Fritz: All Fritz/All Fritz.zip/All Fritz/FILES/INFOTEXT/REVIEWS.LZH/EPSONLT.TXT

Text File | 1988-10-16 | 6KB | 89 lines

                   Review of Epson Equity LT
              Copyright 1988 by David W. Batterson


     Epson America is going to have rough going, trying to capture a profitable
share of the booming laptop market dominated by Toshiba and Zenith.  But you
can't blame them for trying.
     Epson is still struggling to get the same name recognition for its PCs as
for its first-class printers.  Their laptop entry is the Equity LT, and they've
done an admirable job.
     The LT weighs in at only 14.3 pounds, with the hard drive and supertwisted
backlit LCD.  Parallel and serial (9-pin) ports are standard, as is the color
monitor port.  Two option slots house the hard drive and optional 300/1200 baud
modem card.
     Measurements are 12.2" deep by 13.6" wide by 3.2" high.  Standard RAM is
640K; ROM is 16K.  Epson uses the V30 microprocessor, with dual speed of 4.77
or 10 MHz.  The review unit came with one 3 1/2" floppy and the 20 MB hard
disk.
     There's a real-time clock/calendar, and a 50-byte CMOS RAM for
configuration purposes.  The LT runs on a 100/120 VAC, 200/240 VAC power supply
(and battery charger), or 9.6 NiCad rechargeable battery pack.
     The manual indicates a battery life of "five to seven hours of use for
simple operations, with "shorter" life using the hard disk and backlit screen.
I found battery life using the hard drive and keeping the screen lit to be
about one hour.  A full recharge takes about 12 hours.
     Epson includes MS-DOS 3.2, GW-BASIC, and a utilities disk, along with
their usual excellent manuals.
     Although the keyboard has a soft, non-tactile touch, it was easy to type
on nevertheless.  The function keys are on top, and a standard numeric keypad
is included in the 85 keys.
     The seven LEDs indicate POWER, LOW BAT, L & R DRIVE, CAPS, NUM and SCROLL.
     Since the temperature operating range was listed at 41 to 95 degrees F, I
didn't take it poolside, as it's well over 100 degrees outside at this writing.
Storage range, however, is -4 up to 122 degrees F.
     Setup is no big deal.  Epson didn't opt for the 25-pin serial port, so be
sure to have an AT-compatible (DB-9P) serial cable on hand or an adapter.
     There are two sets of DIP switches, one on the upper right above the
NumLock key and the other on the back panel.  The set above controls the LCD
screen, allowing you to select dark characters on a light background, or vice
versa.
     To the left of the DIP switches are the reset and CPU speed switches.
     Depending upon your usage, you may not even have to change the back set of
DIP switches.  These are used for external floppy drives, and to make a serial
port the primary or secondary one.  I had no reason to change these settings.
     A word about the LCD.  If you're used to a fullsize monochrome or color
monitor, you'll find the 4 1/2" x 9 1/2" display (1.4 aspect ratio) a bit
disconcerting.  The readability of LCDs has increased dramatically, but it
still isn't as good as a monitor, at least in my experience.  I prefer a gas
plasma display over the backlit LCD too.
     While testing this machine, I used it quite a bit and suffered some
eyestrain and headaches.  Of course, a laptop is not MEANT for long-term use,
like your deskop PC.  So take it easy if you're using one.
     Neck pain can also result from the viewing angle, so a word of caution is
called for: using this (or ANY) laptop and holding your neck at a downward
angle too long may hurt the back of your neck.  The best viewing angle is
always looking straight at the screen.
     By running the setup program, you can control the time period the LCD
remains illuminated before it shuts off.  Touching any key then relights the
screen.  You can set the time in 30 second increments up through five minutes,
or no time limit.
This time-limit feature preserves battery power and increases screen life.
     The screen speed, like most all XT-clones, is not fast enough and you get
that annoying flicker (no fault of Epson's; blame it on the ROM BIOS of IBM
clones.)  However, I used a software product called FlickerFree (Gibson
Research Corp., Irvine, CA) which speeds up screen scrolling amazingly.  I
recommend buying a copy.
     There's also the problem of disk access speed with laptop hard drives.  If
you're using an AT or 386 now, you'll notice the drop in speed.  Epson doesn't
list the access time, but I think it's about 65 to 80 ms.  If you're now
using a floppy system, it will seem very FAST!  Time is all relative, as
Einstein showed us.
     You can speed up the hard drive speed with a disk caching program.  I used
the one on the PC TOOLS Deluxe utilities disk (Central Point Software), and it
worked great.  These programs are widely available, and many clone resellers
now bundle them along with word processing and other inexpensive programs.
     I tested various software on the LT, including Ability Plus integrated
software (Migent), ASCII Pro communications (United Software Industries),
Mirror II (SoftKlone Distributing),and Reference Set dictionary/thesaurus
(Reference Software).  All performed well.
     For sales reps, writers on the go, field personnel and others who really
need portable computing power, the LT will fill the bill.  A soft carrying case
is optional, as is a cigarette lighter adapter (do people really use laptops in
their cars?).
     For more information, contact: Epson America, Inc., 2780 Lomita Blvd.,
Torrance, CA  90505; 213-539-9140.
                               #
David W. Batterson writes computer articles, reviews and software manuals.  He
can be reached via MCI Mail: DBATTERSON.