Compaq LTE Elite
i486 | |
Predecessor | LTE Lite |
---|---|
Successor | LTE 5000 series |
The LTE Elite was a series of
Development and specifications
The LTE Elite series was the third generation of LTE, a notebook family introduced five years earlier in 1989.[1][4] Development for the LTE Elite was led by Jim Hartzog, general manager of Compaq's portable computer division.[5] The LTE Elite directly replaced Compaq's LTE Lite series that they had introduced in 1992; the latter quickly became Compaq's flagship mobile computer, overtaking sales of their earlier luggable portables.[1] The LTE Elite series was manufactured in large part in Compaq's facility in Singapore.[6] Previously, Compaq had commissioned Citizen Watch of Japan to manufacture the LTE Lite series, but starting in mid-1993, Compaq had begun severing ties with Citizen in favor of focusing on optimizing their own Singapore plant.[7] Certain surface-mount PCBs were manufactured in Compaq's factory in Erskine, while final assembly of each LTE Elite was completed in Houston.[8][9] This marked the first time since 1991 that Compaq had produced their laptops domestically in the United States.[10]
A major feature of the LTE Elite series was the integration of the
The LTE Elite series was Compaq's first product with slots for
Compaq introduced four new
The monochrome active-matrix LCD used in the LTE Elite 4/50E, first premiered in Compaq's earlier LTE Lite line, was manufactured by Hosiden.[10][18][19] This was the same LCD used by Apple in some entries of their PowerBook 100 series.[19] Compaq were the only notebook manufacturer besides Apple to make use of active-matrix monochrome LCDs.[18][12]: 39 Compaq winded down production of the LTE Elite 4/50E after Hosiden's Kobe-based LCD factory was severely damaged in the Great Hanshin earthquake of January 1995, eliminating their future supply of monochrome active-matrix LCDs.[19]
Recalls
In late July 1994, only a month after having been shipped, three models of the LTE Elite line suffered from faulty VLSI PC Card controller chips that prevented slots from recognizing cards and that rejected cards shortly after the system recognized their insertion.[20][21] Compaq halted production until the fall of that year when a new batch of controllers was produced; machines with the fault-free controller have an orange sticker on the door of the PC Card slot.[21] This PC Card snafu was a major factor in Compaq's decision to cancel their Concerto tablet in August 1994.[22]
In late November 1994, Compaq again briefly suspended production of the LTE Elite in their Houston factory after discovering a bug in their BIOS ROM that prevented the units from recognizing RAM upgrades over 16 MB. The ROMs were reflashed in the factory with the corrected firmware;[23] meanwhile, customers of the LTE Elite were mailed floppy disks with a utility to patch their ROMs with the code corrections.[13]
In late December 1994, Compaq issued a recall of all LTE Elites to their European dealers after a defect in the 220-V power supply units of European models led to catastrophic failures in 10 percent of units sold. The failures were ultimately blamed on defective electrolytic capacitors.[24] The company meanwhile repurposed part of their Erskine facility for rapid replacement of the defective power supply units and BIOSes in unsold laptops, as well as laptops returned to Compaq for repair.[13]
Reception
Joe Abernathy of PC World gave the entire LTE Elite line high marks, writing that it "push[ed] beyond the basic requirements of mobile computing" and "move[d] the mobile computing standard forward".[25] In particular, Abernathy applauded Compaq's execution of plug-and-play in their implementation of the PC Card slots: "It was a joy to actually swap cards in and out of an Elite and have everything continue to work as promised."[25] Rex Farrance of the same publication also praised the LTE Elite line, rating it the best professional laptop in a lineup of 10 such laptops.[26]: 182 In particular, Farrance singled out the LTE Elite 4/75CX for its processor and battery life, respectively rating 10 percent faster than other laptops in its class and lasting six-and-a-half hours on a single charge in an average use-case scenario. Farrance quibbled with the display's brightness slider, which failed to dim enough to his liking, and the monitor-mounted trackball, which worked intermittently in his experience.[27]
