SCENIC Mobiles: The fabulous three from Germany

SCENIC Mobiles: The fabulous three from Germany

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): Haven't you become tired of the dull-gray, dark-
gray or deep-black color of your everyday notebook yet? What
about a delightful mix of light green, gray and blue?

These magnificent and soothing colors would be the first
things that strike you when you come across any of the three new
SCENIC Mobile notebooks from Siemens Nixdorf, the leading
computermaker from Germany. Like BMWs, which come in the 3-
Series, 5-Series and 7-Series, these new notebooks also come as
SCENIC Mobile 300, 500 and 700.

Courtesy of PT Siemens Nixdorf Indonesia, I had the chance to
play around with all three gorgeous notebooks, plus a docking
station that will turn both the SCENIC Mobile 500 and 700
notebooks into a complete and formidable desktop powerhouse.

Low end

Frankly speaking, I find it a bit hard to put the Rp 5.6
million (US$2,353 -- excluding tax) SCENIC Mobile 300 in the
"entry-level" category. You see, for over seven months now I have
been using a decent Toshiba Satellite 100CS. In my opinion, this
"value line" from Toshiba has the specifications that fit the
definition of an "entry-level" notebook much better: A Pentium 75
MHz with 8 MB of EDO RAM and a 540 MB hard disk.

The SCENIC Mobile 300, on the other hand, has a 100 or 133 MHz
Pentium processor, a 810 MB or 1.35 GB hard disk, a 11.3" DSTN or
a 11.3" TFT screen, both of which boast an 800 by 600 resolution,
an infrared port, built-in 16-bit SoundBlaster compatible sound
capability and a pair of speakers that will produce fairly
enjoyable background music.

For an additional Rp 1 million, the internal 3.5" diskette
drive can be interchanged with a 6-speed CD-ROM drive, so that
you can listen to your favorite Sadao Watanabe's invigorating CD
while you're tweaking your spreadsheet. SCENIC Mobile 300 may
make other "entry-level" or "low-end" notebooks pale in
comparison.

My test unit came with an additional 8 MB EDO RAM installed,
making the total RAM 16 MB. That's the minimum you've got to have
if you want to work in Windows 95 with respectable performance.
The DSTN screen somehow had a longer diagonal than my Toshiba
100CS, and of course it had a higher resolution, too. Using Chips
& Technology 65550 graphics controller and 1 MB of EDO RAM for
the video subsystem, the notebook was capable of displaying 4,096
different colors. Surprisingly, although it had no MPEG decoding
hardware, Xing-MPEG software-based playback was close to
faultless.

When I connected it to a 14" GTC monitor, I couldn't believe
it had no built-in MPEG hardware. Even at full screen display,
the video was never jerky.

Thanks to the C&T chip, too, the notebook was capable of an
impressive 85 Hz vertical refresh rate on an external monitor
with the resolution of 1,024 by 768. However, this cannot be
achieved when both internal and external displays were active,
the high refresh rate can be set if you use only the external
display.

Switchable

If you have the CD-ROM drive installed, you can attach the
diskette drive to an adaptor that connects it to the parallel
port. This way, you can use both the floppy drive and the CD-ROM
at the same time. The lightweight drive draws the power from the
notebook. Unfortunately, there's no parallel port pass-through,
so you can't print when you're using this device externally.

There is one IrDA port at the back. The standard battery is
NiMH, and it's rated for two-and-a-half hours of use -- depending
on the type of application that you run. The keyboard feels very
solid -- maybe a tad too stiff for those who are not accustomed
to IBM classic tactile keyboard. As a longtime IBM keyboard
fanatic, however, I like this notebook's firm keys. There's also
ample armrest support.

As I wrote some time ago, the days of the pencil-eraser
pointing device are now over. This notebook, like its other two
siblings, has a touchpad instead of a TrackPoint. Although it
took some time for me to get accustomed to it, it works fine. Tap
once lightly on the pad to simulate a single left mouse button
clicking, or tap twice for double-clicking. Replacing hard disk
and adding memory modules are very easy.

We don't really expect extraordinary fuel economy from BMWs or
Mercedes Benzes. Similarly, we couldn't expect lightweights from
these German-made notebooks, either. Therefore, it's not really
surprising that SCENIC Mobile 300 is rather heavy -- 3.2 kg
(almost 7 pounds). It's also quite bulky. It's larger than the
Toshiba 100CS.

