FS: Toshiba Portege 3490CT

[asiafish]

I know its not a ThinkPad, but it is a very cool competitor and contemporary of the X21.

It is a Pentium III 700MHz with an 8MB S3 Savage (think T20) graphics card, a 16GB hard drive and 256MB of RAM. It weighs 3.4lbs (same as X21), but is smaller and thinner in most dimensions by a millimeter or three.

It uses a pointing stick, though nowhere near as good as IBM's, has a rather funky keyboard layout, but good (though shallow) key feel. It has an 11" XGA screen that is "jewel like", and one feature that puts it ahead of any X-series or just about any other laptop until the X40, and that is the ability to connect a large plate battery to the bottom that boosts runtime up to 9 hours (I don't have the big cell, but they are frequently on eBay for about $50~$100).

Its a neat toy and a personal favorite laptop of mine since I owned one new back in 2000. I wanted another and bid on two of them, winning both, so I have an extra to sell.

Its in fair condition, with no cracks and an excellent screen, but a few smudges on the case plastics (magnesiums, actually) and scuffs on the silver-painted lid. It still looks very sharp in a crowd and still gets about 1.5 hours on its aging battery (you get the better of the two batteries I have).

It does not have any drives except the hard drive, and will come with Windows 2000 installed and fully updated as it can be a pain in the asphalt to install an OS on an ultralight. There is no COA for Windows on this machine.

First $150 takes it. These usually fetch about $200 on eBay in this condition (maxed ram, no cracks, good LCD and battery).

[tomh009]

The 3490CT is indeed a very nice machine. I remember looking at those in the days before Toshiba abandoned the pointing stick ...

But that said, I do have to note that the X30 already had the ability to snap an extended battery on the base -- strictly speaking, a wedge rather than a plate, but effectively the same idea (and arguably with better ergonomics).

[dorronto]

Sounds interesting. But I have plenty of laptops......
RIGHT?

Good luck Andrew.
Ron

[asiafish]

The 3490CT is indeed a very nice machine. I remember looking at those in the days before Toshiba abandoned the pointing stick ...

But that said, I do have to note that the X30 already had the ability to snap an extended battery on the base -- strictly speaking, a wedge rather than a plate, but effectively the same idea (and arguably with better ergonomics).

X30 and "Already" cannot go together, as the 3490CT is a full 2 years older. Its contemporary from IBM was the X21, which lacked multiple battery capability.

And while the X3x do indeed accept two batteries, they are "only" rated for 8 hours when so equipped. That said, I squeezed over 9 hours from an X32 with regular and extended batteries last year at a conference, for which it was an ideal setup.

[tomh009]

Yes, I'll grant you that it's not "already" relative to the 3490CT -- but it is "already" relative to the newer X40.

3490CT was early 2001, X30 was mid-2002, X40 was early 2004.

[asiafish]

Mine must have been preproduction then, because I got it in December 2000.

That is entirely possible, as it was provided by Toshiba as a replacement for a Satellite 2675DVD that after 5 repairs remained a crashmaster.

[tomh009]

It could also be that I'm off by a month or two ... I thought it was Jan 2001, but I've been wrong once or twice before!