Digital shows way in notebook design with HiNote Ultra

Digital, which in 1994 recalibrated industry expectations of the truly lightweight, elegant yet functional notebook computer with the release of the HiNote and HiNote Ultra, will soon unveil the second generation of its own notebook PCs.

Stephane Godevais, the French-born product director of product management and marketing for Digital's Mobile PC products, previewed two prototype machines the HiNote Ultra II and the HiNote VP under embargo to the press at Comdex Fall in Las Vegas in November last year.

At the time, two of the notebook industry's other great innovators, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, had just added Pentium machines in their OmniBook and ThinkPad families respectively.

The obvious question was why was Digital so slow to move to Pentium-class models? Then Mr Godevais, who previously worked for Hewlett-Packard's mobile products division in Grenoble, France, unveiled the dazzling specifications of the HiNote second generation machines.

The recent product release came later than Toshiba's own 133MHz Pentium Tecra, which was unveiled in Japan earlier this month. Digital's machines were initially to be released on March 4 to be ready in time for the CeBit Show in Hanover, Germany, but were delayed because of logistical reasons. The HiNote was most popular in the European and Japanese markets, winning several design awards. It was designed by an Italian designer recruited by Digital from Olivetti.

Mr Godevais also hinted at Digital's desire to set up a dedicated regional notebook PC factory each for Asia, Europe and the Americas. The first were made to Digital's specifications by Citizen in Japan.