Amstrad Plc upped the ante in the laptop market at the Hannover Fair yesterday with the launch of three extremely competitive laptop computers, with an 80286-based model at UKP1,600 and an 80386SX at UKP2,000, including hard disk. Being made for the company in Japan, the machines are both clocked at 16MHz and measure 12.5 by 15 by 3.7. The ALT-286 comes with 1Mb upgradable to 2Mb or 4Mb, 20Mb 3.5 disk with 28mS access, VGA/ ECA/ CGA/ Hercules compatible graphics on the backlit liquid crystal diode display, MS-DOS 3.3 and built-in battery charger which is charging whenever the box is plugged into the mains. It has two serial, one parallel and a VGA monitor port, and there is also a socket for an AT-compatible keyboard for those that want to spread themselves. There is also a 16-bit half slot inside. The ALT-386SX is the same apart from coming with a 25mS average access 40Mb disk and faster memory – 0.6 wait state instead of one. The machines will be available in volume across Europe in May.
