All of the ones I tried out were god awful slow, having to flip through a bunch of pages to get to the one I punched in. Is this the TVs fault?
Unfortunately not. Teletext works by broadcasting each page in turn, continually. When you type in the page number you want to view the TV waits for that page to be broadcast before it can be displayed, hence the wait. If you want page 555 and 556 has just been broadcast then you have to wait ages.
Teletext does look very dated these days but it can be quite useful, especially if you're already watching TV and just want to look something up.
800x600 is a bit too small for comfort; even on a 15" I think I'd use 1024x768 to stop myself feeling cramped.
2000x1500 is very much the other extreme, but I don't think I'd use it unless I could run it at 70Hz or higher. 62Hz tends to make my eyes ache after 15 minutes or so. Mind you, I'd love the hardware to be able to use 2000x1500 if I ever needed/wanted to...
Regarding your comment about MiniDiscs, I don't see them as a replacement for the CD because there's nothing wrong with the CD for storing audio data - it doesn't need replacing. MiniDiscs are, however, a long-overdue replacement for the cassette, and this is the reason why they have taken off in such a big way over the past couple of years.
I can't really see MD being successful as a medium for prerecorded music, and I certainly have no plans to buy albums on MD because the sound is likely to be slightly inferior and I prefer the larger booklet which the physical size of the CD makes possible. It's as a cheap, re-recordable and (relatively) high quality replacement for cassette that the MiniDisc will be (and is becoming) successful.
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All of the ones I tried out were god awful slow, having to flip through a bunch of pages to get to the one I punched in. Is this the TVs fault?
Unfortunately not. Teletext works by broadcasting each page in turn, continually. When you type in the page number you want to view the TV waits for that page to be broadcast before it can be displayed, hence the wait. If you want page 555 and 556 has just been broadcast then you have to wait ages.
Teletext does look very dated these days but it can be quite useful, especially if you're already watching TV and just want to look something up.
800x600 is a bit too small for comfort; even on a 15" I think I'd use 1024x768 to stop myself feeling cramped.
2000x1500 is very much the other extreme, but I don't think I'd use it unless I could run it at 70Hz or higher. 62Hz tends to make my eyes ache after 15 minutes or so. Mind you, I'd love the hardware to be able to use 2000x1500 if I ever needed/wanted to...
Regarding your comment about MiniDiscs, I don't see them as a replacement for the CD because there's nothing wrong with the CD for storing audio data - it doesn't need replacing. MiniDiscs are, however, a long-overdue replacement for the cassette, and this is the reason why they have taken off in such a big way over the past couple of years.
I can't really see MD being successful as a medium for prerecorded music, and I certainly have no plans to buy albums on MD because the sound is likely to be slightly inferior and I prefer the larger booklet which the physical size of the CD makes possible. It's as a cheap, re-recordable and (relatively) high quality replacement for cassette that the MiniDisc will be (and is becoming) successful.