Even notebooks getting faster than necessary

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): Each time I travel abroad for a press event, I almost always bring along my faithful notebook computer, a SCENIC Mobile 300 from Siemens Nixdorf. I like this German-made companion because of its good looks -- it has a very soothing green color that you just don't find in any other notebook computers. I also like it because of its high-quality 12.1" TFT screen.

Three-years-old, the notebook is powered by a classic Pentium 133 MHz. But, hey, I don't do graphics or 3-D rendering on the airplane or in the hotel rooms. I just need to finish whatever unfinished writing assignment I bring along in my bag, and this notebook has always managed to keep me from wasting my time in front of the hotel room television set.

Last week, when Jessa, my wife's niece, asked me to help her find a replacement for her Compaq Presario, which had been stolen from her rented car when she and her family were attending her graduation party in Perth last year, I first suggested the new ThinkPad i Series from IBM. Unlike the no-frills SCENIC Mobile 300, the new notebook from IBM is designed with the needs of students, home office workers and young professionals in mind, and therefore it would be a better choice for Jessa. Like Compaq's Presario, the ThinkPad i Series also features external control buttons for a CD player so that she could listen to her audio CDs without having to turn on the system. Alas, at US$1,880, the price turned out to be a little bit too steep for her budget.

So Jessa asked me to find her the least expensive notebook on the market that I still found acceptable. Well, after a little searching, we settled on a Toshiba Satellite 2515CDS for $1,450. And, as always, I got the privilege of playing around with it while checking for any possible defects before handing it over to her.

Design

Like the ThinkPad i Series, this Satellite is also powered by a Mobile Pentium 266 MHz with MMX technology. It has a 4.3 GB hard drive, a 12.1" DSTN screen with 800x600 resolution, both CD- ROM and 3.5" floppy diskette drives, a 56K modem made by 3Com, a Li-Ion battery, an AccuPoint pointing device which Toshiba has licensed from IBM and a new casing design. When closed, the handsome charcoal-colored casing reminds me of the hood of a 1958 Chevrolet truck. Also, in a dramatic break from the more traditional design, this notebook sports a curvier look.

Overall, the notebook is about one inch wider than my favorite Satellite 100CS. It is also a bit lighter, and that was a big reason why Jessa liked it. It also boasts a fast infrared and a wider wrist support area below the keyboard. I got another surprise when I learned that the power adapter had been removed from the casing. Luckily, the adapter is not much bigger or heavier than a pack of cigarettes.

The screen is exceptionally bright for a DSTN. It is a significant improvement over the old DSTN screens that I used to see. One thing that I noticed when installing the Windows 98 operating system, though, was that looking at the text as I scrolled up or down make me queasy.

On the plus side, the Windows 95 (it should just be called Windows 9x) buttons have been cleverly moved to the top right hand corner of the keyboard area, and therefore the lowest row of the keyboard is not as crowded as in most other notebooks which have these buttons in their original places.

The keys in the keyboard itself, however, do not have as much travel as in the older Toshibas. That's probably the compromise which had to be made in order to make this notebook slimmer. Fortunately they are still OK for fast typists.

The audio, which uses the Yamaha Sound System, is good enough for a notebook. I was able to enjoy Pavarotti's voice through the speakers, which are placed near the hinges facing up. The thumbwheel volume control and the jacks for the microphone and the audio are placed on the left side of the notebook, closer to the user.

Speed, more speed

If you're looking for a basic notebook that will allow you to do some word processing and spreadsheet tinkering away from your desktop PC, a notebook like my SCENIC Mobile 300 would do the job without any hiccups. But what can we say? Intel and its competitors are keeping the race for fastest processing raging, so today we can no longer find a new notebook with a Pentium processor slower than 200 MHz with MMX Technology because Intel and its competitors do not make them anymore.

On the contrary, Intel has already launched the high- performance Pentium II Mobile processors with clock speeds of 333 MHz and 366 MHz. For more price-conscious buyers, Intel has even ported the Celeron processors into the mobile computing world. The Mobile Celeron processors are now available at 266 and 300 MHz speeds.

While the processor speeds, memory and storage capacities have gone up quite a bit, the prices of the new notebooks have gone down. On the other hand, could you imagine how affordable my SCENIC Mobile 300 would be now if Intel still made the Pentium 133 MHz processor?

Well, the fact is, the Pentium 133 MHz has long become history. The standard of the basic notebook has shifted. Luckily, with a modem included, I really found the Toshiba Satellite 2515CDS -- or its 2510CDS sibling -- a good value. These two Satellites are actually the same, except that the 2510CDS has been imported into Indonesia by Toshiba's distributors and therefore gets their full support. The 2515CDS is a little cheaper because it is supposed to be sold only in the United States. If you decide to purchase one, you'll have to pay extra the first time you take it in for repair.

You might even be able to get either one for a little less because the 2515CDS is being offered for $1,199 on Toshiba's Web site. And trust me, it has much more computing power than you need.