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.