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Notebooks and more notebooks: Zlike TI the best

his is an exciting time for people who want a notebook com- puter. Between August and this coming December, there have

been or will be more innovative notebooks actually shipping than has been the case for a long, long time. Which one is best for your needs? I suspect that at least half of the available notebooks will be “best” for someone. Everyone has their own needs, and each manufacturer has made their own tradeoffs. I’ll discuss some of these below. However, for the past six weeks I have been traveling with the Texas Instruments TI5000, and I think it’s the best for me. Actually, I feel more strongly about it than that: I really like this machine, and I’m very impressed with the engineering, the support, and the steps TI has recently taken to become a major player in the notebook arena. 1’11 tell you why I think this, as part of discussing the various tradeoffs someone looking for a notebook might want to consider.

In the third quarter of this year, several manufacturers started actually shipping notebooks based on low-power Intel Pentium processors. These use 3.3 V or 2.9 V logic, with built-in power- management features which the manufacturers have incorporated into their designs. Initially, these were 75 MHz Pentiums. Some manufacturers are now shipping 90 MHz Pentiums, and 120 MHz notebooks are due by the end of the year. Do you need a Pentium notebook? That depends on how you’re going to use it. For computationally intensive tasks, you probably do. Surprisingly, it can make a big difference for other tasks, as well. I do a lot of edit- ing of this Magazine while I travel (most of the feature articles in this issue were edited on the TI5000, for example). That means a lot of switching between Woi’d,fiw Wjndoii)s and Mnth7Jp On anything less than a 75 MHz Pentium, that’s slow. On the TI5000, it’s not a problem.

Which speed Pentium should you buy? The TI5000 line now offers both the 75 MHz and the 90 MHz, and I believe a 120 MHz version will be shipping before the end of the year. Other manufac- turers have all three speeds, as well. There are tradeoffs. The “street price” of the 90 MHz version (which has a 1.2 GB hard drive) is about $650 higher than that of the 75 MHz unit (which has an 810 MI3 hard drive), and this difference is typical for other brands. The 120 MHz chips are essentially unavailable in quantity rizht now, so the premium on notebooks with that chip are very high. Furthermore, it is usually true that the faster the processor,

the more power is used and the less time the batteries last, every- thing else being equal Battery life is quite important to me. Since I haven’t tested it the way I use it, I can’t say what the battery-life difference between the 75 MHz and the 90 MHz units will be. However, it would have to be very small to justify the slight increase in speed and the difference in price, for my way of using a notebook

You should be aware of an important issue regarding Pentium notebooks. They have been available since the end of last year. However, it was not until about the third quarter of this year that notebooks with the /oiv-poiiw version of the chip have been ship- ping. My advice is that you not even consider buying a Pentium notebook that does not have the low-power chip. Intel didn’t intend for “standard” Pentium chips to be used in notebooks. Among other considerations, they generate too much heat. The TI5000 I’ve been using gets no hotter than the TI4000 DX2/50. I saw a notebook with a 133 MHz Pentium processor which had actually started to melt the plastic case! Another reason for not considering a Pentium notebook unless it has the low-power chip is battery life. I can get three and one-half to four hours of useful work from the TI5000 on its standard two batteries (see below). A typical manufacturers’ claii77 (which is usually a gross exaggeration when related to the way I work, in my experience) for a non-low-power-chip 90 MHz machine is under two hours of battery life, and I’ve read letters from people who are getting only 40 minutes!

In addition to the processor, there are several other features which distinguish some of these notebooks as being of the “next generation.” There are now 10.4”-diagonal active-matrix color screens (which the TI5000 has). One or two manufacturers are shipping larger screens. IBM has a 12”-diagonal screen, Toshiba has announced one, and a 14”-diagonal screen has been announced by two manufacturers. For some people, this is an important con- sideration. However, going above about a 12” diagonal measure- ment means exceeding the nominal 8 . 5 ” x l l ” footprint. I find that units with a larger footprint don’t fit into my briefcase nor on my lap (or tray table) in an airplane seat at all well Indeed, this “slightly too big” problem is a major objection of mine to the Toshiba notebooks, and to several of those being sold by the large mail-order houses Some of these screens also have higher than the “standard” 640x 480-pixel resolution. IBM has an 800x600 screen, and a 1024x768 unit has been shown. Again, there are tradeoffs.

