ThinkPad 770: The notebook to buy if you want it all
By Zatni Arbi
JAKARTA (JP): Remember IBM ThinkPad 760ED? In my hands-on review in this column, I called it the "Rolls-Royce" of notebooks. It was the notebook with everything -- a large and pleasant screen, a digital signal processor, a built-in modem and a slew of other features.
It was the notebook against which all other notebooks were compared. It was also perhaps the most expensive notebook you could find, and yet people still bought them.
Now, envision for a moment a similar notebook with a Pentium 233 MHz processor and ... hold your breath ... a 14.1" screen. Exactly today (Sept. 8), IBM announces world-wide its new ThinkPad 770 that has all these features -- and more.
Unfortunately, because it's still a very new product, I don't have a clearer picture to show you.
Tillamook
But one of the most interesting things about this "Rolls- Royce" of notebooks is certainly its processor, a Pentium with MMX Technology with speeds to burn. Traditionally, Intel would introduce faster processors to the desktop community first and to the notebook sector much later. That was because notebook processors had to be much smaller, and use less power. Now, with the advent of their 0.25 micron process technology, Intel is able to bring the faster Pentium processor with MMX Technology to the notebook before the desktop.
The project to develop the new Pentium processors was code named Tillamook, after a small village in Oregon. In case you're curious, the chip was developed in Intel's Oregon lab. This new type of processor uses only 1.8 volts, and ThinkPad 770 is one of the first notebooks to have this powerful brain under the hood.
At last month's ThinkPad Advisory Council meeting in Singapore, I had the opportunity to see a pre-shipment unit of this impressive notebook. It will be launched here in Jakarta in about one month's time, and you may have to wait a little longer if you want one on your desk. But, like ThinkPad 760ED, the 770 can give us an idea about where the notebook industry is heading.
Large screen
As mentioned before, the screen on the top model ThinkPad 770 is a whopping 14.1" active matrix LCD. To put it in perspective, let's keep in mind that most computer users are still using the 14" CRT monitor on their desktops. These CRT monitors do not really have a full 14" viewing area because they all have black edges around the screen image. An LCD screen, on the other hand, doesn't have these black edges. So, if you think about it, the ThinkPad 770 screen is even bigger than the average CRT monitor.
Because it has such a big screen, the top part of the notebook is slightly larger than the base. IBM claims that the new LCD screens are 36 percent brighter than the ones they put in their ThinkPad 760 Series. The 770's case is black like all the other ThinkPads, and despite all the features it doesn't really feel very heavy. It still weighs less than 3.6 kilograms.
The bright active matrix screen is also capable of displaying a very high 1024 by 768 resolution. Therefore, your workspace on ThinkPad 770 is equal to what you would have on a typical 17" CRT monitor. For those who have a slightly limited budget, there will be three ThinkPad 770 versions with a 13.3" screen. All the screens are capable of displaying 64,000 colors at the XGA resolution.
The graphics engine is already 64-bit and it has a 3-D accelerator, too. Multimedia is further enriched with supports for MPEG 1 and MPEG 2. It also supports Zoomed Video, and video in/out ports are available. As expected, 3-D SoundBlaster is also supported and there is a Dolby Digital feature on the top of the line model to give you 3-D surround sound. What else would you want?
Improvement
The 770 comes with either one of the two Tillamook processors -- the 233 MHz or the 200 MHz. All models come with a 512 Level-2 cache. The standard RAM is 32 MB, but if you feel like going to the extreme you can expand it to 256 MB. Believe me it won't be cheap to do that, though, because it uses SDRAM.
The keyboard follows the ThinkPad 560 model. There is ample support for our palms, and the keys are as good as you would expect from a ThinkPad. IBM has abandoned the idea of raising the keyboard when you open it, as in the 760 models. They say customers feel uncomfortable looking at the exposed internal components.
The TrackPoint has been improved and a third button has been added. This new button, in front of the original two, can be programmed to perform different functions, including selecting and scrolling.
As expected, some of the notebooks components can be interchanged. IBM calls the slot for interchangeable pieces UltraBay II+. Into it we can insert a CD-ROM drive, a DVD-ROM drive, an additional hard disk, a floppy diskette drive, a ZIP drive, or an extra battery for extended operational life.
The capacity of the hard disks' ranges between 3.2 GB and 5.1 GB. Now, if you put one in the UltraBay, you'll be able to get up to 10.2 GB of hard disk space on your notebook. I wonder what you could want so much space for.
Other features
ThinkPad 770 is the first ThinkPad with Desktop Management Interface (DMI). With this feature, which resides in the BIOS, the corporate system manager can do maintenance tasks on the notebook the moment it is connected to the network. It is a feature usually found in a corporate desktop PC intended to make company computing resource inventories easier.
While I don't really believe the DVD will ever sweep us off our feet as the MPEG 1 has done, having a system that is ready to handle DVD is not a bad idea. ThinkPad supports DVD when the drive for this notebook becomes available. CD-ROM and DVD-ROM are optional.
For communication, the top of the line 770 has a communication processor and built-in 33.6 Kbps modem with international programmable DAA and DSVD. It can be upgraded to 56 Kbps with software. On the other models, the modem is not built in. Actually, in my opinion, a PC-Card-based modem offers better flexibility than a built-in one. A Universal Serial Bus port is available at the back, and the Infrared connection supports the high transfer rate of 4 Mbps.
Push or touch?
With all these features, it would be difficult to add a wish list without becoming unrealistic. But there's one thing that's still missing. I believe it is time IBM also provided a touch pad in addition to the TrackPoint. No matter how good the TrackPoint has become, I still prefer the touch pad. I do understand that it would be difficult for IBMers to abandon altogether the TrackPoint that they themselves invented back in 1992. I know the TrackPoint has been a sources of pride for them. Therefore, I would suggest that the next generation of ThinkPads should be equipped in the same way as the Micron Transport. In a Transport, we can choose the stick or the touch pad. Both are available.
With such a powerful brain and such large display real-estate, you really don't have to have a separate desktop computer anymore. The price of the top model is expected to be below US$8,000 and the lower end is expected not to exceed $6,300. If you can afford ThinkPad 770, however, you will surely need only the one computer for your home, office, hotel room and airplane.