eric@castle.ed.ac.uk (E S Fraga) (03/29/90)
Hello! I am looking at changing my commuting situation from a fifteen minute walk to a one hour train ride (due to circumstances totally within my control :-). Therefore, I am suddenly very much in the market for a laptop that I can use on the train every day, mostly to write code and TeX for use on the computers (non-PC compatible) at work. My main considerations are therefore weight and battery life, not PC compatibility. The latter is relevant in a small way in that I could use editors like MicroEmacs (which I use at work) on the laptop as opposed to proprietary editors like the one on the Psion. Anyway, I have two questions (and am open to general comments and recommendations): 1. Has anybody out there actually used one of these new Psions for more than a few hours? (this question, I guess, is mostly directed to people in the UK -- I'm not sure the new Psions are available across the pond yet) How well do they hold up under normal use? What's the keyboard like? etc etc etc (I am mostly interested in the 400, but comments about the other models will be useful.) 2. For owners of the T1000SE, how long, on average, does the battery last? How much floppy use does that average entail? How long does it take to recharge the batteries? And actually, the same questions I posed for the Psion apply here as well! (a side question: has anybody used Minix on a T1000SE? this would appeal somewhat...) The Psion and the Tosh cost about the same (here in the UK at least) but that's where the similarities end. The most impressive thing from my point of view is that the batteries are rated at 60 hours on the Psion (no disc at all on the machine). Please reply by email and I will summarize to the net. Thanks, eric -- +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Eric S Fraga, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Edinburgh | |phone: +44 31 667 1081 x2955, e.s.fraga@uk.ac.ed or e.s.fraga@ed.ac.uk | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+