Air, Hotel and Car Rental deals at HopJet.com
Air, Hotel and Car Rental deals at HopJet.com
By Richard Morochove
First published May 27, 1999
The design of a notebook computer results from a series of compromises. On one hand, a notebook should be small, lightweight and eminently portable. On the other hand, the PC should deliver all the processing power and capabilities you need.
It's impossible to get both in the same box, but IBM Canada's new ThinkPad 570 transforming notebook comes closer than any I've seen. It's a thin, lightweight, ultraportable notebook. However, it quickly converts to a full-featured notebook that can match capabilities with a standard desktop PC.
As an ultraportable, the ThinkPad 570 ($4,399 and up) weighs in at just 4 lbs. and is one-inch thick. Depending upon the model, you receive a TFT (thin film transistor) display that measures either 13.3 or 12.1 inches diagonally. At its heart is an Intel Mobile Pentium II processor (models range in speed from 300 to 366 MHz), a hard drive with up to 6.4 gigabytes storage capacity and 64 MB of RAM. It also comes with a built-in 56 Kbps data/fax modem.
You also get all the ports you'd expect, including USB (Universal Serial Bus), standard serial and parallel printer connectors, along with audio and video jacks. You can purchase the notebook factory-loaded with one of Windows 98, Windows 95 or Windows NT.
Despite its small size, the ThinkPad 570 comes with a full-size keyboard along with an enhanced version of IBM's TrackPoint mouse replacement device. The TrackPoint, which is also used by several other notebook manufacturers such as Toshiba and Panasonic, resembles a mini-joystick stuck in the keyboard between the "G", "H" and "B" keys.
Personally, I prefer the TrackPoint over the track pad alternative used by the majority of notebook manufacturers, including Compaq and Dell. I find the TrackPoint offers a finer degree of movement control. The nubbled surface of the device, which resembles the head of a pencil eraser, makes your finger less likely to slip on it than on the smooth surface of a track pad.
Below the keyboard, in the palm rest area, are the TrackPoint's three control buttons. Two handle the standard right and left mouse button functions. The third button is an innovative new feature can be configured for one of two options: an Internet scroll bar to help you quick zip through long web pages or as a magnifying button that lets you zoom in on a section of a large document such as a spreadsheet.
The notebook's UltraCarbon housing is based on a carbon-reinforced plastic similar to that used in sporting goods. It delivers a strong, yet thin-walled case that dissipates the heat generated by components such as the processor and battery.
In this slimline configuration, the 570 can handle just about anything you throw at it, provided everything you need is already on the hard drive.
Yet if you want to install software, refer to multimedia tutorials on CD or view movies on DVD, the ultraportable configuration won't handle your needs. Here's where the transforming capabilities of the notebook come into play.
You can slip the notebook into the UltraBase ($199), a matching box that fits on the bottom of the notebook and lets you install up to two other components. You can select from a 2X DVD drive ($549), CD ($169), 100 MB Zip drive ($439), LS-120 SuperDisk ($379), floppy drive (included with the computer), a second hard drive or a second Lithium Ion battery ($349) that extends battery life to seven hours. The UltraBase also provides stereo speakers, a MIDI port, a second USB port and a connector to an optional port replicator.
An operating system such as MS Windows 98 allows hot-swapping, so you can slip the notebook into the UltraBase even while it's operating. A window pops up on your display indicating when the base has been properly attached and its components recognized by the PC.
To remove the base you flip two levers, one on either side of the UltraBase, and wait a few seconds until the system shuts down the components in the base and reports you can safely disengage it.
There's trick to attaching the notebook to the base, one that I accomplished only occasionally. Most of the time the front half of the notebook wasn't firmly attached to the UltraBase. This didn't appear to adversely affect its operation, however, it did make me feel a little uneasy.
My only other quibble is with the modem. It provides just a line-in jack, while I'd prefer a duplex jack so I can attach a telephone to the PC and answer calls when I'm not online.
I'm using the ThinkPad 570 to write this column in Tokyo, where I'm checking out some of the latest electronic gear in gadget-mad Japan. The notebook performed flawlessly on the long flight in, even though seven hours of battery life still won't take you through a trans-Pacific flight.
I like the concept of the transforming notebook. It gives you the flexibility to carry as much or as little computing power as you require. I predict this design will be used in many more notebooks. CW
Richard Morochove, FCA, is a Toronto-based computer consultant.
Copyright ©1999 by Morochove & Associates Inc. All rights reserved. This work may not be copied or distributed by any means without our prior written permission.
Click here to visit a guide to hundreds of financial links!
Visit the
ComputerWatch Archive to see more columns
Post any questions or comments about this article to