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On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Stanley Chen wrote: > > After looking at the various notebooks, subnotebooks, and H/PCs, I've > finally decided what I really need is the TP701. The problem is in finding > one and finding out what one of these will really do in terms of everyday > functionality with windows 95 and attendant software. The spec seem to > indicate that with a proper upgrade of RAM this little notebook should do > everything I need it to short of full blown video conferencing. Therefore, > I'd like to join your mailing list to find out more about these elegant > machines The most important thing is that it's not a Pentium, and you're not going to be able to upgrade it to get Pentium-like performance. I'd say it's adequate for Win95 and MS Office, but it's no speed demon. If you're used to P166 or P200 speeds, it may be unbearably slow. That said, since you've doubtless read the good things IBM and Ziff Davis has to say about it, here are some of the bad things. Battery life is short. A little over an hour with the NiCd, two to two and a half hours with the NiMH. The machine will not recharge the battery while it is off - it must be on or suspended (hibernated counts as off). And it gets pretty hot while recharging. The keyboard is flimsy. That's not to say that it's bad, but because it expands you have a tendency to try to pick the machine up by the keyboard. I've decided this is a bad thing to do. Also, because the keyboard is two pieces, the trackpoint is not as solidly mounted as on other Thinkpads. The area around the hinges is susceptible to cracking. Win95 is brain-dead and doesn't halt the CPU when it's idle. This makes the base rather hot to keep on your lap (as well as diminishing battery life). This is not a problem with Linux and I hear OS/2. Dunno about NT. The hard drive is removable but uses a proprietary connector. Be prepared to spend $$$ if you want another hard drive. The modem has been plagued with problems and often disconnects under heavy load. There are a couple settings you can change to make it more stable, but you're best off getting a PCMCIA modem. The multiport can break easily if you're not careful. There's a plastic pin to hold it against the machine, and several people have broken it. The TFT is not as bright as most TFTs on the market. Several people have compared it to DSTN screens in terms of brightness (but ghosting is nonexistant). The up/down viewing angle is not as great as most TFTs either. The headphone jack is plagued with static. It is usable, but don't expect CD clarity. I suspect it was designed for use on airplanes, where you wouldn't be able to hear the static. :-) The video in 16M color mode is... not quite clear. As I understand it, the video chipset wasn't originally designed to do 16M color, but IBM figured out a way to do it. I tried the mode on two external monitors and it only worked on one. The TFT can only show 32k colors though so I just run it at that color depth. It has so many I/O devices that with the multiport attached, it's impossible to assign a different interrupt to each one. Ok, enough of the bad news. Here are some of the lesser known neat features. It's small and cute. But you already knew that. :-) The power management tools are built into the BIOS - no loading special programs or floundering without drivers if you use an OS that IBM doesn't support (i.e. Linux). The AC adapter is about the size of a deck of cards, has flip-up prongs, and is dual voltage. Very portable. The Soundblaster emulation works. No fiddling with drivers like with MWave. The modem is advertised as 14.4, but it also supports V.Terbo, a 19.2 standard most modems support. And I'm considering selling mine. Now that I'm out of school I'm finding I almost never need a portable. I should decide by mid-October. Mine is a DX4/75, 720MB HD, 24MB RAM (16MB DIMM added), TFT, NiMH (two batteries), 1 year left in warranty this November. I also have PCMCIA ethernet and SCSI cards, and a portable 4x SCSI CD-ROM drive. -- John H. Kim kim@mak.com