|
[ Go to April 1997 Table of Contents ]
WinLab Reviews
-- by Jim Forbes
When a computer manufacturer announces it is pulling out of the market, it's usually a signal to avoid its orphaned products. Not so this time. Although Canon is withdrawing from the desktop and notebook marketplace, it will continue to support products currently in the pipeline, as well as its existing base of users. The Innova Book 490CDT comes standard with a 133MHz Pentium, internal 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro-compatible audio and two self-contained speakers, a 6X CD-ROM drive, 16MB of RAM, a Hitachi 1.08GB hard drive, a Cirrus Logic PCI graphics accelerator with 1MB of video memory and a full complement of external ports. The 11.3-inch active-matrix display has an 800x600 resolution that produces vivid colors. It measures 1.8 by 11.5 by 9.0 inches and weighs in at 6.9 pounds (including the power supply). The Innova Book 490CDT uses nickel metal hydride batteries, which consistently delivered more than 2.3 hours of power with only average power conservation enabled. The 490-CDT averaged 244MIPS, and its video generated 6.6Mpixels per second throughput. However, its hard disk score, 1.37MBps throughput, is well below par. Average times to execute our application macros, 28.33 seconds for Word and 18.0 seconds for Excel, were quite good, given the below-average performance of its hard disk. This system is a fine choice for running video-intensive applications, such as simple presentations. While the 490CDT may not be a barn-burner like the Dell Latitude LM P133ST on our Recommended List, it's more than adequate for daily use.
|