PERSPECTIVES - Small but perfectly formed

No longer the size of a small house and the cost of a large mortgage, hthe notebook has come into its own. VNU Labs sized up eight of the best.

Helping a customer choose the ideal notebook is no easy task, but hidentifying their requirements from the outset can help narrow the hchoice.

Mobile computing has undergone incredible miniaturisation in recent years, hwhile functionality has rocketed. But what notebooks gain in portability hthey often lose in upgradeability. And although the margins are bigger hthan those to be had from their desktop counterparts, persuading both hconsumers and corporates to invest in the mobile form factor, especially hin the current uncertain economic climate, is often a hard-won sell.

Most notebook manufacturers seem to assume there are three distinct types hof notebook - desktop replacement, ultra-portable and entry level. At the hentry level, while dealer showrooms are stocked full of desktop PCs with a hreasonable specification for about #500, the same cannot be said of hnotebooks. Entry-level notebooks fall into two broad categories - those haimed at corporate organisations which need to kit out large numbers of hpeople with notebooks, and the first-time notebook buyer who does not hnecessarily know a great deal about PCs and needs a cheap deal. Ultra-portability is not a huge issue, nor is a great deal of power, hprovided it can run basic applications, make presentations and is hreasonably portable.

The second market segment is the ultra-portable space, but the line hbetween ultra-portables and the new breed of Windows CE-based machines is hnarrowing.

Both are relatively small and light and have basic applications such as hWord and Excel. Evangelists would have you believe that CE is going to hchange the future of computing, getting rid of 'bloatware' once and for hall. The sceptics say CE is a spent force even before it gets going, with hnumerous inherent problems, including the fact that because it uses solid-state memory, any updates or applications users load make it hnecessary to flash the Rom. However, if a customer wants a small, light hdevice but cannot live without a full version of Windows and all the happlications that run on it, an ultra-portable device is the one to hrecommend.

Last, but not least, is the power user who must have a notebook with all hthe functionality of a desktop but in a portable form - a powerful hprocessor and lots of Ram, a huge hard disk, floppy drive, CD-Rom, a large hscreen and good sound. But there are pay-offs, of which weight is the most hobvious. Additionally, if a corporate client works exclusively on NT, they hmay be forced, at least until the launch of Windows 2000, to use a desk-top replacement notebook. Many notebooks will have the 'designed for hWindows 98 and NT' stickers on them, but few have the staying power to run hNT effectively, apart from at the very high end.

There are basically two types of notebook vendor - those that design and hbuild their own from scratch and those that buy Taiwanese imports and hrebadge them. The former are able to drive the market to unexplored areas hand, generally speaking, post the most impressive results in benchmark htesting. As a result, PC Dealer selected eight models from a number of htier-one vendors for the purposes of this review.

Compaq Armada 1700

Armada is an apt name for this battleship of a machine with matt-black hstyling. There are three models within the 1700 range, ranging from the hPII233 to the PII300.

It was felt that for the price, users deserved more video memory than the h2Mb of VRam with the Chips & Technologies 65555 graphics chip. Compaq has ha wide range of notebooks on offer, and while the 1700 is better kitted-out than the 1500, it is still an entry-level machine. Despite hthis, the Armada has two slots for Type II cards, and once a user has hshelled out for a PC Card modem, the 1700 represents a pretty complete hpackage.

Weighing in at 3.78kg, this is a thick notebook to lug around. But once hcustomers use it, they'll soon be won over. It has an excellent keyboard, hwith nice touches such as hot-keys that can be programmed to launch hfrequently used applications, and excellent speakers, that give a clear, hsharp sound.

Acer TravelMate 312T

With the arrival of sub-notebooks running the latest generation of Windows hCE, it is unusual to find a notebook that still uses Windows 95. The Acer hlooks as if it should be powered by a StrongArm processor, not a Pentium hrunning at 233MHz with a 3Gb hard drive. In view of its size, the hTravelMate's functionality is impressive. At 36mm deep, it is the same hdepth as a conventional notebook - which means there is a lot more room hinside than at first sight. There is a 56K internal modem, room for two hType II PC Cards and no need for a port replicator. Ultra-portables such has Sony's Vaio need a plug-in replicator so users can attach to parallel, hserial and other ports, whereas the TravelMate is thick enough for all hthose connections at the rear.