Writing in
Reviewing the LTE Elite 4/75CX, William P. Flanagan of
Dwight Silverman of the Houston Chronicle, reviewing the LTE Elite 4/75CX, praised the laptop's ergonomics, calling the keyboard's actuation feel snappy and its layout well-designed and appreciated the retention of the monitor-mounted trackball from the LTE Lite series. He found reservation with the latter though, finding the mouse cursor prone to "sticking" due to finish of the ball being too polished for the bearings to track onto it. He also found the built-in hard drive's seek times slow. Like Caton, Silverman bemoaned the lack of a built-in sound capability beyond the PC speaker. He called the laptop's processor speedy and the laptop's battery life good, despite the "notoriously power-hungry active-matrix display".[16]: C5 Silverman ultimately could not recommend the laptop on account of its relatively steep 1994 street price of US$6,000.[16]: C1, C5 Marty Jerome of PC/Computing, also reviewing the LTE Elite 4/75CX, also balked at the laptop's price but applauded its higher-end features such as built-in SCSI and an upgradable processor and wrote that, on performance, "it competes with the best".[11] Unlike Silverman, Jerome called the trackball "a relic from a bygone era" and a point against its usability.[11]
Peter McWilliams of the Universal Press Syndicate, reviewing the LTE Elite 4/40CX, wrote that the integration of the pointing device and external AC adapter made for less items to potentially go missing while carrying the laptop from site to site and wrote that the monitor-mounted trackball, while it took time to get used to, was "brilliant" and ergonomic. He found the laptop's performance snappy, Norton Utilities's Sysinfo benchmark rating it as 78.8 times faster than the original IBM Personal Computer, the best rating he had hitherto seen from a laptop.[28]
A reviewer for the
Legacy
The LTE Elite was overall a disappointment for Compaq, the company poorly handling the rollout of the LTE Elite in 1994, according to the press at the time. For example, they discontinued the production of its predecessor the LTE Lite months before they were ready to ship the LTE Elite to customers.
Models
Model | Release date | Processor | Clock speed (MHz) |
LCD technology | LCD size (in.) |
LCD resolution |
Stock memory (max., in MB) |
HDD (MB) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
LTE Elite 4/40C | March 1994 | Intel i486DX2 | 40 | Passive-matrix color | 9.5 | 640×480 | 4 (20) | 170[10][17] |
LTE Elite 4/50E | March 1994 | Intel i486DX2 | 50 | Active-matrix monochrome | 9.5 | 640×480 | 8 (24) | 250[10][17] |
LTE Elite 4/40CX | March 1994 | Intel i486DX2 | 40 | Active-matrix color | 8.4 | 640×480 | 4 (20) | 170 or 340[10][17] |
LTE Elite 4/50CX | March 1994 | Intel i486DX2 | 50 | Active-matrix color | 9.5 | 640×480 | 8 (24) | 340[10][17] |
LTE Elite 4/75C | March 1995 | Intel i486DX4 | 75 | Passive-matrix color | 9.5 | 640×480 | 8 (32) | 340 or 510[34][17] |
LTE Elite 4/75CX | March 1994 | Intel i486DX4 | 75 | Active-matrix color | 9.5 | 640×480 | 4 (24) | 340 or 510[10][17] |
LTE Elite 4/75CXL | March 1995 | Intel i486DX4 | 75 | Active-matrix color | 10.4 | 640×480 | 8 (32) | 510 or 810[34][17] |
References
- ^ a b c Staff writer (March 7, 1994). "Compaq Computer Corp.: Five Notebook Computers Due to Be Unveiled Today". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company: B6 – via ProQuest.
- ^ Silverman, Dwight (August 22, 1995). "New full-tilt notebook: Compaq bringing out versatile machine to make a run for the top again". San Francisco Examiner: D2 – via ProQuest.
- ^ Silverman, Dwight (March 19, 1996). "Compaq lowers notebook prices, halts Elite line". Houston Chronicle: 2 – via ProQuest.
- ISBN 9789814489898– via Google Books.
- ^ Fitzgerald, Michael (March 14, 1994). "Little relief seen for color backlogs". Computerworld. 28 (11). IDG Publications: 39 – via Google Books.
- ^ Staff writer (May 4, 1994). "Battle for the desktop: DX4 notebooks". PC User (234). EMAP Media: 37 et seq – via Gale.
- ^ Staff writer (July 16, 1993). "Compaq Computer Corp.: Some Notebook Production to Be Moved from Citizen". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company: B4 – via ProQuest.
- ^ a b "How No. 1 Compaq plans to stay that way". Electronic Business Buyer. 20 (9). Reed Business Information: 52 et seq. September 1994 – via Gale.
