Lighten your load with these innovative laptops

From...

By Russell Kay

(IDG) -- It's no secret to regular readers that my preferences in notebook PCs center on light weight, small size and a lack of connecting cables.

In recent months, I've recommended IBM's ThinkPad X20 and Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Omnibook 500, two 3-lb. wonders that lack built-in CD-ROM or floppy drives. If you need those drives, they either hang on a cable or slide into a 2-lb. base that clips to the computer. The bases are elegantly designed, but they carry an extra cost in both dollars and pounds (and I'm not talking U.K. currency here).

NEC Computers Inc. in Sacramento, Calif., has introduced a notebook, the Versa TXi, that trumps others by including a built-in combination DVD/ CD-RW drive and still weighing in at barely more than 4 lb. For a two-spindle laptop, that's as good as it gets.

IDG.net INFOCENTER IDG.net's main page Free daily newsletters Instant help from the Dummies Network Computerworld Communities Related IDG.net Stories Leasing's different when it's laptops Apple unveils thinner, lighter iBook, OS update Laptops make a fashion statement Features How to make your PC a fortress Napster alternatives The best low-cost PCs Visit an IDG site Choose a site: IDG.net CIO Computerworld Darwin Dummies.com GamePro.com The Industry Standard ITWorld.com InfoWorld.com JavaWorld LinuxWorld Macworld Online Network World Fusion PC World Publish.com UnixInsider IDG.net search

I've been using a TXi for a couple of weeks and have come to really like it. The built-in drive is a lot more convenient than carrying an external drive, and it also offers the user on the road an effective backup medium. While the TXi isn't the first notebook to offer this combination rewritable drive, it's the first to do so in a package this small.

At 1.3-in. thick, this notebook isn't as thin as some, but it's still pretty portable. The 12.1-in., thin-film transistor screen offers 1,024- by 768-pixel resolution and decent brightness.

In terms of features and specifications, the TXi is pretty complete: 750-MHz Intel CPU, 20GB hard drive, 128MB RAM, 8MB video RAM, built-in modem and Ethernet ports, three Universal Serial Bus (USB) connectors and a single IEEE 1394 port plus video and television outputs. An included cable offers parallel and serial ports as well, and a USB floppy disk drive is standard. A touchpad controls the on-screen cursor.

If there's a downside to this machine, it's the battery. Keeping the weight down meant going with a smaller, three-cell, lower-capacity battery, so I've found that battery life is somewhere in the two-hour range.

There are a couple of innovative touches that some users may find helpful. The transparent NEC logo on the cover can be lit up by an event trigger, such as receiving an e-mail message. In fact, you can program it to use different colors for different events. Imagine that you're in a meeting, with your laptop closed on the table in front of you, yet you're waiting for messages from your boss and a particular client. If the laptop is one of the new NECs and is connected to a wireless LAN, you'll be able to know when a message arrives - and who it's from.

Priced at $2,799 with a CD-ROM drive and Windows 98 and at $3,399 for the Windows 2000-equipped version I tested, the Versa TXi is an excellent choice for the typical road warrior. It's big enough for business, small enough for comfortable traveling and complete enough that you don't need a bag full of cables, docks and other add-ons.

Lighter still

Before the TXi arrived, I spent some time with NEC's FXi, a slightly smaller (1-in. thick and 3.4 lb.) but otherwise similar notebook that uses an external CD-ROM drive. The FXi is thinner and lighter than the TXi -- a good choice if you only occasionally need the optical drive. I took the FXi along on a trip and found it to be very effective and convenient for editing digital photos and keeping a journal. The FXi starts at $2,499.

See the light?

Finally, NEC has introduced a pair of notebooks that are really different from the others. They break the mold by using a 600-MHz Crusoe processor from Santa Clara, Calif.-based TransMeta Corp., which was chosen for its low power consumption.

The Versa DayLite features a 10.4-in. display that has no backlight. Instead, its screen uses a reflective LCD technology that produces a brighter image as the ambient light gets stronger. This makes it perfectly suited for outdoor use in bright sunlight, where normal laptop displays wash out and become useless. The DayLite has both a three-cell replaceable lithium-ion battery and an internal, 12-cell lithium polymer battery for longer operation. Combine the low-power processor, no backlight and bigger power storage, and battery life is likely to be exemplary; NEC claims that it's about eight hours, though I didn't have a unit with which to test this.

On the other hand, if you take the Versa DayLite indoors, it's nearly impossible to see the screen. So, what if you like the small computer but need to use it inside? The DayLite has a sibling, the UltraLite, that's virtually identical except its 10.4-in. screen has a backlight. Depending on brightness and other factors, NEC is advertising up to five hours of battery life for the UltraLite. The two computers are priced alike, at $2,300 to $2,500.