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This covers the month of September, a very active month because that's when
the new Tillamook (mobile 200/233 MMX) arrived. That's also when my evaluation
unit of the Micron XKE showed up (thanks again Micron) and a Mac company came
out with a Wintel machine, Power Computing's PowerTrip.
09-22-97*: Micron XKE arrives!
09-11-97*: Power Computing and Micron info -
*Updated 4:30pm PST
09-10-97: Tillamook update...
09-08-97: Tillamook Monday!! 9:30am PST, 11:45am
PST, 11:30pm PST
09-04-97: 4 more days!!
Changing of the guard
07-08-97 to 08-31-97: Hitachi VisionBook Pro,
Nimantics HS-166M 14.2", Transmonde Vivante' and news about the upcoming
Tillamooks
The TXs are coming...
05-19-97 to 06-30-97: Solo 9100, Micron XKE,
Toshiba Libretto 50, Transmonde 166
04-18-97 to 05-12-97: See how the Dell LM 166 and
the Micron XPE 166 compared against each other!
02-07-97 to 04-16-97: History of the Quest and how
this site got started
* If it has an asterisk next to it, that means I've made an error or corrected
something that was in it. These changes can be found in:
Errors and Corrections
Only four more days until the official announcement of the Tillamook!!! What's
more exciting is finding out who's gonna offer what and at what price. The
posting I talked about last week was
actually an excerpt from
PC Week
Online (thanks to Sunil, the original poster and everyone else who told me
about the URL). This basically tells you who is going to come out first with
their Tillamook products... but expect some surprises. You know all those
Taiwanese OEMs that most of the companies here just re-badge and sell as their
own? The ones with the desktop CPUs? Well... a few them have actually
developed Tillamook units so it will be interesting as I'm sure they will try
to beat everyone else on pricing.
What about the Nimantics HS? Well, I'm still working on getting it... and the
XKE lead times have come down... they were quoting 66 days... but they have
cut that in half (and I am trying very hard to get a review model faster than
that but it is up to the Micron "gods"). And I'm really sorry... I don't know
if I will be able to get a Sony to review... someone has posted a mini-review
of it in the Newsgroup and I will get his permission to publish it here. Like
I said before... it's very hard to get review units as I am fairly unknown to
most brand-name vendors (but we are hoping to change that!). I won't probably
update this until Tillamook Monday, but my next posting should be a doozy.
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9:30am PST
Well... the day has finally come... Tillamook Monday. Things have actually
started appearing over the weekend... and guess what? WinBook finally has a
product page!!! The address is
www.winbook.com and what is even more
amazing then that... they have the
first Tillamook notebook
ad that I've seen. It's the Winbook XL and it starts at $3599!!! That's
close to the 166MMX prices of comparable machines. The war heats up now and
boy are we gonna see some great stuff in the next few days.
Another good place to read on some of the upcoming "Tillies" is
PC Week.
They review 4 notebooks, Dell, Gateway, Toshiba and Digital. The Digital is not
a Tillamook but it is their new ulta-thin model with the 14.1" screen. There
are also models coming from AMS Tech (yes... AMS), Compaq and Micron.
I will update this throughout the day so please check back... I was trying to
surf some of the websites early this morning but was getting errors so it
seems that they are ramping up the new pages (specifically Gateway 2000). My
next report will be in about an hour and a half, after Intel officially
announces the Tillamook, see ya then!
11:45am PST
So far, Intel has the following vendors listed on their
Mobile PCs site. I
did some research and the links may differ from the ones on Intel's as I have
made them point to the actual notebook model site. The ones with asterisks
have a reference to the Tillamook model (but not all of them have pricing):
And here are a few that aren't listed at Intel's site:
Surprisingly enough... most of these notebooks range from $3600 to $5000. That
is lower than I predicted them to be and I didn't expect this many vendors so
soon. This will be great since pricing will be very competitive. Dell, WinBook
and Power Computing have the best offers with a 13.3" 233MMX at $3999. I will
continue to do some research, make phone calls and will have more information
like shipping times and availability. I will summarize most of this
information in my Mining Co. article
tomorrow (Tuesday, 09/09/97*). I will probably post something else here later
today and if you find any other news, please
e-mail me.
