Summary: A study was conducted to determine which lapsize microcomputers would best meet the needs of GAO auditors and evaluators.
GAO has found that there is a need for light-weight, portable computers to perform many of its tasks, and many lapsize computers would satisfy these needs and would be compatible with existing computer resources. The computers studied could logically be divided into three groups, and GAO found that: (1) one group includes computers which will run standard software and have disk drives, but they are the heaviest and least portable; (2) another group of computers has smaller disk drives and the computers are lighter, more compact, more rugged, and have greater storage capacity, but they are more expensive, require versions of software that are not yet commercially available, and will require costly data transfer; and (3) a third group includes the lightest and most compact machines, but the computers do not have built-in disk drives and do not run standard software. The evaluation team found that eight machines with built-in disk drives passed its technical evaluation; however, only four of these machines and three of the machines without built-in disk drives are suitable for GAO needs.
