From: pats@periwinkle.sitka.sun.com (Pat Sullivan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.laptops
Subject: ** Summary ** Librex Portable Input
Date: 30 Sep 92 14:48:20 GMT
Reply-To: pats@periwinkle.sitka.sun.com
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: periwinkle.sitka.sun.com



Apologies for the tardiness of this summary but the person who initially 
needed this info has been on the road doing a dealer training with the 
Everex 386 portable.  I will ask her to do a review of how they have
performed.  Our group has been using 15 of the Everex 386s with the  
Xircom Pocket Ethernet adapters to do a network training around the 
country.  She should have a pretty good idea of reliability, and
performance.  I'll ask her to go into what made her decide on the 
Everex as well.

Thanks for the input to Sergio, Dave, Michael and Bert


Patrick Sullivan          pats@sitka.sun.com     

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From: fanchiot@acf3.NYU.EDU (Sergio Fanchiotti)

        I bought one of these (a Librex 386sx w 60M HD) recently. I can say
	that the keyboard is OK and that seems quite solidly built (well I
	haven't dropped it yet). However, the screen is not so good because
	most programs require some sort of color or shades and sometimes
	you see some lines and stuff one does not like (but then again
	active matrix displays are expensive).  My guess is that some 
	other machines with 64 grayscale levels can be better but they 
	cost a bit more.

	They are quite cheap now and in the near future they will come 
	down in price much more. The question is that other well built 
	machines are also getting cheaper (like the everex tempo carrier) 
	and also are coming with the needed 4 meg of ram (which by the 
	way is the maximum memory you can add on the Librex).

	In my case I use it for typing and previewing TeX stuff and 
	for communications so I am satisfied with it, can run all the 
	progs I need and I guess that in 2 years there is going to be 
	something better to get anyway...

	I would strongly suggest that you look at the screen and try your
	favorite programs on it to see if you like it!

				Saludos,
					Sergio Fanchiotti
					sergio@mafalda.physics.nyu.edu

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From: dave@opus.csd.uwm.edu (Dave Rasmussen)
 
I bought the Damark one for $999 - 10%. I now see they have a tandon with
better screen and 1 more meg of memory for $1099.

I am happy with mine for the price but I think I wish I'd waited. But
then again I seem to wait forever and never get anything.

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From: MICHAEL WISE <wwhitman@nevada.edu>

I am a happy owner of a recently one year old Librex 286. I had been 
looking around at notebooks and smaller for several years, mostly 
because I'm a writer and I like to carry my writing materials with me. 
Ever since I discovered the keyboard pencil and paper just won't do. I 
was prepared to buy a Zeos last year when, entirely by chance, I went into
a laptop store in my hometown of Denver, CO. The sales guy was the first
sales guy I've met who knew more about computers than I did (bearing in
mind that I am not in CS but English, that's pretty sad), and he turned 
me off the Everex/Zeos I had my eyes on, and turned me on to the Librex,
which I had never heard of before and haven't heard much of since. The
keyboard is not fabulous, with a shallow travel, but the thing was a pound 
less than the competition, not to mention that the adapter, which is con-
veniently left out of the weigh-in, was the same size as an ordinary AC
adapter. What stunned me though was the screen. The sun in Colorado is 
incredibly bright, just as it is here in Las Vegas. We took the Librex 
out into the sunlight and the screen was EASY to read. Librex was also the
first to use Ultrafont and ship it with their computers. Ultrafont is 
specifically designed to enhance the readability of print on LCD screens.
Other than these things, the features are fairly standard, only now they
are selling the Librex 386 with 120MB hard drive for 2500. That's al-
most the same as I paid a year ago! I have recently discovered a need 
for more computing space, and I would happily buy the 386 if I didn't 
think I could get up another solution (including, perhaps, a LAN, where
my laptop would connect to the monster I'm going to need for creating 
electronic books). It is too easy to overlook the accomplishments of one
small company producing good products when everyone is focusing on the
generic things common to all notebooks now. I truly believe Librex is
a solid company putting out a solid product at a great price.

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From: terzon!bert@iex.iex.com (Bert Campbell)

I recently bought a Librex V386 at CompUsa after weeks of agonizing
over a notebook purchase. I paid $1199, it is a 386SX-20.  It comes
with a 60Meg drive and was configured with 2 meg of ram.  I say configured
because that is the main catch with tha machine, it has 1 meg on board
and 1 expansion slot for mem.  You can get a 1meg expansion or a 4meg.
The 1meg was included in my purchase, but if I want to upgrade, I have
to buy the 4meg card (expensive) and toss the 1meg.  If you only need
2 meg this is no problem.

The other bad news is that the battery only lasts about 1.5 of heavy
use.  I'm not sure how much longer it would go by letting the disk
power down, etc, but I doubt if it would be much more.

The good news is that it is made in Japan and quite well constructed.
Many of the cheapie Taiwan and Korean made systems are noticably
less solid and well-fitted.  (I looked at a zillion in various 
local (Dallas) stores.)  It also has a good keyboard, with dedicated
up/down/home/end keys, a must for me since I do a lot of
programing editing on it.  The display rates a "good" for the price
range.  There is room for an internal modem, and it has a proprietary
expansion slot for what that's worth.

All in all I'm happy except for the memory, I really need more than 2 meg
and was negligent in buying this thing without taking that into account.
The 4meg upgrade currently runs about $370, way too much when you
can be 4meg simms for $120.

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Newsgroups: comp.sys.laptops