While it’s not exactly a lightweight (what can you expect with a 17 inch screen), it has the power to perform very well. I have to carry an external floppy drive (this model does not come with a floppy drive, come to think of it, I don’t think any of the models with a DVD writer come with one), but I made this choice because I have so much data saved on floppies. The 100 Gigabyte hard drive is adequate for my needs if I need to back up while I’m traveling, I do travel with Jump Drives and other gadgets which I’ll tell you about a little further on.

While it’s not my style to watch a DVD movie on my notebook, I have to admit that the screen is a bit larger than the one on the TV that I do watch DVD movies on. I’m not a gamer by any means but, the graphics card in this notebook is very suitable for gaming, so you know that it adequately meets my needs. The 3.33 Gigahertz Mobile Intel Pentium4 processor 548 supporting HT technology (3.33 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache, 533 MHz FSB) is super fast with the 512 MB of PC2700 DDR 333 SDRAM (256MBx2). Being able to burn a DVD±RW or a CD±RW in the same drive is also very handy. Overall, I’m quite satisfied with this Toshiba notebook so far.

One of the peripherals that I use with my notebook is an Iomega Zip Drive. This one happens to be a parallel port Zip 100MB drive. Unfortunately, Windows XP and/or Toshiba would not cooperate with me. I could not use the drive that I have on the notebook because the notebook does not have a parallel port. I haven’t reached the point of buying a docking station as yet, so I went out and bought an Iomega USB Zip 100MB drive. Wouldn’t you know it wouldn’t read the disks that were loaded on the parallel port drive? I’m in the process of trying to contact Iomega to find out if they have a utility that might solve this problem. As of this time, I haven’t been able to communicate with a person at Iomega. My temporary solution is to use various sizes of USB Jump Drives.

According to Palmsource, Inc. the new version of the Palm OS will be even more supportive of smart phones (I’m more interested in support for my PDA). The new version of the Palm OS will have built-in Phone capabilities.

Check out www.mobileedge.com for the latest in stylish notebook briefcases, backpacks and other accessories. I don’t seem to have a problem paying big bucks for the bland style of notebook carrier, why shouldn’t I have a fancy bag for the money?

I read that you can now get your Gateway notebook at Circuit City Stores. I guess I’ll have to check it out the next time I go into a Circuit City store. I haven’t been paying much attention since I bought the Toshiba P35-S611. Gateway has signed with Office Depot, Best Buy, and CompUSA to sell their products, so I guess we’ll be seeing them everywhere. Gateway is the owner of eMachines by the way (it’s their low end product). They have shut down all of their retail stores and will be selling only through third parties.

For you phone aficionados, T-Mobile is now selling the Samsung Electronics p735 multimedia phone. It has a built-in 1 megapixel camera, a video recorder and an MP3 player. Its key feature is the flip screen that rotates horizontally and vertically for video recording and picture taking. The p735 has 64MB of internal memory and a RS-MMC slot for expansion cards. The phone ships with a 32MB multimedia card. There is no Bluetooth support in this $499 phone though (that’s with a one year contract).

Chuck Horowitz, a HAL-PC member, can be reached at chuckh@hal-pc.org for questions or comments.