On the Road, Again

Cybernet Manufacturing, Inc. has a notebook called the DeskBook that is easily upgradeable.

It comes with a 1.50 Gigahertz Intel Pentium 4 processor, a 10 Gigabyte hard drive, 128MB of RAM, a 15 inch XGA TFT LCD screen, a 10/100 Ethernet connection, 56Kbps v.90 data/fax modem, IEEE 1394 Firewire port, four USB ports, a parallel port, an S-Video port, IrDA 1.3, a 256 Bit 3D graphics engine, sound and a touchpad. You can upgrade the processor to 2.60 Gigahertz, the hard drive to 40 Gigabytes and the memory to 512MB. The starting price for this machine is $949. You can contact Cybernet at 888-834-4577 or www.cybernetman.com.

American Power Conversion (APC) now has the TravelPower Case. This gadget bag will hold your mobile electronics and also power them with its 85-watt power adapter. When you plug-in the TravelPower's adapter you can charge three devices simultaneously. This includes your cellular phone, your PDA and your notebook. At $99.99 it might be worth looking into. You can reach APC at www.apc.com.

Dell Computer's AXIM X5 Pocket PC entry has a 400 Megahertz XScale processor, 48MB of ROM, 64MB of RAM and a 65,000-color transflective display (3.5 inches) with QVGA resolution (320x240). The unit has a USB charging cradle and a second slot to charge a spare battery. Priced at $349 it's another entry to look at in the Pocket PC market. You can contact Dell for more info at 800-388-8542 or www.dell.com.

Intel has a new 3.06 Gigahertz Pentium 4 processor, and AMD has the Athlon XP 2800+. Of course, these processors are not for notebooks. Mobile processors with these speeds are hopefully not far behind. I don't like to predict product releases for the mobile world based on innovations in the desktop environment because there doesn't seem to be a rush to get these innovations ported to the mobile side. My impression is that it has to do with size and weight (of course, it also has a lot to do with cost and anticipated profits), so I guess we'll just have to wait and hope.

The March 2003 edition of Computer Shopper has a comparison of six Tablet PCs by Brad Nadel. He compares the Acer TravelMate CC102T, the Fujitsu Stylistic ST4110, the Hewlett-Packard Compaq TC1000, the Motion Computing M1200, the Toshiba Portege 3505 and the ViewSonic V1100. His comparison encompasses processors, memory, graphics, hard drives, form factors, input devices, weight, dimensions, display size, modem/networking, expansion slots, battery life, warranties and prices. He rates the Toshiba Portege as number one. The Fujitsu Stylistic rated a close second. Prices ranged from $1,799 for the H-P Compaq to $2,499 for the Toshiba Portege. You can reach these vendors at Acer America 800-816-2237 or www.acer.com, Fujitsu 800-838-5487 or www.fujitsu.com, H-P 800-652-6672 or www.hp.com, Motion Computing 866-682-2538 or www.motioncomputing.com, Toshiba 800-316-0920 or www.toshiba.com and ViewSonic 800-688-6688 or www.viewsonic.com.

Also included in the March 2003 edition is the Editor's Top 5 for desktops, notebooks, digital cameras, handhelds and software with lots of good information.