammed-full with connectivity options, including VGA and HDMI-out, three USB 3.0 ports (and a USB 2.0 port on the other side), optical drive, Ethernet, SD/MMC slot and discrete microphone / headphone jacks. When playing with its keyboard, we found that there was plenty of travel and the keys were cushy -- which should make for a very comfortable typing experience.

Now, this may be a low-end model, but we're not entirely sure how such modest specs have found their way into such a... girthy device. With design cues that we thought had been abandoned by 2006-era laptops, we're left scratching our heads as to why no one felt the need to stick this on a treadmill for a couple of weeks -- although Fujitsu did say that it would have had to pass the costs of shrinking the hardware onto the consumer. It may appeal to your wallet, but if your arms are used to flinging around Ultrabooks for fun, this probably won't be the machine for you.

Dana Wollman contributed to this report.