Big-Screen Notebooks Arrive
Kerry Hickox
The first notebooks with 13-inch screens have arrived (see "Notebook with a View," April BYTE), and more are expected to ship
this summer
. We surveyed several leading notebook makers regarding their plans for releasing notebooks that use the latest LCD technology to give road warriors even more screen real estate.
IBM:
Will have a ThinkPad sometime this summer with a 13.3-inch active-matrix screen, a 166-MHz Pentium pro
cessor with MMX technology, and a hard drive with up to 3 GB.
Toshiba:
The company's (800-457-7777;
http://www.to
shiba.com
) Tecra 740 CDT features a TFT active-matrix screen (up to 1024 by 768 resolution) measuring up to 13.3 inches, a 2.02-GB removable hard drive, a 150- or 166-MHz Pentium with MMX technology, 16 MB of EDO DRAM (expandable to 144 MB), a 10x CD-ROM drive, and a PCI system and expansion bus.
Gateway:
Doesn't have specific information, but a spokesman said 13.3-inch screens will be an important feature in the company's products during the second half of this year.
Sharp:
Released a 13.8-inch LCD notebook "luggable" in Japan recently, but it was not available in the U.S. at press time. The company is "evaluating, and plans to move into, larger-screen LCD monitors" and has showed a prototype 13.8-inch screen at both Comdex and PC Expo. Sharp intends to ship 13.8-inch displays in the U.S. later this year.
Digital Equipment:
Company officials say that we can expect big-screen notebooks from Digital in the second half of this year.
HP:
Doesn't have a big-screen notebook, but the company plans to offer large-screen notebooks during the second half of this year.
photo_link (38 Kbytes)
Survey