80 IEEEAntennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol. 37, No. 5, October 1995

Sitting at my desktop all day, using the 21” ViewSomic 21 monitor, I prefer 1024 x768: I need that to show everything I want to be able to see at once. However, on the much-smaller notebook screen (even on one of the 12” diagonal units), the pixelrj (and thus the icons, text, etc.) get too small for my eyes, at resolutions higher than 640x480. The same may not be true for you: go look at them. Also, consider the cost: I think the effective premium for a 12”, 800x600 screen is in the range of $1500 to $2000.

If you’re going to use a notebook as a desktop computer for at least part of the time, you should also consider both the resolu- tion supported on an external monitor, and the type of “docking stations” available. The TI5000 supports the following external resolutions:

640x480, 65K colors, non-interlaced 800x600, 65K colors, non-interlaced 1024x768, 256 colors, non-interlaced 1280x1 024, 256 colors, interlaced

It also allows simultaneous display on both the notebook screen and an external monitor at 640x480 with 256 colors. This is more important than you might think: It means that I can use the TI5000 with an external projection device (e.g., an LCD screen on an over- head projector) to present a paper, view exactly what is being shown on the notebook’s screen, and still be facing the audience. I did this at the ICEAA meeting in Turin, Italy, in September, and it worked very well. Furthermore, the TI5000’s screen will open back a full 180”. Thus, with an external monitor on a stand shaped like an inverted “U,” I can slide the notebook’s lid under the monitor, and have the keyboard in a “normal” typing position relative to the monitor. You’d be surprised how many notebooks don’t permit this!

The speed of the built-in graphics may be important for how you use a notebook. Since I sometimes do image processing while I travel, it’s a factor for me. The TI 5000 has irather advanced graphics for notebook It uses the Cyrix Logic 7542 chip, on a PCI bus, with 2 MB of video memory. Based on some simple compari- sons with the Diamond Viper PCI board I’m using on my desktop system (which is a 90 MHz Pentium, remember), the graphics speed of the TI5000 seems close. The fact that it will display 65K colors at the two lower resolutions makes it usefd for “multimedia” work, as well.

If you want your notebook to be your “universal” (i.e., travel- ing and desktop) computer, a docking station becomes quite impor- tant. TI and Compaq have by far the best docking stations I’ve seen, and I actually prefer the TI to the Compaq. You slide the computer part way into the docking station, and it automatically accepts the machine, slides it into place, and connects to the various ports. It’s very much like inserting a tape into a VCR. One of the major advantages of this type of docking station is that it keeps the connectors perfectly aligned, thus reducing the wear associated with connecting and disconnecting the notebook. If you’re doing this even a few times per week, I think it’s necessary, and cheap insurance. The docking station gives you slots for both the 33 h4Hz PCI and AT buses, as well as places for mounting additional hard drives, a SCSI port, a drive such as a CD-ROM, and access to all of the other ports. Given the speed of the processor and the graphics, and the ability to add extra drives and cards in the docking station, this generation of notebooks will really be practical as desktop replacements for some people.

