graham@convex.com (Marv Graham) (01/18/91)
The DAK catalog has a Bondwell laptop with a 286 and 20 Meg disk for $1200. For an extra $99, you can get a 40 Meg disk. It also has a 1.44 Meg floppy. What's the catch. Is this thing worth buying? Is there a better deal available. If this is old news in this group, forgive me. I just started reading it!
stark@sbstaff2 (Eugene Stark) (01/18/91)
>The DAK catalog has a Bondwell laptop with a 286 and 20 Meg disk for $1200. >For an extra $99, you can get a 40 Meg disk. It also has a 1.44 Meg floppy. >What's the catch. Is this thing worth buying? Is there a better deal >available. > >If this is old news in this group, forgive me. I just started reading it! Well, it is kind of old, but since I have seen a couple of questions about this recently and no responses, I'll post one. Strange as it may seem, I don't think there really is any catch. I ordered the beast last June (with 40 MB disk), and received it in August. DAK had problems getting the machines, I don't know if that is fixed now. The machine I bought had no backlighting and was priced slightly higher at the time. After six months of frequent use, I am still very happy with the machine. I would order the backlit display if I were getting it now, though. It seems very rugged, and it is reasonably fast. The batteries don't last incredibly long: maybe about 1.25 hours if the hard disk is on continuously, but over 1.75 hours if the CPU is running, but the disk is off and the display blanked. The low battery indicator light starts flashing when the resident program indicates 50% charge, which usually happens in about 15min. My experience is that there is no problem using the machine down to the 10% level, so I would rather have the low battery light start flashing then. I generally use mine plugged in, but it is nice to be able to use it on batteries sometimes. I suggest picking up a couple extra battery packs and maybe even the charger (I recently did this). All the software I tried works without problems. A recent poster (from Germany, I think) said he had installed the memory upgrade to get to 2MB (with great difficulty) and had both a DOS and a Xenix partition on the disk. Although originally I thought I would get the memory upgrade and maybe run Xenix, the machine serves its purpose with 1MB, and the price of the upgrade is fairly steep. I took a look to see how hard it would be to get inside the thing to install the upgrade, and I gave up before I got the cover off the machine. To summarize, if the technical specs satisfy your needs, then I think it is a great buy with no gotchas. - Gene Stark
craig@synopsys.com (Craig Cochran) (01/19/91)
In article <1991Jan17.204243.5711@convex.com> graham@convex.com (Marv Graham) writes: >The DAK catalog has a Bondwell laptop with a 286 and 20 Meg disk for $1200. >For an extra $99, you can get a 40 Meg disk. It also has a 1.44 Meg floppy. >What's the catch. Is this thing worth buying? Is there a better deal >available. I bought one recently, and I'm fairly happy with it. While it is not the best Laptop ever designed, it is a very good machine, and the price + the free software from DAK is an unbeatable deal. Pros: - good fast disk access (it uses a Conner drive) - full 25-line 80-char display - 2 serial ports, 1 parallel port and an external monitor port - comes with 3-button mouse & brand-name software (Quattro Pro, Wordstar & more) - it's light - only 8 lbs. Cons: - I don't like the (tactile) feel of the keyboard - battery life is too short - about 1 hour - I couldn't get PC-curses to work (it compiled, but doesn't work) - CGA graphics only While I considered holding out until prices and technology progressed in the laptop market, I felt this deal was substantially better than others, so I couldn't let this deal pass without buying one. The price is low enough that when laptops get where I want them to be, it won't be painful to buy another one... Incidentally, the pocket modem that is being sold as an option to the B310 works well, also. I'm running MS-KERMIT, and the terminal emulation and file transfers work perfectly. >If this is old news in this group, forgive me. I just started reading it! Same goes for me... -- Craig Cochran Product Marketing Manager email: craig@synopsys.com Synopsys, Inc. voice: (415)962-7723