rasmus@contact.uucp (Rasmus Lerdorf) (12/20/90)
I have been looking around for a laptop for a while now. There are so many new machines coming out these days, it's hard to keep track of them all. One thing I have noticed in shopping around is that the quality of the displays vary greatly from one machine to the next. Do LCD screens decay with time, and what is the actual difference between a sidelit and a backlit LCD screen? Are there any Gas Plasma battery powered machines out there? And finally, what does a 386SX, 40 Meg HD, VGA LCD, battery pack and 1 Meg Ram go for in the States? With the GST coming up here in Canada I can pretty well forget about buying it locally. -- Rasmus Lerdorf (rasmus@contact.uucp)
golden@frith.uucp (James M Golden) (12/22/90)
In article <1990Dec20.044401.14280@contact.uucp> rasmus@contact.uucp (Rasmus Lerdorf) writes: >Do LCD screens decay with time, and what is the actual difference between >a sidelit and a backlit LCD screen? I have a Toshibe T1200HB with a back-lit LCD, and a friend has a T1000SE with a sidelit display. The sidelit provides better contrast and is easier on the eyes. The backlit makes the LCD display thicker and has a tendancy to make the characters appear to "float" above the background. Also, there is some tendancy for the electroluminescent panel to have "waves" of lighter and darker bands that move slowly in a vertical fashion, the frequency dependant on the brightness setting. This may or may not be a problem only with the T1200 series, but I have seen it on other laptops. The phenomenon is not terribly distracting and can be minimized or even eliminated (in certain ambient light conditions) by adjusting the brightness. For a battery-poweered, gas-plasma portable, check out Toshiba's line of portables. One of them (the 3100sx [I think] but not the 3100) fits this requirement. Mike Golden (golden@frith.msu.edu) Electrical Engineering Undergrad. Michigan State University
mto@GTE.COM (Tamer Ozsu) (12/24/90)
In article <1990Dec20.044401.14280@contact.uucp> rasmus@contact.uucp (Rasmus Lerdorf) writes: >And finally, what does a 386SX, 40 Meg HD, VGA LCD, battery pack and 1 Meg >Ram go for in the States? With the GST coming up here in Canada I can pretty >well forget about buying it locally. >-- >Rasmus Lerdorf (rasmus@contact.uucp) Well, I am another Canadian who is trying to buy a machine here in States before I return to Canada. There are a couple of machines meeting your specifications (more or less). The one I am consideringis Zeos 386 which has everything that you want except 40 Meg HD; it only has 20. THe price is $2295. If you want additional 3 Meg Ram, you pay another $349 and an internal model (2400 bps) is additional $210. They operate a 24 hr/7 day 800 phone service. The number is 800-423-5891. I don't know if it works from Canada, though. Good luck and good hunting. ==Tamer -- M. Tamer Ozsu mto@gte.com GTE Laboratories 40 Sylvan Road Waltham, MA 02254