Screaming performance, finicky components
Rex Baldazo
At about the same time that 100-MHz Pentiums are reaching store shelves, Tadpole Technology is introducing a 100-MHz Pentium laptop.
Tadpole's P1000
pushes the performance envelope with a factory-upgradable, no-compromise design. When you stretch the leading edge as far as the P1000 does, there are bound to be a few problems. But the result is still pretty sweet.
It's Really Hot
Fellow propeller heads will appreciate the rush we felt when we first powered up the P1000 and it reported 64 MB of RAM. It can hold as much as 128 MB, although the base model ships with a more pedestrian 8 MB. Even if you don't need huge amounts of memory, there's something alluring about a la
ptop that can handle more RAM than many desktop systems.
For additional expansion, the P1000's PCMCIA slot accepts two Type II or one Type III card. However, it lacks an internal 3 1/2-inch floppy drive; instead, the drive is an external unit, as is the AC power supply.
Our lab tests revealed that the P1000 has prodigious computing power but abysmal battery life. When running the BYTE benchmarks, the P1000 was 110 percent to 120 percent faster than our baseline 90-MHz Pentium desktop system. In our Thumper II word processing test, battery life was a meager 1 hour 11 minutes.
Unlike most laptops, the P1000 has a case that's solidly constructed of magnesium alloy instead of plastic, and it functions as a large heat sink for the cooling system. Small air vents run the length of the case above the keyboard, and flip-down legs at the rear allow air circulation under the unit and also improve the keyboard angle. There are no fans or other active cooling mechanisms. It works well; we ran the P10
00 continuously for two days without problems.
However, we recommend that you don't rest the unit directly on your lap. We measured parts of the case at temperatures above 118F in a room whose ambient temperature was 72F.
Inside, the P1000's motherboard has a PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) bus and a separate daughterboard for the CPU and main memory. Tadpole calls this arrangement the Advanced Notebook Architecture, which lets you upgrade the system by swapping daughterboards. You could switch to a faster x86 processor or even a different CPU architecture, such as a RISC chip. (Tadpole also makes SPARC-based laptops.)
Another sign that Tadpole has designed the P1000 for flexibility is that the pointing device has three buttons instead of two. Windows may need only two buttons, but some flavors of Unix can use all three.
Finicky Floppy
The external components are less flexible. The power supply is fairly small, but the cord that attaches to the comp
uter is too short to reach the floor. It plugs in right next to the external floppy drive, which is also on a short leash.
To save desk space, it is naturally tempting to place the floppy drive atop the power brick--bad move. Electromagnetic fields from the power brick made the floppy drive unreliable for reads and writes. Disk reads were agonizingly slow, and formatting a blank floppy disk was impossible. The interference doesn't appear to cause any permanent damage, however. Separating the power supply and the floppy drive as much as their cords allow returned the floppy drive to normal operation.
Power Users Only
The P1000 is a muscle car among luxury laptops--no refinement, just tons of power. Everything about it says "industrial strength."
So what niche does the P1000 fit? Not a big one, that's for sure. Its short battery life makes it a poor choice for on-the-go work, although an external battery pack is available to extend its unplugged life. It has power t
o handle the most demanding multimedia applications, but the lack of a built-in CD-ROM drive makes it less than ideal for that purpose.
Instead, the P1000 is aimed at power users. If you need raw Pentium performance that you can tuck under your arm, and price is no object, then the P1000 should be on your short list.
PERFORMANCE
BYTE Benchmarks
Integer index: 1.10
Floating-point index: 1.20
Battery life:
word processing 1.18 hours
(1 = 90-MHz Dell Pentium)
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Tadpole P1000 (8 MB of RAM)
340-MB hard drive...........$7495
As tested (64 MB of RAM)
810-MB hard drive...........$11,995
Tadpole Technology, Inc.
Austin, TX
(512) 219-2200
fax: (512) 219-2222
BEST FEATURE
The Tadpole P1000 is
blazingly fast: It ran the BYTE benchmarks 110 percent to 120 percent faster than our baseline 90-MHz Pentium desktop system. And with room for up to 128 MB of RAM, it can handle more memory than many desktop machines.
photo_link (44 Kbytes)
Rex Baldazo is a BYTE technical editor. You can reach him on the Internet or BIX at
rbaldazo@bix.com
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Red-Hot 100-MHz Portable Pentium