Its keyboard suffers from the cut-down size, with the keys slightly too hsmall and bunched together. While it works quite well to make short notes, husers could grow tired of having to hunch over the keyboard for long hstints.

Sharp A150 UltraLite

Sharp is good at producing highly desirable, well thought out and well hbuilt sub-notebooks. The UltraLite is small and light and seems remarkably hrobust. Its tough magnesium casing, which covers the entire notebook, not hjust the screen, looks capable of protecting it from some serious hknocks.

Other aspects show attention to detail. The VGA and USB ports have rubber hcovers to keep the dirt out, and the external floppy drive has one serial, hone parallel and one VGA port on the back, which act as a sort of mini hdocking station. Everything about the UltraLite screams good quality.

Sharp is the world's largest manufacturer of LCD screens, so it isn't hsurprising that this screen came out the best in this group test - sharp, hbright and with even luminosity. It even has effective brightness hcontrols, unlike most notebooks. Equally, the keyboard is one of the best hin this test, with a good, firm touch without the tilting you get on some hnotebook keyboards.

Sony Vaio 505G

If a customer's top priority is portability, then the Vaio 505 comes hhighly recommended. Impossibly slender and quite attractive to boot with hits lilac magnesium finish, the 505 will definitely grab a lot of hattention. With its skinny form factor and 10.1in TFT screen weighing only h1.35kg, Sony claims the 505 will give you 2.5 hours of battery life. The h505 has a depth of only 208mm but there isn't room for serial, parallel or hPS/2 connections.

Designers have protected the ports for floppy and port replicator with hrubber covers, but this notebook assumes most software still loads from hfloppy disks - a CD-Rom drive is not standard. The Vaio takes a Type II PC hCard in its single slot to connect to the external CD drive, but the basic hpackage does include a ComOne 56K PC Card modem for internet connectivity. hUsers will end up with a rather more space-consuming machine when they hneed to load software and surf the Net, but for working solely on a hnotebook while on the move, an ultra-portable doesn't get much better than hthis.

Toshiba Portege 7010CT

Toshiba is keen to stress the business angle of its Portege range, hparticularly the larger 7010, reviewed here. Its build quality is hexcellent, with easy access to sometimes fiddly components such as the PC hCard slots. As you would expect from a Toshiba notebook PC, given that the hcompany helped design the open standard, the 7010 offers ACPI power hmanagement through the Windows 98 OS.

The battery pack is fixed at the rear, with the port replicator - with hparallel, serial and PS2 ports - and floppy-drive connections at the left-hand side of the notebook, The cooling vents for the PII300 processor hare on the other side. Only the floppy drive and the replicator are hstandard, which essentially means any remotely serious user will need to hinvest in a DVD-Rom docking station or save pennies by opting for a CD-Rom hextension PC Card. Rather than a touch-pad, the designers have used the hMousepoint in the middle of the keyboard, which uses pressure to direct hthe cursor.

IBM Thinkpad 770

On first look it is easy to dismiss this notebook. It is a huge brick of a hmachine - thick, chunky and almost the size of the desktop it will be hreplacing, yet it still cannot accommodate a floppy and a CD-DVD drive hsimultaneously. An external floppy can be attached to a port on the hnotebook or swapped with the DVD drive. Interestingly, IBM also has a hsecond line of desktop-replacement ThinkPads which are a great deal hthinner.

A total of 10 utilities automatically start when you boot up the machine, hnot including Internet Explorer 4. Among these utilities are some rare hgems. The power management function, for instance, offers a full himplementation of ACPI, with settings for CD-Rom, CPU and PCI power. There his also call-management software so the internal modem can be used as an hanswerphone, as well as a plethora of other useful utilities.

The screen on this notebook has to be seen to be believed. It is only h13.7in diagonally yet runs at a resolution of 1280x1024 and provides razor hsharp images.

