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To: BillyG who wrote (29319)	2/10/1998 5:25:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

Toshiba's Tecra 750DVD. All prices in Australian currency................. smh.com.au HARDWARE Tuesday, February 10, 1998 Toshiba Tecra 750DVD By DARREN YATES The past six months has been a ding-dong battle for the top-tier notebook vendors, with Compaq, IBM and Toshiba all vying for the top spot. The new Tecra 750DVD is Toshiba's latest weapon in the battle, and as usual the company has put together a top-class package. Built into the same case as the Tecra 750CDT, the 750DVD looks pretty much the same on the surface, but it is more what is happening under the bonnet that is of most interest. Designed around Intel's 233MHz Pentium-MMX processor, this unit comes with 64Mb of RAM and 512Kb of all-important L2 cache memory, giving it plenty of zip. The processor is Intel's Tillamook chip, using smaller 0.25-micron fabrication techniques that allow the chip to run 40 per cent faster, yet draw up to 40 per cent less power. And that adds up to more running time. Unlike many of the other vendors, Toshiba has resisted jumping on the 14.1-inch active matrix screen bandwagon, opting to stick with the tried and tested 13.3-inch model. I do not see that as a huge problem - the screen is big enough for most applications, although the 750DVD has some other tricks up its sleeve to make the most of it. The most important of these is the new DVD capability. The 750DVD comes with Toshiba's own 2X speed DVD-ROM drive, capable of reading double-sided discs with up to 5.2Gb of data as well as all of your old CD titles. It can also read the latest DVD movie discs. In fact, thanks to the Tillamook technology, there is enough battery life in the 750DVD to play a full-length (two hours and thirty-five minutes) movie in one charge. When it comes to storage, the unit's 5.1Gb hard disk drive should be more than enough to handle even the most ravenous Microsoft products available. The 750DVD comes with an external floppy drive unit that plugs into an external port on the left-hand side. Alternatively, you can snap out the DVD-ROM drive and plug the floppy drive into the internal bay tray. Unlike many previous Toshiba notebooks, the 750DVD comes with a separate power supply rather than having it built in. This adds to the weight that you have to carry, but I can only imagine that there is little space left inside for much else. Another feature which Toshiba has included again is the option of a digital camera attachment. This snaps into position of the right-hand side of the screen casing, making it possible to run remote/mobile video conferencing or simply capture video to 30 frames per second and still images at up to 640 x 480 pixels and 24-bit colour. Having benchmarked the unit with Ziff-Davis's Winstone and Winbench 97, the performance is somewhat better than the 750CDT, which was a little disappointing compared with other Tillamook notebooks. In order for Toshiba to include the digital camera option in both systems, the company had to sacrifice a little in performance to get the added functionality, but the gain is greater than the losses. The Winstone 97 score of 40 isn't too bad, but below a number of other Tillamook notebooks, including NEC's Versa 6230MX and IBM's ThinkPad 770. However, I put the improvement down to the inclusion of 64Mb of memory. I doubt that this machine could run any faster if you included more memory - except with the possible exception of database applications. Most top-end notebooks are still arriving with only 32Mb. The DVD-ROM and hard disk drive speeds are good - and that helps the system overall. As for graphics, Toshiba has gone with S3's Virge MX 64-bit accelerator chipset and it is a bit over 10 per cent slower under our Winbench 97 tests than the increasingly popular NeoMagic MagicGraph 128. However, the benefit here is that the Virge MX chipset allows for direct MPEG video. Its 3D capabilities even support Direct3D and OpenGL for the latest in business applications or even the odd game. The Tecra 750DVD is a very usable machine with a wide palm rest and rear-set keyboard. If you hate those touchpads, relax. Toshiba continues to use its TrackPointer. All of the major function-indicating LEDs are on the front of the notebook. This way, you can plug it into the docking bay, use it as a desktop replacement and still know what is going on inside. It is also ACPI-compliant, although as with any other ACPI-compliant notebook, you will have to wait until Microsoft gets its act into gear and releases Windows 98 to get the most out of it. With two USB ports, the 750DVD comes with Microsoft's latest version of Windows 95 with USB drivers. While it covers the 750DVD, native support for USB also will not arrive until Windows 98. THE BOTTOM LINE: Toshiba pushes the overall functionality of notebooks further with the new Tecra 750DVD. It is packed with features including DVD and a digital video camera option, but its hefty price may be too much for some, particularly when 1998 is shaping up as a big year for notebook-technology announcements. PRICE: about $9,800 FROM: Toshiba 1800 021 100 INTERNET: www.toshiba.com.au