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The LifeBook E736 won't appeal to everyone – this laptop's price and design drew blanks on the faces of some of our consumer-oriented colleagues but that's understandable. They're used to the MacBook Pros and the XPS 13s of this world.
Instead it scores high points when it comes to modularity/expandability, performance, manageability and battery life. Yes, it is a bit chunky and expensive but at this end of the spectrum, money is rarely an issue.
We liked
32GB of memory, a Core i7 CPU, 18-hour battery life, and a weight of 1.75kg with the secondary battery. Those four parameters are enough to justify its price in the eyes of potential discerning customers. You're paying a hefty premium but since there is no competition, it's a cash cow worth milking.
We loved the Port Replicator as well. It's surprisingly compact and offers more connectivity options than most of the competition, it's just a shame that it doesn't support 4K resolution.
We disliked
The price is higher than the competition and the level of warranty is not on par with rivals. You will have to pay extra in order to remedy that imbalance. The size of the internal hard disk drive – at this price – is absurdly small but that's alleviated by the modular drive which can take a second hard drive. There's also far too much flex on the keyboard for our liking and we'd have loved to get it tested and certified to MIL-STD.
Final verdict
We're in two minds with the E736. On paper, it is one of the best business laptops available, but it comes at a premium which makes this notebook hard to recommend, especially when its rivals offer a bit more of everything at a much, much lower price.
- Check out the top 10 best business laptops in 2016
