Impressions on speed and battery life.
Speed:
There are broadly comparable start-up times; the system, however, seems marginally slower in saving a file for some reason, but not so that it is problematic. I only want the machine for text work, so speed is not especially important - the Duo fits in my briefcase very nicely (a 2300c is even smaller than a 2400c!), and, because it is basically worthless, it is expendable if dropped, stolen while on a pee break in a library, etc. (unlike my PBG4, which would not be so disposable). Ref. F Duo keyboards are also not too bad to work on - really.
I am using Word 2001, and while the performance is no match for my Pismo, it is not at all unpleasant. The spell check is very fast. Finds, on the other hand, are a bit slow. Explique-moi.
Battery life:
Here I find significant improvement.
With a spinning drive before, the battery (recelled with fresh NiMh cells) gave 1:20 or so (contrast this with 2:05 on the same cells with spinning disk in a PB 270c with the processor clock halved, and around 3:15 with drive spun down - can't beat a 68030 for some things). It was possible to spin the 2300c hard drive down, of course, and by doing so I could get up to 1:50 max. on the gauge. Unfortunately, however, you can't reduce a 603e processor's speed, though I gather that by design, it "naps" when inactive.
With the CF card in the 2300c, the battery gauge presently registers 2:10 on a full charge with constant drive access. (In the control strip, oddly enough, you can still "spin down" the drive, but I am not sure what effect that could have, but come to think of it, I'll have to give it a whirl.) A charge of 2:10 would not be bad; 3:00 on the 2300c would be even better, but I'll likely never get it. It seems that those 100MHz clock cycles really do suck the juice out of the cells. However, the battery has as yet not been completely cycled in the 2300c, and as this is a new OS install, it is hard to say how much it will get in the end, as the battery life has to be "learned" by the system through use. At present, the machine is best-guessing, and it could be more, or it could even be less.
Some of these differences may, of course, be due to using different OSes: 7.6.1 was on the conventional HD; 8.5.1 is now on the CF card.
I'll trial the system a little more, and post again if the details change significantly. The IDE-CF adapter cost all of $3 on eBay, and a new 4GB CF card cost me $20. This is a cheap hack, and I am very pleased with the results so far. Lovely and quiet too.
Speed:
There are broadly comparable start-up times; the system, however, seems marginally slower in saving a file for some reason, but not so that it is problematic. I only want the machine for text work, so speed is not especially important - the Duo fits in my briefcase very nicely (a 2300c is even smaller than a 2400c!), and, because it is basically worthless, it is expendable if dropped, stolen while on a pee break in a library, etc. (unlike my PBG4, which would not be so disposable). Ref. F Duo keyboards are also not too bad to work on - really.
I am using Word 2001, and while the performance is no match for my Pismo, it is not at all unpleasant. The spell check is very fast. Finds, on the other hand, are a bit slow. Explique-moi.
Battery life:
Here I find significant improvement.
With a spinning drive before, the battery (recelled with fresh NiMh cells) gave 1:20 or so (contrast this with 2:05 on the same cells with spinning disk in a PB 270c with the processor clock halved, and around 3:15 with drive spun down - can't beat a 68030 for some things). It was possible to spin the 2300c hard drive down, of course, and by doing so I could get up to 1:50 max. on the gauge. Unfortunately, however, you can't reduce a 603e processor's speed, though I gather that by design, it "naps" when inactive.
With the CF card in the 2300c, the battery gauge presently registers 2:10 on a full charge with constant drive access. (In the control strip, oddly enough, you can still "spin down" the drive, but I am not sure what effect that could have, but come to think of it, I'll have to give it a whirl.) A charge of 2:10 would not be bad; 3:00 on the 2300c would be even better, but I'll likely never get it. It seems that those 100MHz clock cycles really do suck the juice out of the cells. However, the battery has as yet not been completely cycled in the 2300c, and as this is a new OS install, it is hard to say how much it will get in the end, as the battery life has to be "learned" by the system through use. At present, the machine is best-guessing, and it could be more, or it could even be less.
Some of these differences may, of course, be due to using different OSes: 7.6.1 was on the conventional HD; 8.5.1 is now on the CF card.
I'll trial the system a little more, and post again if the details change significantly. The IDE-CF adapter cost all of $3 on eBay, and a new 4GB CF card cost me $20. This is a cheap hack, and I am very pleased with the results so far. Lovely and quiet too.