Difference between revisions of "Siemens-Nixdorf PCD-4ND"

A midrange, somewhat compact, business laptop, released in 1995. It had a below average mix of parts for a 486. While the CPU is good for a 486, the sub-par video chipset and the lack of any soundcard seriously position this laptop as more of a low-end model, despite what IBM stated.

The Western Digital branded video chipset was already obsolete by the time of the laptop's release. The lack of any acceleration functions means that even running Windows 3.1 in 640x480 feels sluggish and Windows 95 operation feels very slow. It is very difficult to understand why IBM insisted on using such video chipsets that do not even expose VESA capabilities, requiring loading a special VESA TSR to be able to run Windows in 640x480 resolution. Also, although resolutions such as 1024x768 at 256 colors are possible, they are clearly beyond the user's patience.

The inclusion of a relatively modern TFT screen, having a good contrast ratio and response time is one of the few saving graces in terms of technical prowess as most laptops of its era either had poor color LCDs or good but monochrome ones. RAM capabilities are mixed. The lack of standardization means that memory upgrades are quite difficult to find, as the laptop require a potentially proprietary memory module standard, the so-called memory module adapter, that looks like PCMCIA but is not PCMCIA, to be used.