11:30pm PST
I have been out most of the afternoon and evening but after checking my e-mail,
I have some more links to news from my subscriptions to www.news.com and
www.pcweek.com, and also got some postings from another correspondent (thanks
to Danny K. for his e-mail). Here they are some other vendors:
And here are several articles that cover the Tillamook and new models:
- PC Mag:
Reviews 8 Tillamook notebook
-
InfoWorld: Reviews the Tillamook CPU and 4 pre-production notebooks
-
Computer Shopper: Reviews 2 notebooks
- C|Net:
www.news.com has a summary of the Tillamook and new offerings
- C|Net: More
news about the HP/Mitsubishi notebook
And the earlier reports were correct, there will also be a Tillamook version
of the Gateway Solo 2300 (although I haven't seen it on their website yet).
I've also called around and the shipping times for these Tillamooks range from
about 4 to 8 weeks, these are who I found out about so far:
- Dell: 7 weeks
- Power Computing: 4 weeks
- WinBook: 6 weeks
It's late, so I will have some more news tomorrow and I will try to organize
all of this with pricing on my Mining Co.
site by tomorrow evening. Keep the
e-mail coming because I know I
missed something, and thanks for helping out.
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Not really much to report, just a couple more Tillamook announcements. You can
get my most current list of vendors at my
Mining Co.
site. It seems like Power Computing has the best deal going right now and
they have shortened their shipping times to 2 weeks. I have some e-mail going
to them right now to try and get a review model. I haven't really seen any
price drops in the 166 MMXs but that will probably take a week or so. I will
let you know if anything drastic happens.
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I have been recommending the Power Computing PowerTrip for the last few days
due to the fact that they have the lowest price and shortest shipping delivery
time. BUT... there may be some discrepancies with their pricing. I was made
aware of this when I called them and they quoted a different price than on the
website. Some other people e-mailed me reporting the same problem. I have a
call in to them and they will have a manager get back to me. I don't know what
the exact problem is, it may just be an error on their website. I will post
anything I find out.
Update: 4:30pm PST
Micron now has the
XKE with the 200/233 MMX CPUs on their website. The prices are pretty high
as expected, with a 233/32MB/2.1GB/13.3" at $5611. BUT... remember... the XKEs
did get PC Mag's Editor's Choice for both the 166 and the 233 and also has the
highest rated battery time and highest performance so there may be
justification for the premium price. Good news too... I think the review model
for the XKE has been finalized and I should expect it shortly, thanks to
everyone for crossing their fingers, to Bruce of Micron for pulling the right
strings and to Micron for allowing me this opportunity (and I think I'm
getting the new 233 model too).
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It finally got here... the new XKE!!! And this is an actual review model so I
can put it through a lot more tests than any of my previous "buy and try"
ones. First impressions are very good, the best so far actually... I really
liked everything about the previous XPE (except for
the screen), so I was expecting big things out of this one. The first thing I
did was turn it on and look at the screen... awesome... just as I thought, in
fact... I haven't seen a bad 13.3" screen yet so I would have been very
disappointed if Micron's was of lesser quality. I am going to sum up my first
impressions in this week's article at my
Mining Co. site but I have these
comments about some of the highlights of this new machine:
- Definitely not as big as the Solo 9100, I was expecting a big monster but
this one is not as wide nor as thick as the Solo. Either that or I'm getting
used to this bigger 13.3" form factor (but I know it's smaller because it fits
in my notebook bag better).
- The keyboard is the BEST! This is of course in my opinion but this is the
closest you will get to a desktop keyboard. Good feel, nice spacing... and
yes... the Win'95 keys are there (for those who wanted them on the XPE).
- Dual-pointing device standard!!! For any who don't know which one they
prefer or like me... want to be able to use both, and the XKE has a function
key to switch from stick to pad (or vice versa) without rebooting.
- BEST back port design! I'm not kidding... everyone else uses plastic
swing-out or slide-under doors... the XKE (just like the XPE) uses metallic
cascading sliding doors that leave one, two or all ports uncovered. There is
very little chance of these suckers breaking off.
- CD-ROM walkman feature: Seems like more vendors are adding this so you can
listen to music CDs even while the notebook is off (they must have read #10 on
my Top 10
Alternative Uses for Your Laptop/Notebook article).
I thought I was going to get the 233 Tillamook model but I got the 166 MMX
like I originally asked... no complaints though... a review model is better
than no model. Now if only Dell and Gateway can follow Micron's and
Transmonde's example, maybe you guys can pressure them to send me review
models with some e-mail. I'm still waiting to hear back from Toshiba, WinBook
and Power Computing (*hint*hint* to those individuals I have contacted that
work for those companies).
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