Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!apple!xanadu!ravi From: ravi@xanadu.com (Ravi Pandya) Newsgroups: comp.sys.laptops Subject: Why so little variety? Keywords: notebooks wishes Message-ID: <1991May7.000748.18429@xanadu.com> Date: 7 May 91 00:07:48 GMT Organization: Xanadu Operating Company Lines: 66 With several dozen different 386sx notebooks out there, why are they all almost identical? Why isn't some manufacturer getting the idea that they should look for a niche that twenty other companies aren't already going for? I can find essentially one machine which fits each of my major requirements/desires, and none that meets them all: OVER 10 Mb RAM -- only the Tandon (and its OEMs) does this, and only Tandon uses *industry*standard* memory expansion that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I could expand it to 16Mb for one third the cost of 4Mb for a Compaq LTE 386s (admittedly an extreme example). Are laptop manufacturers going to have to learn all over again the sense of using standard SIMMs instead of expensive proprietary schemes? I thought we'd been through this once with the desktop manufacturers. Or are we simply at the beginning of the formation of another de facto standard? What might it turn out to be? BUILT-IN POINTING DEVICE -- only the Olivetti, with its touch pad. Everyone is touting 386sx notebooks as portable Windows machines, yet no one is delivering them with a pointing device. The Microsoft/ Logitech alternative is ugly, awkward, and inconvenient. You have to remove it when you close the case, and then you have another piece to carry, along with a bunch of tangled cables. The laptop store down the street has a tiny, very precise 1/4" trackball that would take up maybe 0.5 cubic inches if it were built-in. The Outbound Mac portable has the Isopoint, which I've found to be very useable, and you never have to take your hands off the keyboard. Some manufacturer should give these a try. I suspect they're all sitting on their hands waiting to see what somebody else does, and whether it sells. That somebody else may make a pile of money. EXTERNAL FLOPPY -- only the Commax Ultrathin. Of all the 386sx notebooks, it is by far the lightest (4 lbs), and smallest (8.25" x 10.25" x 1.25"). An external floppy drive is included in the price. I rarely need a floppy, and I'd be happy to leave the external drive on my desk and carry 2 lbs less under my arm. If the Commax could be expanded beyond 4Mb, and had a coprocessor socket, I'd buy it instantly. Isn't portability what it's all about? Or was the market research on the Sharp 6220 so compelling that no one thinks they can sell one without a built-in floppy? I suspect that there are simply two segments - people who want everything in one box to carry around all the time, and people who want to carry around as little as possible. Doesn't it make sense to serve one market better, at the expense of the other, and establish a niche? Furthermore, I suspect a clever industrial designer could figure out how to make a detachable floppy with a clamping connector so that it could be carried with the main unit. A 9600 baud MNP/v.42bis internal modem would also be nice -- I don't know of anyone who offers that. However, I can stand to have an external pocket modem, since I would have to be tethered to a phone anyway. I suspect I may end up going with the Tandon, since I can't get my work done with less memory, and I can suffer with an awkward trackball and some extra weight. On the other hand, I may just wait and see if something better turns up... --ravi Ravi Pandya Xanadu Operating Company 550 California Avenue Suite 101 Palo Alto, CA 94306 415 856 4112 ext 122 415 856 2251 fax ravi@xanadu.com