I'm in Dallas today on a business trip and met with the western region Director of Sales for Terason, Jerry Michel. He brought the t3000 so I could finally see this unit "in action" so I could get an idea of just how good the images are on this unit.
What I found is that hands down, for price/performance, this unit is an absolute winner. It's small, lightweight, and essentially defies current ideas and standards of how ultrasound works (hardware vs. software processing). This is a powerful machine with excellent image quality.
Color, Doppler, and 2D imaging were really impressive, it held great frame rates when in triplex (Color, Doppler, 2D), and provided excellent waveforms for a vascular study. In the picture I have here (clearly I need to look at these photos after I take them!), you can see a breast image. Next time I'll get more images and post them here. I spent more time playing with the unit than taking pictures.
Since the last post, I've received 6 phone calls and emails from people in this unit. It seems the biggest hesitation people have is that it's not a GE unit or one from a "major" manufacturer. Well, to that I say phooey. If this were a unit from a major manufacturer, it would cost at least $10,000 more and they'd give it a name that some marketing company received a healthy sum for creating, like Acuson P50 or something. This would beat out any direct competitor in a side-by-side, they'd kill it in price, and you'll get a 2-year warranty instead of just one. For example, the current Logiq e, which isn't as good, will cost you at least $5k more... and $7k more for the 2-year warranty.
Oh, and because this is a "true" laptop, you have full access to the Windows and Macintosh OSX operating systems... which means you can store, edit, post-process all images as well as use it as a laptop computer. Yes, this means you can print to any printer on your network, share images over the network, use the word processor and web browser, watch a DVD, etc. Try that with any other "laptop" unit (in which you'd need a special service dongel to get to the operating system... and even if you had access to the dongel, you would likely void your warranty when you tried to install anything due to potential software conflicts). This is a big deal, by the way, because installing anything besides the "approved" dvd-writers, printers, etc., on other systems is a tremendous hassle and often requires a service representative to perform the installation for you, and this would not be a free visit.
To be fair, however, in certain markets this unit isn't quite ready. I would recommend it for nearly all mobile, breast, musculoskeletal, phlebology, vascular, internal radiology, anesthesia, surgery, abdominal, or urology markets. It has a solid reporting package for these markets (which is severely lacking in comparable products). You can do OB/GYN, but you'll want a separate reporting package (I'm going to try it with Ashva's iMagic when I get a chance). I haven't seen the cardiac package, but I think having Siemens pick this up as the upgrade to the Cypress is all that needs to be said (the Terason t3000 will also be sold later this quarter as the Acuson P50). The cardiovascular version of the Terason t3000 (or Acuson P50) will be more expensive (adding CW Doppler and cardiac packages isn't cheap) and will go head-to-head with the Vivid i. For this I think GE has a worthy competitor, and Siemens is betting on it. In addition, you simply cannot ignore the value of a 2-year warranty (Siemens is rumored to only offer 1-year, so you'll want to get the Terason). Obviously Terason knows it has a killer app in the t3000.
Questions? Email me or leave a comment here for everyone else to see.
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