For me, perhaps the most important aspect of a notebook is the keyboard. As I’ve written before, the TI machines have the best

keyboard I’ve ever used For the past two years, I have been using a TI4000 notebook computer The keyboard on the TI5000 is almost identical to that on the TI4000 (it’s actually somewhat improved) I don’t like it quite as well as my desktop keyboard (primarily because you can’t fit a separate numericicursorlcontrol keypad into the notebook footprint-although you can connect either an external keypad or a full external keyboard to the TI5000), but I’ve used it literally for hours and hours without any problem, or even feeling deprived Keyboards are very personal preferences, so you have to try them Be sure to try TI’S I think you’ll like it

I also like the where the T15000’s keys are located in relation to the screen and the horizontal part of the notebook. Some machines have their keyboards set back from the front edge as much as two inches, often to make room for a pointing device. I find this much less comfortable to use, particularly in a limited space, such as on an airplane. This is one reason why I don’t like the Toshiba units as much (and, again, it’s a very personal reason).

Battery life is also an important issue for me. Trying to judge the battery life of a notebook foryoiir use is difficult. There are lots of battery-life benchmarks in use in the trade press. However, every one 1 have seen described in detail appears to overestimate the bat- tery life I’m likely to get, and this is consistent with my experience. They also appear to be likely to favor certain tradeoffs in power- management strategy over others The TI5000 gives you more control over power-management functions than most notebooks. You can control screen brightness directly; you have eight levels (0 to 7) of power-management strategy to choose from; and you can independently control the inactivity time after which the hard drive spins down. I find that setting the brightness control at between one-half and two-thirds full is good for most airplane situations. I set the hard drive to “go to sleep” after one minute of inactivity. I also find that setting the power management strategy at level 6 works well for the type of editing I usually do on an airplane. At this setting, the power-management circuitry powers down every- thing it can during idle times in the CPU, video, and keyboard. The effect is that if I’m typing quickly, I can see a small delay in the display of what I’m typing on the screen. Doing all other editing operations, the effect is almost unnoticeable. My “standard” test for battery life is to edit a Wordfor Witidoi.vs document (typically, of 50- 150KB size), using Mnihljpe for equations, and automatically saving the document every five minutes (this means the hard drive is spinning about 20% of the time, with my power-management settings). This actually uses quite a bit more power than most power benchmarks. Using this test, I have typically observed bat- tery life of three-and-one-half to four hours, for the standard, two- battery configuration, on the TI5000 (with 16 MB of memory). This compares to about three hours for the single-battery configu- ration of the TI4000. Given the processor and graphics of the TI5000, this is truly impressive battery life. Indeed, it’s higher than even the benchmark numbers for almost all other notebooks.

However, there is a lot more to the battery story than this The TI5000 uses lithium-ion batteries Although nickel-metal- hydride batteries are now used instead of nickel-cadmium (Ni-cad) batteries in more than half of this current generation of notebooks, relatively few of the manufactures have adopted lithium-ion batter- ies If you’re buying a notebook today and battery operation is at all important to you, I think you need to get a lithium-ion-battery machine There are two reasons The lithium-ion batteries give about 40% better battery life than Ni-cads, for a battery of the same volume They also do not have the memory-effect problems asso- ciated with both of the nickel-based technologies With nickel- based batteries, you should remove the batteries if you’re going to

IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol. 37, No. 5, October 1995 81

run off of AC power for any length of time, and you should hlly discharge them before recharging them. With the TIS000, you leave the batteries in all the time You can “bump up” the charge to hll without discharging Furthermore, the TIS000’s lithium-ion batter- ies are much smaller and lighter than the Ni-cads in the TI4000. Two of the TIS000’s batteries weigh only about two-thirds of one of the TI4000’s, and take up about the same volume. Because of their size ( 1 5 ~ 5 . 5 ~ 2 cm) and weight (about 300 g), it is easy to carry extra batteries. You can “hot swap” the batteries, and you can change only one, if you want, and still get the proportionate addi- tional battery operation. Finally, the version of BnrteryPro software and the hardware it “talks to” in the TIS000 appear to be accurate to within 1-2% with regard to how much battery operation remains. This is remarkable, and a very, very useful feature. In practice, it’s worth at least an extra 5-1096 in battery life, compared to machines without this capability. The batteries also have a four-LED “fuel gauge” on them, which allows you to easily tell if your battery is hlly charged.

