I have worked with and programmed all sizes of computers in my career, from tiny embedded
microprocessors that consist of about two chips and a battery, all the way through the gamut of
minicomputers, full scale business mainframes, and even the odd supercomputer. They all have
their places and niches. And so does the laptop.
The first laptop computers that I remember seeing were the CPM based Osborne and Kaypro
systems of the late 70's and early 80's. These came out just in time to get killed by the advent of
the IBM PC. Today one would call them luggable, but in their day, with their suitcase handles
and boxy footprints, they were quite an innovation. About a year after the IBM PC came out,
Compaq introduced their sort of portable computer.
The first laptop that I had a chance to use at work was a 386 that had a gas plasma display. The
good news was, it was bright, even if monocolored. The bad news was, it still weighed about 20
pounds. After a couple of years, the screen broke, and for all intents and purposes it was so much
of a boat anchor. Which at least did make it of some use, because the device conked out on me
when I was taking a week's vacation at Priest Lake.
Our group of people at World Wide Widgets travel a lot, and cover the world, from West
Virginia to China and Siberia. So we have bought quite a number of laptop computers for our
road warriors, starting with black and white liquid crystal screen 286 models from Zenith, to the
gas plasma 386 model I mentioned before, to now full color Pentium models from a quite
overpriced Japanese company.
We still use desktop computers that we bought 10 years ago. Maybe they are not on a desk any
more, maybe they are acting as print servers, or maybe they are being used in some less intense
activity than what they were first bought for, but the things really last. The monitors break, so
you buy a new monitor for $400. The memory gets upgraded, eventually the whole motherboard
gets upgraded, disk drives get added, and the thing stays functional for years.
The life of a laptop seems to be closer to about three years. Get used to the fact that, for all
practical purposes, when you buy a laptop, you better buy all the bells and whistles for it that you
will ever want, because upgrading these things is all but impossible. And fixing them, especially
the screens as I found out up at the lake, is really impossible. You may think that 500MB disk
and 8MB ram is fine now, but wait till you try to install NT 6.0 in a year or so.
And, the newer ones are brighter, they are lighter, they have more this and that, internal modems,
pcmcia slots ... Whine, whine, whine, nobody seems to want to use the 4MB 486 passive matrix
screen model that we bought three years ago, they only want the 13 inch 800X600 TFT screens
that are available now, with a 150MH processor of course.
However, regardless of how many times I give this lecture to my spouse as we sit in the hot tub at
night, she still insists that I should really buy one anyway. I have been putting this off for about
five months now, but I keep being told how useful it would be to take to the lake, to take to the
store, to have a second computer for the grandkids, to have a backup computer (see next month's
column), to take on trips, to ....
So, I have been looking at laptops. I have not bought one as of this writing, but I expect to have
one before this is published. Excuse me, WE expect to have one.
Step one of course is to wander around town to the various stores, especially Computorlink
advertisers, and see what is out there. No way am I gonna lay down the 6 grand plus that WWW
pops for their corporate ones, thanx a lot. It turns out that the pricing on these things runs from
just above $1100, to about ten times that, depending on features. For the most part, the processor
does not become a major factor in the price. You pay for brightness of screen, lightness of box,
and plugability. If you are willing to settle for a smaller, dimmer box screen with no docking
station capability, you will be at the low end of that range. The person who wants to use a laptop
on the road, and in the office, connected to his lan, with a spare disk drive in the docking station,
and only have the thing weigh three pounds will be at the upper range of that scale.
The first shock is how few stores actually stock these things. Your real large retail stores,
especially those that concentrate on discount electronics, will have a range of models at a range
of prices. The computer only stores are happy to quote you a price, and will get delivery in a
matter of days, but they don't have any in stock. One dealer told me that the shelf life of a new
laptop model these days is measured in weeks. Almost by the time he has it on his shelf, it has
been replaced with a newer model. And in fact, I have seen this in my long search. When I
started out looking, I was interested in an IBM Thinkpad 365. Today you cannot find them
anywhere. A couple of months ago I started considering a Thinkpad 380D. Already, it is getting
difficult to find those either, at least in the non MMX versions.
