[comp.sys.handhelds] WANTED: info on new Toshiba T1000SE laptop

pwong@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Patrick Wong) (12/15/89)

Hi, netters:

Has anyone read any review in any magazine on the upcoming new Toshiba
laptop T1000SE ?  How does it compare to the good old T1000 (price wise,
performance-wise, features-wise) ?

Any info will be appreciated !

Patrick Wong

pcw@squid.graphics.cornell.edu

atk@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Alan T. Krantz) (12/16/89)

In article <9427@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> pwong@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Patrick Wong) writes:
>Hi, netters:
>
>Has anyone read any review in any magazine on the upcoming new Toshiba
>laptop T1000SE ?  How does it compare to the good old T1000 (price wise,
>performance-wise, features-wise) ?
>
>Any info will be appreciated !
>
>Patrick Wong
>
>pcw@squid.graphics.cornell.edu


There is a brief review in the January issue of Byte. It appears to combine
the "best features" of the 1000 and 1200. It is light weight and comes with
a single 1.4meg drive and Dos 3.3 in ROM. It also has a larger/backlite 
display. They indicate that the retail price will be around $1400. I'm hoping 
for 700-800 for mail order... but that might be wishful thinking...


|  Mail:    1830 22nd street      mail: atk@boulder.colorado.edu |
|           Apt 16                Vmail: Home:   (303) 939-8256  |
|           Boulder, Co 80302            Office: (303) 492-8115  |
------------------------------------------------------------------

huilin@hpindda.HP.COM (Hui-Lin Lim) (12/16/89)

I bought the J3100 Dynabook which is the Japanese market version
of what will be the T1000SE.  in my opinion it is miles ahead of
the T1000 as it has a backlit screen that doesn't make you feel
as though everything is squashed, it has a double scan CGA
display.  The drive on the SE will be 1.44 (mine is the old style
1.2M 3.5").  The power down facility is very nice as you don't
need to wait for the system to reboot each time.  I understand
that the SE will have DOS in ROM so that's a bigger advantage
too.

Hui-Lin Lim
ARPA: huilin%hpinddf@hplabs.hp.com
UUCP: {ucbvax,hplabs}!hpinddf!huilin
Phone:  (408)447-2835

pwong@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Patrick Wong) (12/16/89)

In article <14920@boulder.Colorado.EDU> atk@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Alan T. Krantz) writes:
>In article <9427@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> pwong@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Patrick Wong) writes:
>>Hi, netters:
>>
>>Has anyone read any review in any magazine on the upcoming new Toshiba
>>laptop T1000SE ?  How does it compare to the good old T1000 (price wise,
>>performance-wise, features-wise) ?
>>
>>Any info will be appreciated !
>>
>>Patrick Wong
>>
>>pcw@squid.graphics.cornell.edu
>
>
>There is a brief review in the January issue of Byte. It appears to combine
>the "best features" of the 1000 and 1200. It is light weight and comes with
>a single 1.4meg drive and Dos 3.3 in ROM. It also has a larger/backlite 
>display. They indicate that the retail price will be around $1400. I'm hoping 
>for 700-800 for mail order... but that might be wishful thinking...
>
>
>|  Mail:    1830 22nd street      mail: atk@boulder.colorado.edu |
>|           Apt 16                Vmail: Home:   (303) 939-8256  |
>|           Boulder, Co 80302            Office: (303) 492-8115  |
>------------------------------------------------------------------

At last, I have a one-sheet product preview of T1000SE from Toshiba.
Here are the major differences in T1000SE compared to T1000:

1. 80C86 (9.54 Hz)

2. 1 Mb ram standard (expandable to 2 or 3 Mb, USER INSTALLABLE !!!)

3. memory above 640 Kb can be used as battery-backed ramdisk

4. 1 "1.44Mb" 3.5" drive (T1000 has 720K drive)

5. BACKLIT supertwist LCD display (T1000 does not have backlit)

6. 640x400 bit-mapped graphics (T1000 is 640x200)
       ^^^
7. SELECTABLE parallel or external drive port (i.e. you can only use one
   thing at a time!)

8. rechargeable battery is REMOVABLE !

9. MS-DOS 3.3 in ROM (T1000 has 2.11 in ROM)

10. expansion slot (in addition to the modem slot):
    "a 100-pin expansion bus connector"

My comments:
Note that the SE does not have external RGB monitor port, composite mono
port, separate printer/external drive ports.  I called the toll-free
Toshiba product line to ask about the above.  The rep said since the
SE screen is much better than that of T1000, ext. monitor port(s) are
not necessary anymore.  I did ask about the mysterious 100-pin
expansion bus connector (note: 100 pins are a lot of pins !).
He did not have any info on it (he had seen a prototype SE once himself!).
He "suspects" that through this proprietary connector, you can connect
some kind of to-be-released magic box so that you may connect ext.
monitor to SE through this box, and other peripherals may be connected
to this box also.  This list price of SE is $1699.  So I guess you
may be able to get it for $1100 from the retail stores.

In my case, I think I am going for the good for T1000 with the 768 Kb card
installed.  (it is cheaper to buy this combo compared to SE based on the
education discount prices in both cases).  Also, SE only has 360Kb
available as ramdisk (without the memory upgrade <-- too expensive for me!)
while T1000 has more with the memory card and costs less !  SE and 1000
weigh about the same (SE is 0.5 lb less).  Anyways...

Patrick Wong
pcw@squid.graphics.cornell.edu

huilin@hpindda.HP.COM (Hui-Lin Lim) (12/19/89)

pwong@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Patrick Wong) writes:
>In my case, I think I am going for the good for T1000 with the 768 Kb card
>installed.  (it is cheaper to buy this combo compared to SE based on the
>education discount prices in both cases).  Also, SE only has 360Kb
>available as ramdisk (without the memory upgrade <-- too expensive for me!)
>while T1000 has more with the memory card and costs less !  SE and 1000
>weigh about the same (SE is 0.5 lb less).  Anyways...

I got slightly different figures when I worked out pricing for
the J3100 that I bought.  (I should mention that the J3100 comes
with 1.5Mb standard).  Figuring the cost of the the T1000 + 768K
RAM + 3rd party backlit LCD upgrade alone brought the price to at
least 10% more than what I paid for the J3100.  Getting the
higher display quality (note that it is only double scan CGA -
you don't have access to all the additional pixels), the higher
capacity drive were a bonus.  I believe this is still true even
when using the heavily discounted price that the T1000 sells for
today.


Hui-Lin Lim
ARPA: huilin%hpinddf@hplabs.hp.com
UUCP: {ucbvax,hplabs}!hpinddf!huilin
Phone:  (408)447-2835