How Much Power? PC Label Doesn’t Say

One of the most popular features of the laptops being introduced today by Irvine-based Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. has no computing function, takes up no hard drive space, and can only be seen by the most discerning eye.

But it combats one of the greatest annoyances faced by corporate IT people everywhere: laptop envy.

An executive would receive a slick new laptop and be happy with it. But a month later, a junior executive would be hired and get a laptop that, because of the speed of improvement in computers, was almost invariably better than the senior executive’s machine.

The boss, seeing the higher number on their underlings’ computers, would call down to IT and demand that the computation power imbalance be addressed.

“That was a key concern to our customers that was very easy to address for us,” said Chris Pollitt, Toshiba’s group manager for portable product marketing.

A feature first introduced by Toshiba a year and a half ago and now an industry standard, computer manufacturers no longer adorn their laptops with numbers that signify the power of the machine. The numbers now stand for a series of laptops and an internal code printed in small type on the bottom of the computer indicates varying speeds and capacities.

“It’s a status symbol,” Pollitt said. “People got hung up on the fact that someone else had a more powerful label.”

The company continues the labeling practice with its new Tecra 8100 line and the Portege 7140 CT. They are what one would expect from a new line of computers: faster, more powerful, and with more capacity at the same price range of between $3,199 and $3,699.