The LCD status monitor is rather hard to read because of its
awkward position (you really have to be in front of the notebook
to be able to read it). There's no LED light to tell you whether
the notebook is on or whether the battery is being recharged.
Another flaw: The ports for the sound system don't have labels.
Surprisingly, in the more expensive models, all these
shortcomings are totally absent. It was perhaps because the unit
I tested was an Engineering Sample. The shipping product may have
none of these flaws.

SCENIC 500

Remember the heyday of subnotebooks? Twinhead, Compaq Contura
Aero, ThinkPad Butterfly, Toshiba Portege? Where are they now?
Only the last one still survives. After so much hullabaloo, it
finally turned out that people couldn't really live with such
small LCD screens that these subnotebooks had to have.

Thus, a new breed of notebook was born, led by Digital HiNote,
IBM ThinkPad 560, Compaq Armada 4000, and many other follow-the-
leader guys. These notebooks are not smaller in size than the
ordinary ones, but they are lighter, much lighter. In most cases,
the floppy diskette drive has to be external in order to keep the
weight down.

Of the three SCENIC Mobile types, the Rp 7.6 million SCENIC
Mobile 500 is the lightest. It is clearly meant to compete with
the others in this lightweight category. Even then, at 2.7 kg, it
won't be the lightest in the pack. Because of its small size,
there is no internal CD-ROM drive, either.

To compensate for this, it can be fitted to the same docking
station with SCENIC Mobile 700. Speaking of power, however, it
spares nothing. Equipped with a 100 or 133 MHz Pentium processor,
SCENIC Mobile 500 is great even for a desktop computer.

If you need a longer battery life, the internal floppy-
diskette drive can be swapped with a second battery. My test unit
came with a TFT screen, which leaves nothing to complain about.

Other general characteristics are the same as SCENIC Mobile
300: 16-bit SoundBlaster capability, standard PC Card slots, an
IrDA port at the back, a touchpad, and a 810 MB or 1.2 GB hard
disk.

The standard RAM is 8 MB, but you can expand it up to 40 MB.
One important thing: Unlike on my test unit of SCENIC Mobile 300,
the ports for speakers, microphone, line in and line out are
clearly marked. There are also green LEDs that tell you the two
most important things about the notebook state: Is it connected
to the electric outlet and is it powered up? The test unit was
not an engineering sample, by the way, and that may explain the
flawlessness.

The cover for the ports at the back has to be manually opened
and flipped before the notebook can be docked. Like the other two
models, there are plenty of air grills for air flow, so heat
buildup wouldn't really be a problem.

At the top

If you are a computer buff who always want the best, the Rp
10.2 million SCENIC Mobile 700 is for you. You can choose between
the 11.3" or 12.1" TFT screens. Or, if you regularly share your
work with other people using an overhead projector, you should
opt for the OHP model. Its screen can be placed directly on top
of the OHP, so you don't have to carry around an additional LCD
display panel.

Like in the other two models, the battery can be swapped with
any of the two devices in front of the notebook, i.e. the CD-ROM
and the floppy diskette drives. If you're going on a long flight,
you may want to stuff two batteries into both bays. Mobile 700
comes with 2 MB of EDO RAM in the video subsystem, and the hard
disk options go up to 2.1 GB. The FlexiBay on the left can
accommodate a magneto-optical drive or a second hard disk.

All three notebooks come in the same soft colors. They all use
nonproprietary SO DIMM RAM modules, and they all boast excellent
display. They also produce amazingly great sound, despite the
Lilliputian speakers that they have. The manual is very thorough.
It's in fact too complete that it sort of belabors the obvious.
It says, for instance: "Do not touch the touchpad if your fingers
are dirty."

Conclusion

Choosing between these three models may prove to be difficult.
But if you happen to be on the lookout for a new notebook, these
fabulous three are certainly among the first ones you should look
at.

If you choose either SCENIC Mobile 500 or 700, an investment
in MobiDock, the docking station, is a must. In my test, it
worked great. It even has a built-in SCSI controller, which I
used when I tested an Iomega Jaz drive.

In addition, it has a bay for recharging an extra battery,
ports for sounds, as well as a plethora of other facilities. With
this docking station, you'll definitely need only one single PC
to use at home, in the office, on the plane, or in a hotel room.