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introduction
- To: THINKPAD@cs.utk.edu
- Subject: introduction
- From: dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar)
- Date: Tue, 23 Dec 97 09:55:42 EST
- Comment: to {un}subscribe, send mail to thinkpad-REQUEST@cs.utk.edu
Well I am back in the Thinkpad camp -- I follow the leading edge of laptop
technology, and the Tecra 720 and 740 were introduced well ahead of anything
comparable from IBM, so I had switched to Toshiba. But now I have the
TP 770 with a 14.1" screen.
An excellent machine. I have two glitches so far, neither disastrous. First,
sometimes the screen disappears, and won't come back. This seems to be related
to the power management, and in fact since I turned Presentation Mode on, it
has not hapenned again, although I still see it if (under OS/2), I try to hot
swap between the floppy and the CD ROM in suspend mode. Certainly something
that I can live with.
Second, every now and then, the trackpoint-4 registers an unexplained
event as though the left mouse button had been pressed when it has not.
Again, slightly irritating, but managable.
One quick note on the 770, the floppy is unusual in that it can run either
in the Ultra-Bay or outside it *without an extra case*. This was not clear
to me at first, until I called up to ask how to install OS/2 (incidentally,
there are a good set of instructions for installing OS/2 available from
IBM, but annoyingly left out of the online instruction book -- which has
a section on OS/2 installation that is incomplete).
I have 160meg memory installed, and my first battery outing gave 2 hrs 55 mins
on each of two batteries. This is in full power mode, but with the screen
in normal, not high mode. Actually I usually find that I do not operate the
screen in its brightest mode in most settings. This is a very bright screen,
*too* bright at its maximum setting most of the time (but of course the
extra brightness is VERY welcome in high intensity ambient light situations).
One extra thing. No one at IBM knew if extra batteries came with the
necessary gizmo for putting them in the Ultrabay, but the answer is that
they definitely do!
(it is a pity you cannot get higher capacity batteries that would fit only
in the right hand bay, but anyway, 3 hours is not bad).
By the way, the surround sound (done by creating a 3D sound field with two
speakers, presumably by clever phasing) is very impressive. I have Zork
Nemesis installed, and people sit in front of the machine and start looking
around for speakers, since it is hard to believe that the non-directional
effects are coming from the speakers in front of you. The sound is *worlds*
ahead of the (rather tiny and tinny) speakers on the Tecra 740.
The keyboard is excellent, my only (minor) complaint is that it is very
quiet except if you hit the space bar other than in the center, which
makes a slight clack.
The trackpoint-4 is nice, the push to select is very useful (although I
wonder if it is the source of my phantom button pushes, interesting
thought, I will disable it and see). I find the scrolling button of
limited use and would prefer to make the big button below the keyboard
be the left button, I guess this could be accomplished easily enough
by hackin the driver, mabe someone will do that.
All in all, a VERY nice machine, a useful step up from my Tecra 740
(incidentally, as always, you get a fantastic deal by buying behind
the bleeding edge, I have seen Tecra 740's advertised as low as
$2499, which is a VERY good buy).
Robert Dewar