The Icon Bar: RiscStation portable

The latest specs for the RiscStation Portable Computer System have been released, along with some rather snazzy pictures.

The machine will be roughly 242x190x30mm (~= 9.5 x 7.5 x 1.2"), 1.3Kg in weight, with a 8.4" TFT 800x600 touchscreen screen, 64MB memory, 10GB hard drive and a glidepoint touchpad. It also boasts PCMCIA, USB and 10bT Ethernet onboard. You can also buy a docking station to add floppy drive, serial, parallel, VGA and PS2 ports. Prices start from £999 ex VAT, and you can put down a £100 deposit to secure one of the first on the release date of late February 2002.

Although at first glance this may not look like a "proper" laptop - the small size and screen res being somewhat smaller than full-blown PC laptops - the cute sub-notebook look might fit nicely into education and other niche markets, with a price comparable to the NetBook when it first came out but with slightly better spec.

To save duplicting all the details, click here for the flyer and here for the order form.

RiscStation portable - details released

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Guest

Message #89588, posted at 00:53, 12/12/2001, in reply to message #89587

Unregistered user

Well I do log in, but every time it still posts my comments as "guest". Happens every time with Oregano and IE.

Robert

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Guest

Message #89589, posted at 02:10, 12/12/2001, in reply to message #89588

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Wonder if it will play games well :)

Steev (who doesnt post much and cant be a**ed to log in)

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Guest

Message #89590, posted at 09:35, 12/12/2001, in reply to message #89589

Unregistered user

It seems a nice piece of kit, but when you can get an 800Mhz Celeron laptop in metallic blue, with 128MB RAM, 20Gb HD, 6xDVD, Floppy, On board Modem and LAN, 1 USB, 1 PCMCIA, PS2 port, serial port, SVHS port and parellel port, AND a 14.1 TFT screen all for just £899, the RS laptop seems very expensive.

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Lee Johnston

Message #89591, posted at 09:42, 12/12/2001, in reply to message #89590

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Spin Doctors? *laughs* I hope that isn't referring to me - take a look at the comments in "one last update then no more" for where I stand in this market.

Well John I guess the serial number isn't indicative of anything then. Perhaps that's reassuring.

As for games it should play them as well as any RiscStation would with an 8.4inch TFT screen

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mark quint

Message #89592, posted at 09:55, 12/12/2001, in reply to message #89591

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gotta remember that the Celeron Laptop will weigh rather a bit more than 1.3KG, and i'd think eat quite a bit more battery too

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Guest

Message #89593, posted at 10:34, 12/12/2001, in reply to message #89592

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Question: the mouse in the picture of the portable has only two buttons (if my eyes work properly) - what about the third one?

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Lee Johnston

Message #89594, posted at 11:30, 12/12/2001, in reply to message #89593

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The obvious solution is to configure the third mouse button as pressing the two buttons at the same time, and allowing the user to configure which button pressing both corresponds to.

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John Campbell Rees

Message #89595, posted at 12:34, 12/12/2001, in reply to message #89594

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Nice looking machine, but they have got to be joking about the price. I cannot imagine paying £999 for a machine that doesn't have a floppy disk drive, let alone one with no CD ROM drive.

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John Campbell Rees

Message #89596, posted at 12:35, 12/12/2001, in reply to message #89595

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Nice looking machine, but they have got to be joking about the price. I cannot imagine paying £999 for a machine that doesn't have a floppy disk drive, let alone one with no CD ROM drive.

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Guest

Message #89597, posted at 14:51, 12/12/2001, in reply to message #89596

Unregistered user

Very nice, but:

Bah, I want to be able to browse on a train...

[mentat]

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John Duffell

Message #89598, posted at 14:57, 12/12/2001, in reply to message #89597

Unregistered user

We it could be 99-12-20 as in the date, followed by 2977 of them produced. They may have started at 3000 or something so mine may have been the 23rd. OTOH, in batch 16 they'd have had to have batches of 2 for that, but who knows where anything started.