- ^ Staff writer (February 3, 1995). "Compaq Retains Inventec of Taiwan". Computer Business Review. New Statesman Media Group. Archived from the original on October 10, 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f g Silverman, Dwight (March 7, 1994). "Noting new notebooks". Houston Chronicle: 1 – via ProQuest.
- ^ a b c Jerome, Marty (November 1994). "Kiss Your Power Brick Good-Bye". PC/Computing. 7 (11). Ziff-Davis: 70 – via the Internet Archive.
- ^ a b c d e f g Flanagan, William P. (September 13, 1994). "Power Without the Brick: The Compaq LTE Elite 4/75CX Lightens the Load". PC Magazine. 13 (15). Ziff-Davis: 37–39 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b c Marray, Michael (December 23, 1994). "Compaq recalls flagship computers as bugs strike". The Independent: 23 – via ProQuest.
- ^ a b c d e f g Caton, Michael (July 25, 1994). "Compaq's LTE Notebook Gives Users Less to Lug Along". PC Week. 11 (29). Ziff-Davis: 69 et seq – via Gale.
- ISBN 9780471085867– via Google Books.
- ^ a b c Silverman, Dwight (August 1, 1994). "Compaq Elite is great but too costly". Austin American-Statesman: C1, C5 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Staff writer (May 4, 1994). "Compaq LTE Elite 4/40CX: DX2/DX4 notebooks". PC User (234). EMAP Media: 44 – via Gale.
- ^ a b Angus, Earl; Siobhan Nash (August 2, 1993). "Compaq offers quality viewing". InfoWorld. 15 (31). IDG Publications: 82 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b c Crothers, Brooke (January 23, 1995). "LCD production damaged in earthquake". InfoWorld. 17 (4). IDG Publications: 14 – via Google Books.
- ^ Francis, Bob (August 8, 1994). "Compaq recalls notebooks with faulty slots". InfoWorld. 16 (32). IDG Publications: 95 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b Spanbauer, Scott (November 1994). "Bug watch". PC World. 12 (11). IDG Publications: 31 – via Gale.
- ^ Zimmerman, Michael R. (August 22, 1994). "Compaq shelves PDA plans as portables hit bumps". PC Week. 11 (33). Ziff-Davis: 43 et seq – via Gale.
- ^ Zimmerman, Michael R. (November 28, 1994). "Compaq fixes flaws that halted 2 notebook lines". PC Week. 11 (47). Ziff-Davis: 3 – via Gale.
- ^ Vijayan, Jaikumar (December 26, 1994). "Problems continue to bedevil Compaq's LTE Elite". Computerworld. 29 (1). IDG Publications: 4 – via ProQuest.
- ^ a b Abernathy, Joe (August 1994). "Compaq's First-Class Companion". PC World. 12 (8). IDG Publications: 70 – via the Internet Archive.
- ^ Farrance, Rex (October 1994). "The Top 20 Mobile PCs". PC World. 12 (10). IDG Publications: 182–183 – via the Internet Archive.
- ^ Farrance, Rex (October 1994). "The Top 20 PCs: Compaq LTE Elite". PC World. 12 (10). IDG Publications: 178 – via the Internet Archive.
- ^ McWilliams, Peter (September 26, 1994). "Compaq LTE Elite has some wonderful features, few drawbacks". Winston-Salem Journal: 18 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Howlett, Dennis (July 12, 1995). "Second look: Compaq LTE Elite". PC User (263). EMAP Media: 44 – via Gale.
- ^ Fitzgerald, Michael (January 23, 1995). "Compaq tries to regain notebook throne". Computerworld. 29 (4). IDG Publications: 6 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b c Francis, Bob; Yvonne L. Lee (January 30, 1995). "Compaq slates big changes to gain edge in notebooks". InfoWorld. 17 (5). IDG Publications: 8 – via Google Books.
- ^ Silverman, Dwight (August 22, 1995). "New Compaq notebook full of surprises". Houston Chronicle: 1 – via ProQuest.
- ^ Fitzergald, Michael; Jaikumar Vijayan (April 17, 1995). "Users: Problems with Compaq notebooks linger". Computerworld. 29 (16). IDG Publications: 8 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b Francis, Bob (March 13, 1995). "Compaq's LTE Elite portables gain larger screens, drives". InfoWorld. 17 (11). IDG Publications: 37 – via Google Books.