by Chuck Horowitz
Micron Electronics (Nampa, ID) makes the GoBook with a 266mhz MMX Pentium processor, 32MB of EDO RAM, a 2.1 Gigabyte hard drive, a battery bay, 512KB of Level 2 Pipeline burst cache, a 12.1 inch SVGA screen, PCI bus with 128-bit graphics, USB, parallel, serial, VGA, PS/2, NTSC/S-Video ports, cardbus/zoomed video ready, 16-bit stereo wavetable sound, 24X modular CD-ROM drive and two Type II or one Type III PCMCIA slots. The price for this unit is $3,299.
Micron can be contacted at 888-323-1504 or www.micronpc.com.
Chem USA Corporation has the ChemBook P6300, a 266MHz MMX Pentium processor notebook where the processor can be swapped for a 300MHz Pentium II when you want to upgrade.
The unit has 80MB of RAM, 512KB of Level 2 cache, a 4.1 Gigabyte hard drive, a swappable 20X CD-ROM drive, a 56Kbps PCMCIA modem, integrated multimedia and a 128-bit video accelerator with 2MB of EDO RAM. This unit sells for $3,230.
Chem can be reached at 800-866-2436 or www.chemusa.com.
Interactive Media Corporation makes the Kanguru PCMCIA portable, external hard drive in configurations up to 5.1 Gigabytes. This pocket-sized drive uses standard EIDE components and weighs 11 ounces.
It can withstand a shock of up to 200 Gs when not in operation. Power comes from the computer or an AC power adapter. It’s a bit pricey, but does the job.
Interactive can be contacted at 888-526-4878 or www.interactivemediacorp.com.
CDCE, Inc. (Yorba Linda, CA) produces the Note Grip Computer Carrier. The Note Grip is basically a handle with a flexible blade that closes between the lid and the body of the notebook computer. It does not have to be removed from the computer when you use it. This device does not fit in notebooks with a screen size of 12.1 inches or less. It’s a very convenient device for carrying your notebook computer for short distances. CDCE can be reached at 800-373-5353 or www.cdce.com.
Fieldworks, Inc. (Eden Prairie, MN) makes the ruggedized FW5000 Series II notebook. This 200mhz MMX Pentium processor unit is made of magnesium and has four bays that can handle extra batteries, hard drives, CD-ROM drives, floppy drives or PC Card drives. With a 10.4 inch TFT screen, 16MB of RAM and a 1.3 Gigabyte hard drive this unit cost $7,995.
Fieldworks can be contacted at 888-343-5396 or www.field-works.com.
The June edition of Mobile Computing & Communications takes a look at three 266MHz notebook computers. The Compaq Armada 7800, the Dell Latitude CPi and the Hitachi VisionBook Pro 7550 for $5,499, $4,699 and $3,999 respectively. Most of the features of each of these machines are the same, but the Hitachi is the price bargain.
Compaq can be reached at 800-943-7656 or www.compaq.com, Dell can be contacted at 800-677-8816 or www.dell.com and Hitachi can be reached at 800-448-2244 or www.hitachipc.com.
Billionton Corporation (Walnut, CA) has the All-in-One PC Card Videoconferencing Kit for real-time, two-way videoconferencing between notebooks. The card works on the Internet, standard telephone lines, an ISDN link or a corporate network, even with a cellular phone. The Kit includes a high-resolution color digital camera, a video-capture PC Card and videoconferencing software. The camera mounts anywhere on the notebook through a spring-loaded clip.
Billionton can be contacted at 909-468-5500 or www.billionton.com.
Canon Computer Systems (Costa Mesa, CA) has the BJC-50 portable printer. This is a handheld model that has the print quality of a much larger device. The unit weighs 2 pounds with the battery. You can get about 100 pages per charge with the battery and there is an AC adapter included with the printer. The printer has built-in infrared for wireless printing. An automatic 30 page sheet feeder is also available. The unit price is $349.
Canon can be reached at 800-848-4123 or www.ccsi.canon.com.
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