i have an older lifebook and just found out that it will cost between
$200 to $500 to replace the $5 CMOS backup battery. fujitsu's
documentation said that it may have to be replace after 3 to 5 years,
which is reasonable to me but what is not reasonable is to design it
so that it costs $200 to $500 to replace it.

i can not recommend fujitsu as a source for laptop computers due to
their design philosophy for replaceable parts.

a "very unhappy" N3010 owner (but it has a very nice display)

(i was just "unhappy" when i discovered that the N3010 had a design
flaw that caused the mother board to over heat - i worked around that
with a combination of a temperature measuring program (non-fujitsu)
and blowing out the hot air discharge vents every once in a while when
the temperature gets above normal. all this was no thanks to fujitsu
who insisted that there was no problem and provided no help is solving
it. so i guess i also can't recommend fujitsu due to their lack of
support of their products, even when their is a design flaw!)

(btw, the letter "I" key on my keyboard has stopped working does
anyone know how it might be fixed? i hate to think what fujitsu would
want for that)

(i guess that i should mention that the hard drive failed as well but
replacing that was straight forward and with a disk image back up i
had made. i was going again very quickly for about $100 and my labor)

would apple do this kind of thing to their customers? i am thinking of
switching to a macbook pro and i am hoping that i will get a better
product and better support then fujitsu provided, and easier CMOS
backup battery replacement. comments?