Compaq LTE 5200

Many portables are on the market, but few offer the options, power, and easeof use of the Compaq LTE 5000 series. These features come at a price: $6700 forthe base LTE 5200. However, if you're looking for a system that's as close toplug-it-in-and-run as you can get on a portable running Windows NT, an LTE isyour best bet.

Power on the Road
Compaq sent the Windows NT Magazine Lab an LTE 5200 with allthe fixin's, including 40MB of RAM, a 1.35GB hard drive, a quad-speed CD-ROMdrive, and a docking station. The 120-MHz Pentium CPU is fast, and with 40MB ofRAM and 256KB of L2 cache on the system board, this machine really gets up andgoes. If that much memory and disk aren't enough for you, note that the unit cantake up to 72MB of RAM by using a dedicated dual-card memory expansion slot fora 64MB module. In addition, you can get up to 2.7GB of disk internally, not tomention what you can add through PC Card (formerly PCMCIA) slots or a dockingstation.

Speaking of expansion, you get several options for mass storage, too. Thefloppy drive slides out of a multifunction MultiBay to make room for a CD-ROMdrive. You can easily remove the internal hard disk, which even comes with aheavy-duty carrying case. Another option is Compaq's MultiBay Expansion Base.The only missing option is a SCSI-2 connector for extra peripherals on the road,and the expansion base doesn't have one, either (see the sidebar, "AdaptecSlimSCSI," on page 32).

The whole 5000 series, including the LTE 5200, has an excellent display: a10.4", 800*600 pixel, full-color (65,000 colors) TFT active-matrix LCD.It's bright and easy to read. Although the display is smaller than the new 12.1"displays on high-end IBM portables, the Compaq offers plenty of screen realestate to work in and probably draws less power than IBM's large screen. A handyaddition would be a switch to turn the backlight on and off to preserve batterylife.

Features and Expansion
Like all high-end Compaq systems, the LTE 5200 has features galore. Inaddition to the memory and disk upgrades, the 5200's MultiBay can accommodate aCD-ROM drive, floppy drive, second hard disk (thus, with two 1.35GB drives, youcan have a total of 2.7GB internally), or second battery.

The quad-speed CD-ROM drive will accept most formats (video CD, CD-I, KodakPhoto CD, Audio CD, ISO 9660/CDFS) on both 5.25" and 3.5" CDs. Throughthe expansion base, you can have up to 5.4GB of disk storage (with 2.7GB in thenotebook, and 2.7GB in the base) or simultaneous CD-ROM and floppy.

The MultiBay Expansion Base also offers built-in 10BaseT Ethernetconnectors (RJ-45 and coaxial). We didn't find an NT driver for this controller,and it had an address/interrupt conflict with the EtherLink III card we hadalready installed in the 5200. We had to either remove the card or disable thebuilt-in controller to make the expansion base work. Disabling the base'scontroller and using a PC Card network interface is the only way to connect to anetwork until a proper driver is released. Other features include pass-throughconnectors for video, parallel, serial, audio, and keyboard/mouse, and agame/MIDI port. You can also get two additional Type III PC Card slots (whichcan also take Type I and II cards), an Infrared Data Association (IrDA-1)compatible optical data port (which is also on the portable), two additionalMultiBay device bays, and a special connector for Compaq's MPEG and TV VideoAdapter.

The system's built-in video support includes hardware-based Motion VideoAcceleration (MVA) for improving smoothness and image flow. The MPEG optionallows decompression, video playback and capture, Audio/Video Interleaved (AVI)video capture at full-motion speed, and a standard NTSC video output.

The 5200 has the standard suite of expansion connectors (SVGA, enhancedparallel, serial, PS/2-style keyboard/mouse), and a one-eighth-inch line-levelstereo input, one-eighth-inch headphone and microphone ports, and an internalmicrophone.

Architecture and Performance
The LTE 5200 is not a workstation, but it's as close as any portable todaywill get. It has a 64-bit cache and memory bus, 32-bit PCI local bus video (1MBof DRAM), IDE controller, and extensive audio capabilities.

Based on a Cirrus Logic chipset, the LTE 5200's audio is fully SoundBlasterPro compatible in both Windows NT and DOS mode. You will have todownload the appropriate NT 3.51 driver from Compaq's FTP site (retrieve fileftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/drivers/sp1460.exe), and be sure to read theincluded instructions before using this driver. At the same location(sp1461.exe), you'll find a video driver file for the system's Cirrus videochips. So, with the proper driver, you get 16-bit, CD-quality stereo sound fromthe twin speakers on either side of the display--you even get a manual systemvolume control.

Portables do not typically use the very high-speed data and I/O buses thatare on standard workstations. Although people don't usually choose notebookcomputers for compute-intensive applications, this system performs well on taskssuch as multimedia presentations and office automation. Its high-end processingpower means a multitude of applications can simultaneously run without anynoticeable drop in performance.

Pros and Cons
The LTE 5200 is powerful, but setting it up for ordinary use revealed someinteresting pros and cons. On the positive side, the LTE 5200 is compact yetsolid, weighing 7.4 pounds. Upgrading the system is quick and easy: The memorymodule slides into a dedicated slot, and the BIOS autodetects it. You can swapdevices in and out of the MultiBay with the flip of a latch. Setting up theoperating system is painless, and all the software we tested on it, includingaudio and video applications such as Apple's QuickTime for Windows, worksflawlessly.

On the less positive side, to change between an internal floppy and CD inthe MultiBay, you must physically cycle the power, rather than just warm-bootit. The audio is noisy, with some buzz, hum, and static, because a little fan isdirectly adjacent to the audio circuitry. At the same time, this fan is apositive attribute, because it cools the system enough so that its 120-MHz CPUwon't burn a hole through your lap. The system still has no power management.Although this lack is disappointing, it's not Compaq's fault, because NT doesnot support power management without specially written software. On the subjectof power, note that the LTE 5200 has only a NiMH battery, instead of theLithium-Ion battery that some of its competitors have, and we got only about 1.5to 2 hours of serious use per charge. Be sure to disable the powermanagement in CMOS, or your system will lose its mind when the hard drive spinsdown.

Like every system, this one has its flaws. But, make no mistake: The LTE5200 is an excellent portable NT workstation, with everything you will need forpower computing on the road.