Hi everybody.
Big problem with this machine is the weight. Six and a half pounds may not sound very much but for anyone with that amount of weight hanging around their neck while traveling through the London underground it would be a no-go after one trip. The recent introduction of convertible tablets/laptops have been a "gift from the gods" for buissness people on the move. Their weight at around three pounds or even less if you leave the keyboard behind is just what you want on the move.
The above machine may be alright in country's where the car is still the main transport for commuting but here in the UK and many countries in Europe where rail is now the predominant way of commuting it's far to bulky by present standards.
The laptop would fit the needs of an avid gamer who does not have the room for a full PC gaming rig.
Bill
I agree! Though 6.5 lbs. is a small price to pay to prevent the machine from melting. The most of the new tablets are okay, but still not powerful enough for games due to their reduced GPU and CPUs unless you go for a Wacom desktop replacement tablet, which will cost around $1800 and weighs quite a bit more anyway.
Hefting heavy machines through airports and train stations, metro, and buses does get to be a bit much though. I once carried my Visual Commuter Computer (V1083) portable on a trip to Taiwan. The machine weighs in at around 16-20 lbs., depending upon the options. On another trip, via Amtrak, Boston's MBTA subway, trolley, and commuter rail, I thought my arm was going to complete rip off at the shoulder by the time I made it to my destination between the weight of the computer plus my luggage.
http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/small-systems-at-ricm/visual-technology-commuter-1083-computer
Last year I traveled with my 6.5 lb. Alienware, and it was heavy, but not as heavy as the old Commuter Computer. Maybe because I'm older now, but my shoulder too felt like it was about to be left behind a few times.
The Commuter Computer's closest competitor was the Data General DG1 and DG2 as far as portability goes. What had the Commuter one leg up over the DG1 was compatibility. The other truly compatible machines was the Kapyro II transportable computers with the integrated CRT, and what made these portables truly IBM compatible was their ability to run Microsoft Flight Simulator and other programs. Yes, being able to run this game, which made use of the BIOS and direct calls to the hardware exactly as the IBM spec stated. The other competitors, such as the Data General, Brother, and others, could not run these programs. The Commuter ran vanilla MS-DOS 2.0 and was fully upgradable to DOS 5.0, which I still have on 5-1/4" floppy disks for the machine. There were other options too such as dock to hold IBM ISA cards, additional serial ports, and display ports to support CGA and EGA graphics.
How times have changed.