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Richard Goodwin

Message #89599, posted at 16:27, 12/12/2001, in reply to message #89598

Unregistered user

Floppy discs? Who needs them? Most manufacturers are trying to phase them out, and I must say I haven't used on in ages. My spare RiscPC can't even handle floppy drives any more, and there's never been any point in getting it fixed.

Given that the portable will have a network port, USB and PCMCIA, there are more cost effective ways of transfering data between machines. To add a floppy drive to a sub-notebook, where space is at a premium, would be insane. But then again I would say that, I've been using the office and home networks to chuck data around for the past two or three years as all my machines have NICs in ;)

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Guest

Message #89600, posted at 17:22, 12/12/2001, in reply to message #89599

Unregistered user

My Celeron Toshiba Portege cost me 899uk, and it is smaller and lighter than this RiskStation, plus it has onboard networking, 128MB of RAM, modem, 1024x768 etc, etc, etc...

The time where you can buy a sexier x86 laptop for less than this RiskStation and have it outperform it at running RISC OS is edging nearer and nearer...

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Guest

Message #89601, posted at 19:16, 12/12/2001, in reply to message #89600

Unregistered user

I wonder if they are going to update their website...

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Guest

Message #89602, posted at 23:53, 12/12/2001, in reply to message #89601

Unregistered user

There _is_ a StrongARM version with all the lcd, serial, memory controller, blah blah, built in. It's called the SA1110 and goes with it's companion chip the SA1111. They are what all the handheld PocketPC2002 machines (like the iPaq) and the Sharp Zaurus 5000 are built on. Probably 3-4 times the performance of a 7500FE except for floating point work.

But really, isn't it time for a XScale800 machine by now? I know the hardware is available; some friends of mine have just built a batch of 3"x4" boards with them. Imagine a pack-of-cards sized machine with 8-900mips....

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Guest

Message #89603, posted at 02:28, 13/12/2001, in reply to message #89602

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Well, 800 x 600 seems perfectly acceptable where our clients are based - Petronas Twin Towers. There, the IT dept have forced everyone to conform to this display. Not an ideal size for designing with though!

Steve S. KL

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Lee Johnston

Message #89604, posted at 10:31, 13/12/2001, in reply to message #89603

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No one said that the SA1110 didn't exist. The only comment made so far says there isn't a SA with integrated VIDC20 and IOMD which is true, and a major stumbling block given that RISC OS can't run without then.

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Richard Goodwin

Message #89605, posted at 11:29, 13/12/2001, in reply to message #89604

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It's been pointed out elsewhere (the Archive mailling list to be precise) that the RS portable is actually /better/ than the major competing sub-notebook - the NetBook, which is only 640x480, came out at roughly the same price, doesn't have built in networking etc. etc. (Wonder what this does for the RoN project? :)

I don't think there's any point harping on about how you can get cheaper Celeron laptops - you can get cheaper Celeron desktop machines than an Omega (hell, you can get cheaper full-spec machines with decent AMD processors, let alone that crippled Intel stuff), but taking the RS machine for what it is - a sub-notebook, not a laptop - it's fairly competative and well spec'ed.

It may not be what people were expecting - and I for one would have liked a proper RISC OS laptop - but RS have produced something with decent functionality for a decent price. I may well buy one. Others may not feel the same, that's fair enough. But please, there has never been a time when you could compare PC and Acorn/RISC OS prices!

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[mentat]

Message #89606, posted at 12:41, 13/12/2001, in reply to message #89605

Unregistered user

IIRC Ron has a new financial backer, so it SHOULD happen regardless.

Doesn't RON have an IR port though? I forget, but if it did, and someone stumped up an appropriate driver (ROL!) that would make RON a MUCH more attractive alternative (since one of the main advantages of a sub notebook would be [for me] the ability to browse and email on the move).

Whichever appears first will regardless be the first portable RISC OS computer for years, and that'll be enought to tempt me :)

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Guest

Message #89607, posted at 13:14, 13/12/2001, in reply to message #89606

Unregistered user

I've not seen a mention so far in these comments of the docking station which apparently contains the floppy and CD drives and a larger battery. Does anyone know how large, heavy and portable the machine is with the docking station attached?

