As predicted (CI No 2,287) Hewlett-Packard Co has announced its latest notebook – the Omnibook 425, and has gone to Cyrix Corp for the processor. However the machine runs at 25MHz, rather than the 33MHz clock-doubled chip that was expected. The company is positioning the new offering as the lightest – 2.9 lbs 486-based portable with a full-sized keyboard and a suite of Windows applications built into ROM, along with MS-DOS 6. The machine comes with two storage options, a 40Mb PCMCIA Type III hard disk or a 10Mb Flash disk located on a PCMCIA type II card. The MS-DOS 6 DoubleSpace utility can be used to compress the data on the PCMCIA drives. Bundled applications include the first ROM-based versions of Microsoft Corp’s WinWord and Excel together with Hewlett’s home-brewed Phone Book, Appointment Book and Financial Calculator. The Omnibook 425, which has a monochrome screen, will run off its four AA batteries for up to eight hours. It measures 11.1 by 6.4 by 1.4 and costs $2,125 with a 40Mb hard disk or $2,375 for 10Mb Flash storage – Flash memory remains substantially more expensive than baby disks.
