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To: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com>
cc: Peter Dufault <dufault@hda.com>, freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: High-resolution displays 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 05 Sep 1997 14:13:04 CST."
             <199709052013.OAA10130@rocky.mt.sri.com> 
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Date: Mon, 08 Sep 1997 09:09:12 +1000
From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>
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> > > ...  In any case, you can have an external CD-ROM if you
> > > really want one, plus the advantage of having a way to play CD's on the
> > > plane w/out using your laptop battery. ;)
> > 
> > Then you lose one of the best features of the laptop: the solid box
> > with everything built in.
> 
> And you lose two of the best features of not having it built in, which
> are weight and ruggedness.  Almost *all* of the newer boxes have the
> 'swappable' CD-ROMS, which makes for weakness in the cases which don't
> exist in the boxes that don't have them built-in.  I'll put my non-built
> in box with the external CD against *any* box you want to throw at it
> for ruggedness.

Don't be stupid.  I'll pit a duralium-chassis industrial laptop against 
yours, and it'd be like comparing a Haliburton and a Tosca.

The two 'bayed' laptops I'm most familiar with are the Sharp PC9000 and 
the Toshiba 220CDS.  Both are robust and quite solidly constructed; in 
both care has been taken to avoid having the bay cutouts compromise the 
stiffness of the base.

> > Which brings up another point for those in the
> > market to consider: The IBM has an external power supply while some
> > laptops have it built in.
> 
> *All* of the laptops I've ever used (NEC, IBM, Toshiba, Fujitsu, HP)
> have external power supplies.

Quite a few of the older Toshiba and Compaq units have internal 
supplies.

mike