Micron Transport Xpe: A road warrior for the professionals
By Zatni Arbi
JAKARTA (JP): In the past year or so I have reviewed more than half a dozen different notebooks from different price ranges. All of them were great. I have also got a new Toshiba 205CDS from the office where I work and I think it is also a really good traveling companion for the price.
True, great notebook computers are so easy to come by nowadays. Still, when I got an invitation to review the MMX- enabled Transport Xpe from Micron, I couldn't resist the temptation. I decided it would be OK to see what this one has to offer.
Micron Electronics Inc. is not a strange name in the PC industry. It is a leading maker of memory chips in the United States. It is also a strong contender among PC vendors. Its tower machines, the Micron Millennias, consistently grab awards such as PC Magazine Editors' Choice for superior technical implementation. I found the TransPort Xpe interesting particularly because normally a computer vendor that excels in making desktop or tower PCs is not necessarily capable of designing equally excellent mobile PCs.
So, courtesy of PT Bhinneka Mentari Dimensi, I was able to go around the city of Jakarta toting a brand-new 150 MHz notebook for two weeks. I really accomplished some work with its help. I was informed that the street price would be a little less than Rp 10 million (US$4,078), which I think is more or less the average for a notebook of this caliber. My test unit came with 32 MB of RAM, a 1.4 GB hard disk, an eight-speed CD-ROM drive, a Lithium Ion battery and some demo multimedia software.
Presentation
Clearly, one of the notebook's most prominent strengths lies in its fabulous screen. The 12.1" active-matrix screen is one of the most gorgeous LCD displays that I've ever seen. Although the largest screen on a notebook today is 13.3", this one almost fills the entire lid of the notebook. The pretty screen is also supplemented by a 64-bit PCI, Cirrus Logic-based graphics accelerator that has 2 MB of VRAM. When I ran the bundled sample CD from Blockbuster Video, the video playback was very smooth.
The 150 MHz processor is also blazingly fast. In fact, I was surprised to notice how much faster it runs, compared to my own 133 MHz notebook. The performance difference is perhaps the result of the 256 KB of Level 2 cache memory. The new WordPerfect Suite 8.0, which is already MMX-capable, was installed without taking too much of my time. Applications loaded in matters of seconds.
At the back of the notebook, there are two interesting ports. One is for the NTSC video connection to the TV and the other is for a video camera. This notebook is ready for video conferencing.
The keyboard feel is acceptable. I like it better than the one I found in Compaq Presario notebook, although I still prefer the one in Toshiba notebooks. The good thing about TransPort's keyboard is that each individual key is generously large. The function key row even has spaces between F4 and F5 as well as between F8 and F9. This makes it easy to find the right function key without really having to look at it as we would have to do on a Toshiba notebook.
Another thing that also pleases me is that, like in the Toshiba notebook, there is no Windows 95-specific keys which always make the lowest row of the keyboard too crowded. There is ample palm support for fast typists.
All the other notebooks I've seen have only one PS/2 port, but TransPort Xpe has two separate PS/2 ports at the back. One for the external keyboard and the other for the PS/2 mouse. The color of the notebook case is black and even with the battery in place it does not feel as heavy as the Toshiba notebooks.
Given the notoriety of notebooks' speakers, the quality of the sound reproduction of TransPort Xpe is surprisingly acceptable. I installed the bundled Billboard catalog and I was able to enjoy some audio clips from my favorite artists, including Dolly Parton.
The VGA, parallel and serial ports at the back are covered by two sliding doors that are very sturdy and so is the docking station connector port. I think other notebook makers should copy this cover design from TransPort. The hard disk is user- replaceable.
Shortcomings
To be fair, I did not have any really significant complaints about this notebook. All the drawbacks I discovered were minor ones. To begin with, we have to swap the battery either with the internal CD-ROM drive or with the floppy diskette drive. If we need to use both of these drives -- for example, if we want to install new software programs or new hardware -- then we will have to rely totally on electrical power.
In real life, fortunately, we seldom find ourselves in the situation where we need both the CD-ROM and the floppy diskette drives. In fact, this design allows us to put two battery packs at the same time inside the notebook to extend our working time.
My next complaint is that there is no thumb knob that we can use to quickly increase or decrease the volume level of the notebook sound. The volume control is set using the combination of the Fn and F5 or F6 keys. If you have pumped up the volume and suddenly the telephone on your desk starts ringing, you'll be scrambling for these keys before you pick up the phone handset.
All the ports for audio connections, i.e., the line-in, microphone and speaker-out ports, are positioned at the back. If you have a cramped desktop as I usually do, this will be an inconvenience since you will have problem plugging in the cables for your external speakers into the right port. If you're giving a presentation, on the other hand, this could be a plus. Because the cables connect to the back of the notebook, your desk area will be free from cluttered cables.
Oddly, despite its touchpad, the keyboard still has a trackpoint protruding right in the center of the G, H, N and B keys. In the unit that I tested, this pointing stick did not function, though. I checked the products advertisements in the latest issue of computer magazines and it turned out that every TransPort has both types of pointing device.
Strangely, this notebook doesn't come with any productivity software, such as Microsoft Works. Nor does it come with any on- line manual. This gives a strong statement that this is a serious machine and not for a beginner.
The notebook is not for students, secretaries or researchers. It's definitely for a professional whose job involves presentations of multimedia materials. It is a speed demon that will let you create stunning graphics for your presentation in a hurry. The sound system is excellent, and the video capabilities are the first I've seen in a notebook. If you're looking for an upper mid-range professional-class notebook, look no further.