Toshiba's First Desktop PC

Targeted at home users, Infinia includes many ease-of-use features.

Rich Friedman

The world's leading notebook maker entered the hotly contested home PC market in mid-September with a vengeance. Geared to the home user, Toshiba's Infinia line boasts respectable PC components that are combined with consumer-electronic enhancements in an appealing design at competitive prices.

"It's a start," says Gary Elsasser, senior director of product planning for the worldwide computer systems group.

Each Infinia has a well-thought-out LCD (LED on two models) panel that provides one-touch access for checking telephone messages, making a phone call, playing an audio CD, or tuning into TV or FM radio. (A TV/FM radio capture card comes standard on the top-of-the-line Model 7200, and a remote-control device lets you access entertainment features from anywhere in the room.) Intel supplies the ATX motherboards that have two universal serial bus (USB) ports and, depending on the model, a 200-, 166, or 133-MHz Pentium processor. A digital-videodisc (DVD) drive upgrade kit costing between $600 and $700 will be available soon, as well as a camera and software for videoconferencing. The bundled software will include several leading packages, including Windows 95, Microsoft Works, Quicken SE, Microsoft Encarta 96 Encyclopedia, and, of course, the two leading Internet browsers.

Toshiba is waiting until the CeBIT show in Hannover, Germany, in March to introduce its Infinia PCs in Europe, though the European versions will be upgraded models from those now selling in the U.S. Toshiba also plans to launch a line of PCs for business users in early 1997 and a line of servers the following year.

---

Infi nia Home PC Product Specs

                 
Model 7200
            
Model 7160
           
Model 7130


Processor

CPU              Pentium               Pentium              Pentium
Clock speed      200 MHz               166 MHz              133 MHz
L2 cache         256-KB write-back     256-KB write-back    256-KB write-back
                 pipeline burst SRAM   pipeline burst SRAM  pipeline burst SRAM


Memory

Standard RAM     32 MB of EDO DRAM     16 MB of EDO DRAM    16 MB of EDO DRAM
Maximum RAM      128 MB                128 MB               128 MB


3-1/2-inch Enhanced IDE HDD

Capacity         3 GB                  1.9 GB               1.5 GB
                (3.1 million bytes)   (2 million bytes)    (1.6 million bytes)


User Interface

                 InTouch module with   InTouch module with  InTouch module with
                 LCD and remote        LED displ
ay          LED display


Audio

Wave-table       Hardware              Software             Software
support          wave table            wave table           wave table


Video

TV/FM radio      Standard              Optional             Optional
 capture card



 S3 Virge 3-D graphics accelerators

 2 MB of high-speed 50-ns EDIO video memory

 Supports up to 1280 by 1024 pixels by 256 colors



CD-ROM




 Integrated 8× CD-ROM drive



Audio Support




 Full-duplex 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro-compatible audio system with SRS 3-D sound



Communications




 28.8-Kbps fax/modem (software upgradable to 33.6 Kbps DSVD)

 Full-duplex speakerphone

 Answering-machine application



External Interfaces




 One serial (16550 UART-compatible) port

 One parallel (IEEE-P1284-compliant ESP-compatible) port

 One external SVGA m
onitor port

 One PS/2 mouse port

 Two universal serial bus (USB) ports

 One PS/2 keyboard port

 One external microphone jack (monaural)

 One speaker out jack (stereo)

 One line-in jack (stereo)

 One MIDI/game port

 AC IN plug




Single Unit Price 

(estimated)      $2799                 $1999                $1699


*All bulleted items are shared by all models.

---

Infinia for the Home

photo_link (15 Kbytes)

Toshiba Infinia home PC.