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Venting about my TravelMate 6030

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Here are some complaints I have with the TI:

1. lcd contrast and brightness buttons have no effect on display.
2. the power management is not APM compliant. This means that in other operating systems (without Win95 drivers) suspend never completely suspends and the power is used up in the same amount of time that any other laptop would use up in full power.
3. save-to-disk works improperly with machines that have non-dos partitions. (it doesn't save to disk. In one instance, it corrupted the Linux partition when I tried to use it)
4. the modem it comes with is a WinModem. It doesn't work in any other operating system other than Windows95/NT and TI refuses to take it back, exchange it with a hayes compatible, or give credit toward another purchase if returned.
5. it is impossible to have both the external display and lcd screen on at the same time, even when setup properly in the tiSetup program and in the bios. In fact, it works correctly until an operating system gets loaded.
6. 16MB and 32MB Memory cannot be mixed. If one wants more than 40MBs, the 16MB chip the laptop comes with has to be thrown away. (ie. no 16+32+8 MB combinations)
7. modules (like cdrom, floppy disk, spare battery) cannot be hot swapped. Machine must be rebooted.
8. apm can't be adjusted without a reboot.
9. disk is placed below the pcmcia cards, causing them to get extremely hot. Surprisingly, no pcmcia cards have failed so far due to heat.
10. the builtin microphone is right next to the speakers and causes feedback when used.
11. The machine is so poorly designed that when you have two batteries in it with one low on power and the other full, the full one starts charging the low one. Of course, half the power is lost when charging a battery, so a lot of your full battery's power is lost.
12. It takes forever for the batterys to charge when the machine is in use.
13. all the software it came with was on the hard drive and if you wanted a backup copy, you had to run a program that put it on floppy disks. TI won't sell you a copy on cdrom because of some deal they made with microsoft. It took up over 50 disks before I was through.
14. the only documentation that came with the machine (other than the standard win95 book) was online in HTML (instead of windows help format) and was a poor excuse for documentation. It was extremely general and not even specific enough for novice users. Forget about trying to find out what kind of video, sound, pcmcia, disk, etc it uses. They have this online manual at the TI web site, so you can get an idea of what I am talking about. http://www.ti.com/notebook/docs/manuals/6000/online.htm
15. The keys seem to pop off easily and are almost impossible to get back on.
16. The screw on the bottom of the case comes loose on its own. This is bad, since it holds the disk drive in. When it is loose enough, it gives you an error that there is no disk.

Here are some ergonomic problems:

1. disk is poorly placed adjacent to the bottom of the machine without any insulation. This causes the bottom to get uncomfortably hot when placed on your lap.
2. inserting a pcmcia card is extremely difficult due to the poor design of the slots.
3. the hinge for the lcd screen is so weak, the lcd screen bounces back and forth while using the laptop on a train.
4. the pointing device is extremely stiff and difficult to use. If you haven't built up calluses yet, or you are using windows for a long time, your finger will get super sore.

The only thing I can say that is good about the TI is the software demo that came with the new machine (which I had to delete because it takes up so much space on the hard drive)

Return to Linux on TravelMate 6030

Mail me at mike.connors@mindless.com