Fujitsu Esprimo Q510 review

Businesses looking to reduce operational costs have power consumption high on their hit list; one way to reduce this is to stop using big Windows desktop machines. Fujitsu’s Esprimo mini-PCs are a great alternative: they occupy hardly any desktop space and are easy on the power.

In this exclusive review, we look at the Esprimo Q510, which introduces a complete redesign over the PC Pro Recommended Q9000.

Gone is the grey chassis and its piano-black lacquer panel. It’s replaced by a more solid, brushed-aluminium affair. The case is also slightly larger to accommodate an internal power supply. This is a far better solution than the external supply used by its predecessors, since the plug was too easy to pull out of the back of the PC.

Access to the internals has been made much easier, too. With the Q9000, you had to lift the corners of the rubber mat beneath to access the four chassis screws and then separate the PC into two halves. Now the bottom cover simply unclips and slides off to reveal a metal hatch. This is released with a small spring clip, giving access to the two SODIMM memory slots. Disappointingly, these are the only components that can be upgraded by users.

The Q510 sports a hardware package that will handle most business apps. The price includes a dual-core 2.6GHz Intel Core i3-2120T teamed up with 4GB of DDR3 memory. There’s a 500GB SATA hard disk, which is of a usable size, and you can opt for a different model with a 750GB drive if you desperately need more storage.

Display connections are served by HDMI and DVI outputs, and there’s a VGA adapter plug bundled. The Intel HD Graphics 2000 chipset can run dual displays, with support for resolutions of up to 2,560 x 1,920 via the HDMI port.

A Gigabit network port is present and the system on review included the factory-fitted 802.11bgn wireless mini-PCI card. You only get USB 2 ports, but there are six, including two at the front for easier access, plus a flash card reader.

Power usage is remarkably low: with Windows 7 idle, we measured a miniscule draw of 11W. Using the SiSoft Sandra benchmarking app to punish the CPU saw this peak at only 31W.

We also found the Q510 very quiet. The case has a small fan at the rear of the chassis, right behind the CPU heatsink, but most of the time it isn’t needed at all. The only time it did spin up during our tests was during the SiSoft Sandra test, but even then we couldn’t hear it.

This model is also provided with Windows 7 Professional preinstalled. If you want this specific hardware package but with Windows 8 then choose part code VFY:Q0510P3311GB, which is also supplied with a Windows 7 downgrade option.

We can vouch for the build quality and reliability of these mini-PCs, since we currently have four Q5030s in the lab, which we’re using to evaluate Windows 8. They’ve been in use for more than two years now and are still behaving impeccably.

If you’re looking for a classy Windows mini-PC, you won’t find anything better than the Esprimo Q510. Build quality is excellent, it’s as green as it gets and it looks good on the desktop.