From: AC Brown (brownac_at_m2.sprynet.com)
Date: Wed Jul 01 1998 - 18:20:40 EDT
There have been a number of comments recently on the relative merits of the
Thinkpad 600, 560X, and 770. Two months ago I purchased a 560X, even though
the 600 had been announced, mainly for a reason that I haven't seen raised
here.
In my opinion, notebook computers have reached the stage where the top of
the line models (and some in the middle of the line) have all the basic
capabilities required to run modern software -- fast processors, large
memory capacity, big disks, etc. -- and to satisfy human factors requirements
-- good keyboards, high resolution tft screens of reasonable size, useful
pointing devices, light weight and small dimensions. What is more,
incremental improvements in succeeding generations of notebook hardware and
operating system and applications software are getting progressively smaller.
I used to get a new notebook every nine months because of the rapid pace of
improvements. Now I expect to keep a notebook two or three years.
This isn't true of peripherals. During the several years I had my last
notebook, a TP 755CD, removable disk storage went from floppys (1.44 Mb) to
Zip drives (100 Mb) to EZFlyer and MO drives (230 Mb) to SparQ and SyJet and
Jaz (1000-2000 Mb). Modems went from 28.8 to 33.6 to 56 Kb and soon will be
an order of magnitude faster using DSL and cable. Cd-roms went from 2x to 24x
and from read only to CD-RW and CD-R/W Rewritable and are now being replaced
by DVDs. Etc.
Therefore, I've concluded that the best strategy is get a thin but otherwise
full-size notebook with the fewest built-in peripherals and to add the
peripherals separately, as my needs and technological advances dictate. When I
moved from my TP 755CD, the built in Mwave modem and Midi wavetable interface
and the cd-rom all became useless. But my external SyJet was easily
transferred to the new TP 560X.
There are of course other differences between the TP 600 and the TP 560X,
including the 600's higher resolution and slightly larger screen and slightly
faster CPU versus the 560X's smaller size and slightly lighter weight and
lower price (but not much lower if peripherals must be newly purchased). Also,
the 600 has a 3-year warranty while the 560X's is only 1 year, but I can
extend my 560X's warranty by an additional 1-4 years (at a cost of $99/year
for EasyServ and about $170/year for on site service), so I can tailor the
560X warranty to my needs and plans.
Next year, I plan to replace both my cd-rom and SyJet with a single portable
dvd-r/w rewritable drive to serve both functions. It's unlikely that a
similar internal unit will be available for the TP 600 or TP 770, just as
there is now no internal rewritable cd-rom for those machines. So the 600
and 770 owners who want this capability will either have to do without or buy
external units, making the internal cd-rom and Zip drives superfluous. I
think that summarizes my argument.
I've taught computer courses in the past and I know that some owners get
attached emotionally to their computers. I'd welcome responses disagreeing
or agreeing with my reasoning, but please no flames.
Arthur Brown
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