Go mobile; nine notebooks under $2,500 that will take your business on the road - review of nine notebooks - includes related article on modems, purchasing 'cheat sheet' and vendor directory - Hardware Review - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, May, 1997 by Rick Broida

Nine Notebooks Under $2,500 That Will Take Your Business on the Road

Be prepared. That's the motto of Boy Scouts and business travelers. Of course, a box of matches and a pocket knife won't help much when you're stuck in an airport or a hotel room, but a portable office is just the ticket. We're talking notebooks--miniature versions of what you left behind, filled with all the applications and data you need to conduct business as usual. Portable PCs come in many different flavors, from inexpensive desktop sidekicks to power-packing presentation stations. For this buyer's guide, we focused on the road warriors--nine of them, each designed to help you maximize your productivity when you're not at your home base. The entries came from Compaq, Fujitsu, Gateway, Hitachi, IBM, NEC, Samsung, Texas Instruments, and WinBook. Dell, another leading notebook manufacturer, couldn't provide us with a system within the price cutoff in time for our review.

What's Under the Hood? We looked at notebooks that combine multimedia features, high performance, and long battery life and manage to stay below eight pounds and $2,500. We asked manufacturers to include a reliable modem and communications software for checking e-mail and sending faxes. Not all did. Vendors whose notebooks are typically sold at retail or through VARs (value-added resellers) did not include modems, leaving this as an option for salespersons or integrators to recommend instead. Check out the accompanying box "Modems in Motion" to see some of our modem recommendations for notebooks that don't include this vital piece of communications equipment.

As for bundled communications software, we expected the playing field to level out considerably with the advent of Windows 95 OSR2. Among other things, this updated iteration of Windows includes ready-to-run software for CompuServe, America Online, and AT&T WorldNet. Even though most of the desktop systems we've seen lately came with OSR2 installed, only a handful of these notebooks did.

Although processor speeds were either 120MHz or 133MHz, keep in mind that a 120MHz machine with some external cache RAM installed will likely perform on par with--or better than--a 133MHz machine with no cache. It goes without saying that 16MB of RAM is almost mandatory for running serious business applications.

Getting Behind the Wheel How long can these road warriors last between battery charges? We tested each machine using ZDigit, a utility that simulates a worst-case usage scenario: Power management is disabled, screen brightness is maximized, and hard-disk access is virtually constant. To our surprise, many of the notebooks equipped with nickel-metal-hydride (NLMH) batteries outlasted those bearing lithium-ion cells, contradicting everything we've heard about battery longevity.

We had an easy time evaluating service and support, as 24hour technical help now seems standard. Only WinBook limits its phone support to specific hours. Fujitsu and Samsung distinguished themselves by offering three-year warranties; the rest of the vendors provide only one year of coverage.

In trying to stay under the $2,500 mark, we were forced to exclude Apple, whose least-expensive PowerBook at the time of the review--the 1400c---sold for about $2,700. Watch for upcoming reviews of new PowerBook models.

Compaq Armada 1130T

There's a lot to like about Compaq's Armada 1130T. It's a shoulder-friendly 6.1 pounds; it has a sharp active-matrix screen; and it's inexpensive at $1,999, which includes Compaq's SpeedPaq 288 Telephony Modem. However, even though the 1130T is the flagship of the Armada fleet, it's outgunned by the competition.

Compaq's SpeedPaq modem--a Type II PC Card device--proved to be an ironic inclusion.

Though loaded with such telephony features as a speakerphone and answering machine, the Armada's lack of audio hardware prevents you from taking advantage of them. Still, the SpeedPaq offers cell-phone compatibility and a good mix of communications software, so it's not without merit. The notebook also comes bundled with Microsoft Works 4.0 for Windows 95.

Drawing on a Duracell NiMH battery, the Armada impressed us with its vitality, lasting over 90 minutes in our intensive battery-drain test. With power-management features enabled, you should get three hours of work from a charge.

The Armada's physical design is years old, however, and it shows. No built-in speakers means no audio, and there's no drive bay to accommodate a CD-ROM module (or a second battery or hard disk, for that matter). The screen, although bright, is only 10.4 inches--the smallest in the group. And the Armada lacks an infrared transmitter, now a staple among even entry-level notebooks. seems to have years of experience behind it. Not only is it a very affordable notebook, but it's also arrayed with an impressive mix of hardware and software. For $1,799, you simply won't find a better-equipped portable.

The 6.8-pound LifeBook features a roomy 11.3-inch dual-scan screen, built-in stereo speakers, an infrared port, and modular expandability. Its multifunction bay can accommodate either the floppy drive, 6x CD-ROM drive (both included), a second battery, or hard drive. The LifeBook's keyboard and touchpad proved acceptably responsive.