reyn@trsvax.UUCP (07/05/88)
My boss has a 1400, and I'm really quite impressed with it. I remember a few years ago when the Data General One came out, that I rushed out to a store to see one. For those of you who never saw the original, the LCD screen was almost completely useless. It was so bad that you had to know what was on the screen in order to read it. The 1400 is really the only laptop I've looked at since then. The screen is simply great. The contrast is good enough that you might even want to use it as your primarry monitor. I've heard that Zenith has a "paper white" LCD which puts this one to shame, but even so, LCD's are certainly good enough to actually be useful. The 1400's is backlit and can be adjusted to produce a very pleasing contrast. Another nice feature is the ability to plug in both an external keyboard and an external monitor, a good feature if you will primarilly use the machine in one spot, and only need the portability on occasion. Unfortunately, the video is strictly CGA. I'm spoiled by EGA and the new and improved VGA, and would've really rather had better resolution. On the LCD you don't notice this as much since the screen is "squashed" in the vertical dimension when compared to a CRT. This results in much "squarer" pixels, and mimics the Macintosh's trick of looking like a high res screen by having smaller pixels. The 1400 has two built in 3 1/2" drives as well as a serial port. Unfortunately I don't know of a portable hard drive available yet, so you're limited to the 1.44 meg of floppies. The unit is very solid feeling and seems to be well made. I'd like to have one myself. As for comparisons with other laptops, I'm really not qualified to say. I haven't really seen very many up close and personal. As for the future, now that Tandy owns GRID computers, I'd expect to see some rather impressive laptops on down the road. If you took the guts of a Grid 386 and put then in a plastic (rather than magnesium) case, you'd have a neat machine that you might even be able to afford. (By the way, this should not be constued as insider information, I just write software, I don't have a clue about the hardware until I receive my Radio Shack catalog). John Reynolds Software Type Person Tandy Electronics R&D Usual Disclaimer: The information and opinions expressed are mine alone.