The TI5000’s “power brick” (AC adaptedcharger) is also quite nice. At 1 0 . 5 ~ 4 . 5 ~ 2 . 5 cm and 140 g, it is very compact and portable. Some machines (eg . , the Toshiba Pentiums) have this built in. The tradeoff is that you have a substantial source of heat in the notebook, when you’re operating from AC. The TI’s unit operates on an international range of voltages and frequencies.

When it comes to pointing devices, I’m a mouse person. 1 don’t like trackballs (let alone the small, usually broken built-in trackballs some machines have), and I have never found a “finger- pad” device which allows reasonable “click-and-drag” operation. The TIS000 uses the “pointing-stick” device, which IBM first used. It works very well I haven’t given up my Appoint (4473 Willow Road, Suite 1 I O , Pleasanton, CA 94566; Tel: 800-448-1 184) Gulliver traveling mouse. However, I often don’t bother to get it out for quick use on the TI, because the pointing stick works well enough. Give careful consideration before buying a notebook with a built-in trackball: I know of no one who has a machine with one who is still happy about it six months after they get it. Even if its operation hasn’t become unrepariably unreliable, they’re still frus- trated by it.

There are a number of other nice features of the TIS000. It has a 2S6K level-two cache It has built-in 16-bit sound capability, both hardware and software. There is an external MIDI port, a microphone port, audio in and out ports, and a built-in microphone, which will operate with the case open or closed. There is an infra- red serial port, useful for “talking” to a desktop for file synchroni- zation. There is a port for an external keyboard, numeric keypad, or PS/2 mouse. The parallel port supports both the enhanced-parallel port (EPP) and ECP standards. A hidden, fold-out security ring allows locking the notebook to something with a cable. There are extensive suspend/resume features, allowing you to easily and quickly interrupt your work without having to turn off the machine or loose too much battery life. There is a highly portable “port rep- licator,” which give access to a SCSI port as well as the standard ports There is a slot for two Type I or Type 11, or one Type 111, PCMCIA (PC-card) cards. The insertion and ejection mechanism for these is particularly nice, and should aid in extending the lifetime of the PCMCIA-card connectors. The software support also seems more robust and “transparent” than I’ve experienced with other machines. Finally, TI has come up with a very cute and practical solution to covering the ports. There are two spring-loaded doors which cover them. At the push of a button, they pivot up and out of the way, into the body of the machine (where they won’t be broken off) . Furthermore, as best 1 can tell, they will still operate satisfac- torily even if a spring breaks.

Dennis Swift and I have commented on the importance of parity-checked memory in our columns, before The TIS000 has parity-checked memory Many other manufacturers’ machines do not Consider this fair warming

If you travel with a notebook computer and depend on it to get work done, at some point you will need service and/or technical support. I have always found TI’s technical support to be excellent. They have recently expanded it considerably. Their technical sup- port ofices are now open 12 hours per day, seven days per week, with a toll-free number in North America. They have 24 service offices world-wide. The TIS000 comes with a three-year warranty.

TI has traditionally been viewed (and I have shared this view) as a “high-end-niche” notebook-computer supplier (the “street price” for the 75 MHz TIS000 is about S4S00) They’ve made their intentions to expand to become a major player in the notebook arena clear As this is written, they have just staited shipping their Extensa line of notebooks. These are somewhat smaller ( 5 Ibs to 6.4 Ibs, instead of the TIS000’s -6.8 Ibs. However, they have two models with 75 MHz Pentium processors, 340 iW3 or 542 MB hard drives, one model w-ith a built-in CD-ROM, and many features in common with the TIS000. Furthermore, they are showing up at “street prices” from $1800 to $3600, depending on model and fea- tures. Unfortunately, they do have the “set-back” keyboard which I don’t like. If that’s not a problem for you, consider them. These introductions followed TI’s hiring of the person who headed mar- keting for Toshiba for a number of years. They have announced that they are going to become a “full-line” notebook supplier, and it appears that they have made the necessary corporate commitments to do so