Panasonic Toughbook CF71

Gone are the days of nasty-looking black chunks of plastic as the only hoption for the potential notebook buyer. The handle attached to this case his an aesthetic winner, and it is also robust. Dropping the Toughbook from hthe regulation 30cm caused no apparent damage - the hard drive is encased hin protective gel. Of course, a 30cm drop zone isn't really going to be happlicable in a practical environment.

The swappable drive lock was impressively robust, quick and easy to use, hand the multimedia pocket can take CD-Rom, floppy and Superdisk hdrives.

The PII266 mobile processor gets fairly hot after a few hours' use, hdissipated through the underside of the case. The keyboard was one of the hbest in this particular review, although the same could not be said of the htouchpad.

It required a heavy touch before it responded and the double tap that hreplaces a double click needed to be more of a thump.

Hewlett Packard OmniBook XE

For the specifications of this notebook, it achieved a good Sysmark score hof 127, making it more than suitable for running business happlications.

For the asking price, users do get a powerful machine with all the hnecessary peripherals built in, allowing it to contain both a CD-Rom and a hfloppy drive. This removes the need for having to carry about either hexternal or hot-swappable components. While not the lightest notebook, it his still light enough to not be a problem and the build quality is very hgood, as is the quality of the screen.

The Omnibook uses a glide panel which is actually quite responsive and the hkeyboard has a good feel to it. HP has introduced a nice feature with the hinclusion of the CD-Rom audio controls on the front of the machine.

These enable users to play CDs without the need for turning on power to hthe rest of the laptop - perfect for travellers who want to play CDs on hthe move, but don't want to drain their laptop of battery power.

This article previously appeared in Personal Computer World, March h1999.

GETTING READY FOR TAKE-OFF

As vendors struggle to find areas of the PC market that are not being heroded by the growth in direct, off-the-page and retail sales, many are hturning to the handheld sector.

According to one estimate, the handheld and organiser market represents happroximately four per cent of the Western European portable market. But hvendors are endlessly optimistic.

Sean Gallagher, European market development manager for mobile products at hHewlett Packard, says: 'In the corporate market, it will only be a couple hof months until pilot projects begin to bear fruit. A lot of companies are htaking a wait and see approach.'

With products such as USR's Palm Pilot and Psion's Organiser leading the hway, this is still very much a retail-dominated space. CE handheld hproducts need a better price point before they can take off, believes hGallagher. In the UK, the price will need to be set below #300, he hsays.

Other vendors seem to see resellers as the vehicle for breaking the hhandheld market.

Steve Torbe, PC products marketing manager at Compaq, says: 'For hresellers, more of the value-add is in pointing the customer towards the hchoice of products that are available and handhelds are increasing that hchoice.' Some companies are starting to buy them for users with specific hneeds inside their organisations, he claims. Users who need a lighter, hmore portable product or those who want to use the product for email are hprime potential customers.

But even Compaq admits there needs to be a significant change in htechnology and usage. Torbe says: 'Without a sea change in connectivity, hI'd agree it's not going to be a big part of the market. There needs to be ha shift in networking and remote working for this to happen.'

Torbe claims another factor working against the handheld is IT managers hwho don't want '15 different devices' to work with. And he believes prices hmay have to come down even more for the business user with specialist hneeds. The likelihood is that in this market, any big deals will be made hat vendor level at a big discount. Dealers will have to add their own hvalue to niche applications.

But some companies insist there is real potential in the handheld market hnow. Nick Bennett, senior business analyst at systems integrator and hmobile specialist, ABS, says it has seen a marked change in the uptake of hsystems for remote access since the arrival of CE devices. 'For years, hremote workers have been denied access to handheld technology because hnotebooks are too expensive for large-scale deployment and, from a user's hpoint of view, they are an ergonomic disaster.'

Bennett says the arrival of low-cost CE devices with their touch-sensitive, stylus-operated screens has re-awakened interest in hmobile systems. 'Typical CE applications are for hundreds or thousands of husers - any company would find it difficult to justify expenditure on this hscale.'