TransPort-able Brains: Learning to Love Lugging the Laptop
Written: Oct 07 '00
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Pros: NASA engineers think I'm cool, because this is the latest
Cons: you pay for coolness :) It's not a con- they are all expensive
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| Minx_In_LA's Full Review: Micron Transport ZX |
If you're looking for a hard core, in depth techy review of the Micron notebook TransPort ZX, I'll tell you up front that I still vaguely believe that there's a genie lodged in the slim grey box, but I'll try to mention the features as simply as I can for the casual computer user. For a great tech review, check out "Schwinn"'s .
This isn't a cheap computer. I paid $3696 for the following features: Pent III- 750 mhz CPU, 128 MB SDRAM, 20 GB drive, 24 speed CD ROM, and a docking station. To compare- your standard 486 computer you had in the 90's probably had 4MB of RAM and maybe a HALF of a "gig". (Pretty soon this thing is going to sit up and make itself a sandwich, at this rate. ) The price was also influenced by an internal v.90 modem, a network card, and a copy of Windows NT.
The unit weighs eight and a quarter pounds, which seems light compared to your average carry-on, or cat lolling on your lap. My screen size is the fifteen inch, and the LCD screen is XGA, which means "extended graphics adapter". (each time they go up a quantum level of resolution- you may have been familiar with MGA/mono, CGA/color, and EGA/enhanced, and VGA/video) It shows 800,000 pixels, which means a really nice crisp sharpness and palette of colors. I should mention that you navigate with a touchpad instead of that annoying little stub button nestled between the keys, so moving the pointer around on the screen is not as tiring and I'm better at fine motions with the pad.
If you're a game player, you'll want to know this has the ATI Rage Pro LT graphics chipset. It has a 3D graphics engine with 8 MB internal SDRAM memory, and a 128 bit internal Bit BLT. (see, I TOLD you it was making a SANDWICH!) I know...whazzat?! Basically it means that any game coming out for Christmas is supported by this machine. It will refresh the screens at the correct pace, and utilize all the 3D effects of the splattering monsters. It's good with flight simulations, keeping the scenes from jerking when a lot of action is occurring at the same time. This is probably as good as it gets on a laptop.
My old laptop screen would do a fade-out thing when viewed from the sides. Unless you were sitting directly in front, the screen brightness would diminish substantially, and a person sitting next to you could not read it properly. Maybe some people liked this for when they were on a plane, and wanting a little privacy from the seatmate, (so they couldn't read your romance novel in progress) but I am frequently working with someone else and don't want them breathing too heavily on my neck! (Altoid, anyone?)
A new feature to me on a notebook is the Flex Bay. It's a peripheral bay that houses either a CD ROM, DVD ROM, secondary hard drive, or a zip drive. The instructions stress that only Windows 98/2000 users can "hot swap" the different devices in and out of this bay. Everyone else needs to power down to change devices so the operating system will recognize the new addition. It's important to note that this is in addition to your regular floppy drive.
What we like most about this notebook compared to our previous GoBook Pentium 300, is the hot swap feature, the bigger screen, and plenty of computing power to push back obsolescence a few years. The GoBook only had a single drive bay, which meant you had to shut down to change from floppy to CD, and it didn't "talk" to zip drives or DVD's at all. Also, the other machine had a modem card and a network card that would fight each other! You'd have to pull one or the other out to do a modem dial-up. With this machine, there's an integral V.90, so both PCMCIA slots are available for any expansion device, and my network card runs just fine. You might be thinking "yeah, you're just clueless!", but we sent it back to the factory, and they couldn't make Win NT talk to both devices either! (let's play Stump Dilbert!)
**In a completely frivolous aside, I was carrying this around at Edwards AFB, around NASA engineers and was garnering major techy cool points for having this machine. It's one of those things like a leather briefcase, and a gold Cross pen that you need to look like you mean business ;) **
This isn't the most expensive notebook out there, but it's definitely top end. The myriad of choices you can make with the configuration influence the price greatly. Check out www.micronpc.com for the latest offerings and pricing.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 3696
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 701-800
Screen Size: 15"
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: CD-ROM
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
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Minx_In_LA
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Member: Adrienne
Location: Carmel, CA and Abilene, TX
Reviews written: 105
Trusted by: 104 members
About Me:
Writer, artist, musician- everyone's favorite dilettante. Update Jan 09-still sneaking around-see below.
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