From: pollack@dendrite.cis.ohio-state.edu (Jordan B Pollack)
Subject: Review: Cruiser Laptop w LCD Panel
Originator: pollack@dendrite.cis.ohio-state.edu
Reply-To: pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu
Organization: Ohio State Computer Science
Distribution: comp
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 23:19:18 GMT


I recently purchased a Rever Cruiser Laptop with 16Mhz 386SX, 16M of
memory, and an 80M disk from:

NovaCorp International Inc.
2260 Lake Ave, Suite 330
Rochester, NY  14612
716 647 6510

It weighs in at over 8 lbs with battery, and is larger (12.75 by 10.75
by 2.25") and more expensive than the current crop of 386SX clone
notebooks, like the Dell. This is a strange and nonobvious choice of
laptop, but since nobody answered my query, I had to be the pioneer,
and promised a few of you a review!  I have been living with it for
several weeks, running windows 3.0, and new Killer Apps (read: Dogs)
which use all the 16M memory: Framemaker (beta) and new Lotus
Freelance for Windows (finally competitive with Powerpoint and
Persuasion.)

The VGA LCD screen is excellent, 32 shades of gray, good contrast, and
no power drain lines (as were always present in my Zenith 286e).
There are ctrl+alt keys which change the shading and mode of the
screen, but these dont seem to work under windows.  The keyboard is
quite nice, with full keys, intelligent arrangment, no overloading of
functions, and full travel with tactile feedback.  Cursor keys in an
inverted T, page/up/dwn/home/end along right edge.  It is not sloped
upward, and there is no ergonomic palm rest.  There is no internal
modem, but arrayed behind a rear fold-down panel are one parallel, 2
serial ports, 600 by 800 VGA, FDD, and custom bus connector ($70 for
cardcage) and there seems to be an external keyboard connector as
well.

The SPECIAL FEATURE of this laptop, and the reason to forgive the
off-brand, excess size and weight, is that the sidelit LCD screen pops
right off and hooks back on with a 4 ft cable, the screenback pops
off, a plastic enclosed fan (110v, 3lbs) slides on, and in a minute,
I'm set up to give an electronic presentation. Opposite the fan is an
empty plastic fan box, which seems bulky and unnecessary, and I'd
rather the fan could run off the computer's power supply.

Anyhow, its a really cool little gizmo, and solves a longstanding
major problem for me: I've been giving "laptop presentations" for a
couple of years, and almost always run into some entanglement with
local AV squad leading to administrative catastrophes (One conference
team showed up 5 minutes late, another lab had to rent the LCD panel
for $90, and another was going to buy one at the last minute.)  I
considered the idea of buying and carrying my own LCD panel, but
besides being expensive, it would be rarely used, and an additional
7-8 lbs piece of luggage.  The present solution turns out to be a
lighter burden without an extra screen, extra power supply, or extra
piece of luggage. And its used every day.

So I'm a happy customer, perhaps until the day I land somewhere with a
disk crash and have no talk... or the day sharp and toshiba violate or
work around Rever's supposed worldwide patent on removable screens
which convert to panels.









-- 
Jordan Pollack                            Assistant Professor
CIS Dept/OSU                              Laboratory for AI Research
2036 Neil Ave                             Email: pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu
Columbus, OH 43210                        Phone: (614)292-4890 (then * to fax)