New Netbooks

[nclark]

I checked with Expansys and they say that the Netbook advertised on their site is the old lower power PCMCIA slot one. They don't expect to get the new one for a while, and it will be priced higher when they are available.

Of course it could be that they were just trying to get me to buy one now rather than wait. I ordered the 7->NB ROM upgrade instead. Just hope they're still in stock by the time my finance department processes the order.

[wanman]

Hi there,

Can't think why the price of the new netbook would increase. Seems Expansys may have been trying to pull the wool. Not sure why you bought the upgrade chip instead though. I assume you have a 7 at the moment? Buying the upgrade chip will definitely not resolve any issues you have with the PCMCIA slot apart providing additional functionality for 'some' network cards.

If you needed the higher powered slot provided in the new Netbook, ring around you may find a company that has some of the new stock.

Regards

Si

[nclark]

Yes I have a 7 at present, and really want to use it with network cards. It is an older version (751) so I'm not sure if it will work or not, but I have access to some low powered CF network cards, so I'm hopeful. All depends on the drivers in the new OS of course.

I expect I will eventually upgrade to a "proper" netbook, but thought it best to wait until the new ones hit the supply line.

[wanman]

Not sure if the personality board will work but at least if you get it back to Expansys within 7 days, they will refund you in full. The reason for the potential problem is that Psion originally had seperate motherboard designs for the 7 and Netbook. These were rationalised to one shared design with the only difference being the personality board which controlled the CPU speed amongst other things.

There is , however, also a strong possibility that even with one of these new rationalised motherboards and a Netbook Personality Chip that the PCMCIA card voltage is restricted elsewhere. This could be true as if you look at the Machine Info, it still confirms a Machine Type of Series 7 rather than Netbook even with the new personality chip. This would indicate some other differences on these rationalised motherboards exsist.

Other rumours are that when in construction stage the CPU's were tested at speeds of 190mhz and any that failed were used in the 7's which ran at slower 133mhz speeds.

All you can do is try and if it works, then great. If not then make sure you send the chip back within 7 days.

Regards

Si