Finally, I will share some I J C I ’ ~ personirl observations about which companies I consider in buying a notebook computer. Frankly, I have come to limit my choices to Compaq, IBM, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, and Zenith. If I am only going to use the machine in the US, and if I will probably never need to buy extra parts or accessories, I might consider Gateway 2000. I have also looked seriously at NEC from time to time And that is extent of the list. Why so short a list, and why so few manufacturers who sell at “commodity” prices? There are several reasons, and you may well disagree. First, these five manufacturers have been making notebooks long enough and well enough that I have some confi- dence in the inherent quality and engineering of their products. I’ve seen too many of the other companies turn out products which had designs, some feature of which looked, to me, like they were going to fail rather quickly. I’ve heard too many “horror stories” of peo- ple whose machines have broken down, and it has taken weeks (and often several iterations) to get them fixed I’ve seen too many note- books with thinks that I thought were going to break real soon I also have been unimpressed with the choice of tradeoffs made by most other manufacturers. I’ve owned and/or had long-term use of machines by Compaq, Toshiba, and TI, and I know people who have had similar experience with IBM and Zenith (although the experience with Zenith is now several years old). Basically, what I and those with whom I’ve talked know about these companies’ machines, technical support, and service has been what I feel it should be. The first-hand experience I’ve had with a number of the other companies-including machines “branded” and sold by several large mail-order PC companies-has not been that good. Finally, I have some basis for thinking that these five manufacturers are going to stay in the notebook business, and are going to continue to sup- port their past customers and machines. I don’t feel I can say that for many of the other companies. Take these comments as personal bias, not as facts or recommendations: your experiences may vary.

82 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol. 37, No. 5, October 1995

A nation-wide ‘phone directory on CD-ROM

This is one of those products that should be on your desk simply because when you need it, having it will probably save you its cost with the first or second use. The product is PhoholieDisc Poiver.l;irider, by Digital Directory Assistance, Inc. (693 1 Arlington Road, Suite 405, Bethesda, MD 20814; Tel: 301-657-8548), It’s a set of six CD-ROMs with associated searching soilware, and it is literally a nation-wide residential and business telephone directory. The software will permit searching by name, address, or telephone number, and by business type using a standardized code. You can automatically save listings to a file, and print mailing labels. You can even use it to autodial telephone numbers, with a Hayes-com- patible modem. It divides the US into six regions, so you sometimes have to go through all six disks in a search (or use a CD-ROM drive with a changer). However, the search engine is efficient and easy to use. The CDs are available in different sets (you can get just the residential listings or just the business listings. for example). Shop for price in buying this product: I’ve seen street prices rang- ing from $100 to $250, and older (but upgradeable-for-free) ver- sions as low as $30! List prices range from $30 for a business-only version, to $250 for everything.

Conversion software

DataViz Inc. (55 Corporate Drive, Trumbull CT 0661 1; Tel: 203-268-0030) did many of the file-format converters built into Microsoft Word, Excel, and Access. However, those products don’t have all of the converters, and they don’t necessarily have the latest versions. Version 3.0 of Dataviz’s ( T o ~ ~ i w s i o m I’/tvs is now avail- able. There are more than 1,000 conversion “paths” available in this product, including cross-platform conversions between the PC and the Mac. In particular, their software will convert (“intact”) equa- tions done using the equation editors for many popular word-proc- essing programs. There are also converters for spreadsheet and database programs. The cross-platform converters include convert- ers for software which exists only on one platform (e.g., MacWririre to all of the supported PC word processors). If you share files with colleagues using different packages or platforms, you probably need this software. It has saved me many, many hours for the Adogazim

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IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol. 37, No. 5, October 1995 83