I decided that I would purchase either the RS portable or Ron/Netbook, whichever appeared first in case the other one turned out to be vapourware (I'm referring to Ron, of course, not the Netbook). As a result, I've already placed my order for the RS portable, together with the docking station. The total price, incidentally, is a little under 1,500 pounds, inc. VAT.

The flyer, incidentally, is a little strange as it features pictures of the portable from every angle, then says that they do not show its new case!

Martyn Fox

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Guest

Message #89608, posted at 15:15, 13/12/2001, in reply to message #89607

Unregistered user

The Toshiba Portege is a subnotebook.

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Guest

Message #89609, posted at 16:03, 13/12/2001, in reply to message #89608

Unregistered user

Hmm, yeah i have a Celeron notebook too - and guess what? Windows ME crashes on it regularly. The RS sub-notebook won't. So there's no point in trying to compare the two. If any RISC OS portable was out for sale when i needed a computer for college, in would have gone for the RISC OS option. As it was, there wasn't one available so i've had to put up with this, which i regret.

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Guest

Message #89610, posted at 16:19, 13/12/2001, in reply to message #89609

Unregistered user

Windows 2000 has *NEVER* crashed on my Portege. Not once. And I've only rebooted when I needed to swap to a different OS, or when I installed a new hard drive and some more memory.

You seem to be saying that it's the laptop's fault that Windows ME is crashing. If this is so, I'd take your laptop back to where you bought it and demand a refund.

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John Campbell Rees

Message #89611, posted at 17:33, 13/12/2001, in reply to message #89610

Unregistered user

Phasing out floppy disks is stupid. I still use them regularly for moving information from machines that are not on the Internet. Relying solely on networking and the internet to transfer information to and from a portable to other machines is very narrow minded. It is always useful to have a back-up system, such as floppy disks.

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Guest

Message #89612, posted at 17:35, 13/12/2001, in reply to message #89611

Unregistered user

My Portege doesn't have an internal floppy drive, but it does come with a *tiny* USB floppy drive, of which the BIOS can do legacy emulation for, so it looks just like a normal one.

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Guest

Message #89613, posted at 17:46, 13/12/2001, in reply to message #89612

Unregistered user

oh come on please !! just because it's running RISC-OS you don't have to say it's beautiful and cheap !!
I mean £999 (starting price !!!!) for a joke of a laptop (ok, ok subnotebook but who cares ?) with a 8.4' screen where every cheap laptop has a 14' display, no strongarm and ......
I was really considering bying a RISC-OS laptop but this is a joke, sorry :-(

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Mr Jake Monkeyson

Message #89614, posted at 18:16, 13/12/2001, in reply to message #89613

Unregistered user

But it is a touchscreen which is nice. Imagine some nice drag and drop saving using that!

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mark quint

Message #89615, posted at 18:52, 13/12/2001, in reply to message #89614

Unregistered user

i'd say quite a few people care whether its a notebook or sub-notebook.
The point being with a sub-notebook is that you leave behind all the non-essential things, so that you get a lower size and weight, and so that you can easily use it anywhere (the built-in NC should be v. useful)

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Kevin Wells

Message #89616, posted at 22:38, 14/12/2001, in reply to message #89615

Unregistered user

Hey itt can fit in my top box all it needs is a decent route finder and maps and I can get rid of about 6 map books. Is it waterproof?

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keith dunlop

Message #89617, posted at 23:51, 14/12/2001, in reply to message #89616

Unregistered user

at last!

Interesting machine. Lets hope it comes with the necessary drivers...

DHCP exists - but not yet with select :( - when mr. middleton...?

Yup the display is a bit pants (800 x 600 eww) but remeber folks where the vid stuff is in a ARM7500 machine - in the CPU. 800 x 600 will let it run at a reasonable colour depth (32K maybe?) without crippling the machine.

All comments about price / performance are missing the point. A RISC OS machine is not cheap - the price you pay for being different!

Nice one Roy! (now when *are * we going to get a new machine that doesn't have the dreaded "branded" keys by the space bar & if having a built in mouse 3 buttons? - never! i know :( )

Lets hope this one makes its delivery date...

For the future RON is far more important as it is the development of StrongARM machines without IOMD & VIDC - which is crucial...

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