It seems Hewlett Packard listens to its customers. Feature after feature in HP's new 100LX addresses a limitation in the HP 95LX. You'll find no PHONE file size limit on the HP 100LX. Its Appointment Book has week- and month-at-a-glance views. The 100LX has much greater IBM PC compatibility and much freer access between built-in applications and DOS. It comes with a full-featured flat- file data base program. HP has greatly decreased the possibility of losing C drive data. In addition, the 100LX provides an outlining feature, search and replace capabilities, date stamping, and more. The list of implemented customer requests goes on and on. To find out about this new technical marvel read Mark Scardina's analysis on page 6 and then my hands-on report in User to User, page 13.
There is one user concern that HP didn't address with the HP 100LX -- its size. The HP Palmtop form factor is successful because you can easily carry it anywhere. Yet, many of us don't like the fact that it is difficult to type memos or reports with its diminutive keyboard. HP has a solution for that too.
Enter the HP OmniBook 300 superportable PC. HP spent quite a bit of time talking to its key customers about what they wanted in a portable PC. Customers told HP: make it small, make it light, make its batteries last, but give me a full size keyboard. The result is the HP OmniBook 300.
The same HP Corvallis division that pioneered PC compatible palmtop computing is now staking out new ground with the HP OmniBook. HP sees the HP OmniBook as a new class of laptop, a "superportable" (page 19). Next issue we plan to give you our hands-on report, and we'll tell you if we think HP met its goal.
Many of you have asked how The HP Palmtop Paper is going to cover these new machines. You have also asked whether we will continue our HP 95LX coverage.
Our current subscriber base is made up primarily of 95LX users. HP will continue to sell the HP 95LX. As long as we have HP 95LX subscribers, we will continue our coverage of the HP 95LX.
We formally begin coverage of the 100LX next issue. Fortunately, many articles naturally relate to both the 100LX and 95LX. Even though this issue was designed for 95LX users, HP 100LX users will find the majority of the material relevant to them.
When 95LX users finish reading about the new HP products, they should check out the reviews on Appointment Book enhancers (page 25) and databases (page 32). The products discussed in these categories address major limitations in the 95LX and represent a good alternative to upgrading to a 100LX.
We will cover the HP OmniBook 300 superportable PC in a separate quarterly publication, HP OmniBook World. Expect the first issue this Winter.
We always appreciate your feedback on how to best serve HP Palmtop users in The HP Palmtop Paper. If you have ideas, please drop me a line or send me CompuServe E-mail [75300,2443].