smiller@wet.UUCP (Gregory Shane Miller) (06/16/91)
Our company is seriously considering purchasing several of the new HP Vectra
i486DX/33 SCSI-II systems. This particular machine was reviewed in April 1991
Byte page 47. We will be using it for ACAD and programming tasks. I would
like to ask your opinion on these five questions:
[1] Are these computers *really* compatible, say as much as,
Compaq? Are there any funny things with memory managers,
DOS, or the like? Can it run DTP or WINDOWS and keep
software glitches non-existent?
[2] I understand that the BIOS is Phonienx based. Wouldn't
one much rather perfer a AMI BIOS for i386/i486 systems?
[3] Does anyone have one of these machines? Can you comment
on its performance (eg. an empirical eval)?
[4] The system uses the newer EISA bus. I've heard there are
some problems with installing cards (especially SCSI or
hard drive controllers). Can you comment on this?
[5] We're plan to bring the computers to Germany. Anybody had
expierence with buying computers in the US and bringing
them to Europe? (Of course, the CPU box requires the proper
power supply for 220V).
Thank you for any replies. [smiller@wet.UUCP]
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P.S. Concerning [1], I am not interested in starting a debate as to whether
Compaq is the *most* compatible. I *do* want the computer to plug in
and *run* software. When it comes to quality and durability, it *is*
from HP.
I phoned HP. They said the BIOS was Phonienx based and that the DOS
which accompanies the system is MS-DOS which was "tweaked" a bit
(just like Compaq for example). I don't expect the machine to be
"out there" compatible wise.
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G. Shane Miller [ smiller@wet.UUCP (415) 453-4926 ]