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October 3, 1998
News
- There’s lots of interesting notebook and small
computer-related news this week. First off, Gateway announced their first entry into the
rapidly-growing thin notebook arena. The silver and black Solo 3100 measures just
1.5" when closed, weighs about 4.5 to 5 pounds, features a 12.1" active matrix
screen and a built-in v.90 56K modem. It’s available in variety of configurations
ranging from a 233 MHz Pentium MMX with 32 MB of RAM, 2 GB hard drive, and a CD-ROM for
just under $2,100 to a 300 MHz Pentium II with 64 MB of RAM, 4 GB hard drive and a DVD-ROM
drive for just under $3,000.
- Toshiba this week announced some huge price cuts on many of
their existing notebooks, including a 44% cut on their Tecra 750 CDM, which brings it down
from $4,999 to $2,799. The Tecra 750 CDM features a 233 MHz Pentium MMX, 13.3" screen
and a 4.7 GB hard drive. In the middle of the range the Satellite 4000CDT, which features
a 233 MHz Pentium II and a 12.1" active matrix screen dropped 20% from $2,499 to
$1,999. In addition, Toshiba introduced the Satellite 4020, which for $2,999 features a
300 MHz Pentium II processor, 13.3" active matrix screen, 64 MB of RAM, CD-ROM drive
and 56K modem.
- Similarly, HP announced some big price cuts as well,
including large cuts on their ultrathin Sojourn, which is now available for a much more
reasonable $3,299—down 28% from just over $4,000. The Sojourn is only ¾" thick
when closed and features a 233 MHz Pentium MMX, 32 MB of RAM, and a 12.1" active
matrix display.
- In other low-cost notebook news, Apple this week debuted a
new configuration in their PowerBook G3 line of products. Available for $2,299, the
machine features a 233 MHz G3 processor with 512 K of L2 cache and a 12.1" active
matrix screen. Other low cost PowerBook G3s now available for $1,999 lack the important L2
cache and use 12.1" dual-scan screens.
- LG Electronics has announced the first of what promises to be
several new handheld computers that feature the new version 2.1 of Windows CE. All the
devices—which are collectively code-named Jupiter—are expected to cost around
$1,000 initially and feature a size that fits somewhere in between a
"traditional" handheld computer and a full subnotebook. LG’s $899 Phenom
Express will feature a 256-color, 8" diagonal, half-VGA size active-matrix screen and
a keyboard with nearly full-size keys. As with all Windows CE devices, it comes with
built-in versions of Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, Power PowerPoint, Pocket Outlook and
Pocket Internet Explorer in ROM, but it lacks a hard drive. The Phenom Express features 32
MB of RAM and a 56K modem. Like other Jupiter devices, it’s primarily designed for
retrieving e-mail remotely and doing a few simple tasks with its built-in applications. It
should be on retail shelves in the next few weeks.
- There was some good news on the Y2K front this past week.
First of all, the FDIC announced that they would guarantee all deposits being held in
FDIC-insured banks against any problems arising from Y2K-related issues. This should put a
lot of uncertain and scared consumers at ease. In addition, the FAA announced that
they’re well on the way to solving their Y2K-related issues and expect to have most
of their computers fixed by March of 1999 and the remainder completed by June of ’99.
So, flying through the new millenium should be safe as well. Finally, both houses of
Congress this week passed a bill that encourages companies to share information on
Y2K-related problems in return for limiting liability lawsuits against them regarding Y2K
issues. While this could potentially be a limiting factor for consumers, it should go a
ways toward preventing the inevitable round of spurious Y2K lawsuits. In addition, it
should encourage companies to help others out so that more efforts can be made towards
dealing with the problem. President Clinton is expected to sign it as early as next week.
- Intel and Kodak this week announced a new option for getting
pictures into your PC. The Picture CD, which is being test marketed currently in a few
areas of the country and is expected to be rolled out nation-wide in the beginning of
’99, will let you turn in a roll of regular film and for an extra charge of about
$10, get back a CD that includes all the images on the roll in digital form, as well as
some basic image-editing software from Adobe. Currently the Picture CDs will only work on
Windows-equipped machines, but a Mac version is apparently in the works. Unlike the more
expensive Photo CDs, the images on a Picture CD will be in JPEG format and they will be at
a resolution of 1,536 x 1,024 pixels, which is pretty good. To find out more, head over to
my This Week’s Links page.
- As you’ve undoubtedly heard, flat-panel displays are hot
stuff these days and they’re coming down dramatically in price. Part of their allure
is the generally higher image quality that they provide vs. traditional CRT monitors.
Well, now they also have a benefit in screen size thanks to the introduction of a two-page
flat panel display by Silicon Graphics. The Silicon Graphics 1600 SW monitor offers a
staggering 1,600 x 1,024 pixel resolution and features a diagonal size of 17.3". SGI
plans to sell it with some of their workstations and has partnered with Number Nine
Technologies to sell it to the PC (and eventually Mac) market. Number Nine’s Digital
Flat Panel Solution Pack for Windows 95/98/NT bundles the 1600SW with a special 32 MB PCI
or AGP 2x video card based on the company’s Ticket-to-Ride 4 technology that offers a
direct digital connection to the monitor. As you would expect the combination isn’t
cheap—it’ll set you back $2,899 for the pair, but what a monitor it will be.
Wow.
- Visioneer, the company primarily known for its innovate
sheet-fed scanners has introduced the new $129 PaperPort OneTouch 5300 flatbed scanner.
With the available $30 rebate, the price for the parallel port-based 36-bit 300 x 600 dpi
resolution scanner is under $100. In addition to the low cost, what’s interesting
about the OneTouch 5300 is that it offers five handy function buttons for common
operations such as printing a document or photo you place on the scanner, copying it,
opening an image-editing program and scanning it, etc. that you can use directly from the
scanner. The One-Touch comes with Visioneer’s PaperPort software for doing simple
optical character recognition and basic image editing. A similar scanner without the
one-button features called the PaperPort 3100 is now available for $59 after rebate.
- Not many things in life are free, but here’s a good one
that is. Symantec’s Norton Utilities and Iomega have teamed together to offer free
Norton Zip or Jaz Rescue software that can let any existing Zip or Jaz drive owner create
a startup disk that can help through Windows startup hassles. What the software basically
lets you do is create a startup floppy and Zip or Jaz disk that boots into a limited
version of Windows, instead of having to mess around with DOS. In addition, the software
provides a utility that can help automatically fix common problems, such as critical
startup files that were accidentally thrown away. Symantec previously offered this Zip/Jaz
feature to Norton Utilities users, but it’s now available free to anyone, so check it
out.
- Finally, the freeware Linux operating system, which is
essentially Unix running on PCs, got a boost last week when Netscape and Intel announced
they were investing in RedHat Software, which is one of the leading Linux distributors.
The move should help give RedHat some more marketing power in getting the word out on
Linux as well as letting them develop more applications, which are relatively limited at
this point. This move is just one of several recently that’s bringing Linux into the
limelight and leading to more applications being developed for the alternative platform. I
don’t think even two years from now many of us will be running Linux on our desktop
PCs, but I think it could (and already is) having a big impact on business.
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