Those stores that do stock them never seem to have anybody around that knows anything about
them, or to even have any kinds of descriptions available on what comes with and in them. A
large computer chain, based here in Spokane, does have a Thinkpad on its shelf, but over several
weeks time I have searched in vain for any indication of what is under the hood, or even what the
model is. (Being a guy, I don't ask sales people for help with these things.)
The most popular laptops, based on ads, and based on what seems to be actually stocked, appears
to be Toshiba, followed by Compaq, and then a spattering of models from IBM, Hitachi, AST
and others. If you are thinking about buying the top two names on this list, I really invite you to
first peruse some back articles of Infoworld magazine's Gripeline and Notes from the Field
columns (available on the internet at www.infoworld.com).
Most of the laptops in the $2K range will come with a cdrom drive and 16M of memory, and
about 1 GB of disk. They all have color screens, from 11"to 13", but the particular technology to
drive these screens varies enormously. They all have ports and slots and all that stuff. The big
difference seems to be how they provide you a local mouse. I prefer the funny red button
developed by IBM, that sits in the middle of the keyboard. I really prefer a trackball, but nobody
seems to make that any more. What is becoming popular, which I do not like at all, is this funny
screen in front of the keys on the keyboard that you run your fingernail around on. The cursor
follows your fingernail. I have tried to play Solitare with one of these things and could never get
the card to the right most stack on the screen. All of them let you plug in a real mouse, of course.
So, how do you find out about these things? There are always ads, of course. Better yet, in my
opinion, is the internet. All of the major vendors have web sites that describe their products.
Some web sites are better than others of course, but most of the computer manufacturers seem to
have figured it out pretty well. Sometimes you have to drill down through several levels of
menus at a company as big as IBM, but they do point you to the information you want pretty
well.
Another way to get comparable information all at one site is from the nationwide computer
distributors, who also have their own web sites. I have found the site at www.insight.com to be
very well done, with lots of information about the various options of whatever product you are
interested in. They have a search engine to let you find things, or you can drill down through a
series of pages.
I found it surprising that the large national computer distributors do not seem to have any real
price advantage over the local stores, at least for this particular kind of product. There is really
no reason not to buy locally, but I still find the national web sites to be very useful.
Finally, you probably want to get some product review information. Infoworld, my personal
magazine of choice among the national weekly rags, locks out their information unless you are
registered, and even though I subscribe, I have never bother to register. PC Magazine, owned by
Ziff Davis, who owns just about every computer magazine in the world except for Infoworld and
Computorlink, has a really terrific web site (www.zdnet.com) that has a Product Guide subsite.
This site includes just about every review that all its numerous magazines have done on every
product in the last year or so, accessible by search engines. So if you are interested in ZD's
opinion of the Thinkpad 380D, the default search comes up with seven articles and reviews,
some as recent as this month. The full text of the article is displayed, although just in the section
you are interested in. That is, if an article reviewed 20 laptops, the jump will display just the
laptop you asked about.
My vote still is, Unless you are a real road warrior, and really need to be connected at all times,
spend half the money and get a desktop system instead.
Read Next Article --> Return to Home Page ^
I finally did buy a laptop, but it ended up being a Fujitsu Lifebook 730. It had all the stuff that the Thinkpad had, but about $500 cheaper, and was available locally.
The notes in the article about checking the Inforworld web site for information on Compac and
Toshiba indicates that the former is having very serious DOA problems, at least with their
cheaper models, and the latter's customer support is all but nonexistant.
Now that we have had it for a couple of months, if I had to do it over, I would maybe make two changes. First, I would get the active matrix screen. Bonnie wants to play games, and the passive matrix screen simply cannot keep up with the sprites and animation that games have. And that is where the extra $500 went to in the Thinkpad.
Second, the day after we brought this thing home, Bonnie went out and bought a real mouse. No matter what is on the laptop itself, none of these buttons, pads, or levers will correspond to a real mouse, and I should not have put so much emphasis into ignoring the pad mouse now on most laptops.
For an article on what happened next, look for the February 1998 issue.