Thinkpad 600 - THE International Business Machine!
Written: Aug 22 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: lightweight, fast, screen, long uptime
Cons: video out connector
|
|
|
| koottung's Full Review: Lenovo ThinkPad 600 (264585U) PC Notebook |
I am a long time IBM laptop fan. IBM laptops, unlike other laptops, have a following. Why? Because IBM makes excellent laptops that will deliver time after time through meetings and presentations. When it comes to your crucial business pitch, why would you trust anything else?
Of course, you may think that this review is a bit biased, since I have owned IBM laptops since the late 80s. However, name one other laptop brand where Pentium 90s still sell used for $300! That should give you some clue to the dependability and durability of ThinkPads.
The 600e that I own is a work of art - 400MHz processor, 12G hard drive, 288MB RAM (came standard with 64MB), DVD, 13.3" screen, 56K modem, and floppy.
Here are some special points:
* Lightweight - weighs just over 5 pounds and 1.4" thick. I take this machine everywhere! Beware of other laptops that look this thin - usually they are rounded so it is mainly an optical illusion.
*Extra long work time - the drive bay can also store a second battery - 6+ hours of continuous run time!
* Port covers won't get lost! IBM has the ultimate covers over the ports surrounding the unit. They don't come off, they are not "rubbery" and they easily close.
* 2 PCMCIA slots - other laptops only have one slot to keep their profile to a minimum and won't support Type III cards.
* The best keyboard on the market. What can I say? Just try it.
* Runs Windows 2000 - solid and fast! I have yet to have a lockup or crash.
Of course no laptop is perfect:
* Excellent sound, but your palms cover the speakers when you type.
* Non-standard connector for video out
* No way the check battery level when unit is off (older TPs had an LCD screen that displayed level)
* Limited to 288MB of RAM (32MB onboard and 2 memory slots)
The laptop itself is very quick. The real speed bottleneck is the hard drive. Of course all laptop hard drives are slow (4200 rpm or less), so it is not limited to IBMs. IBM does have a 5400 rpm version just out that I have heard blows everything away!
The unit runs so well, I can burn a CD (using a PCMCIA SCSI card and external burner), surf the web, work on a Word document, and run numbers in Excel. This is THE closest you can get to desktop performance.
The screen is very crisp, has excellent color and works well outdoors. This is great if you need to get a few things done in the car before the big meeting. There is also a complete travel kit available that lets you plug into planes, trains, and automobiles.
The DVD player works well under Win98, but has problems under Win2000. I was told Win2000 should have a fix soon. I dual boot 2000 and 98 so this is not a big deal at the moment.
I use Win 2000 as my main OS on my laptop. It is very stable under 2000, runs faster, has better memory management, runs longer on batteries, and has no problems from waking up after sleep or standby. I won't go much deeper into this since this is a ThinkPad review, not a Win2000 review. Nevertheless, I have had excellent performance.
In the end, the true value is how well your laptop works. Other guys at my office have Compaqs and Toshibas that never seem to run well, but they did save some money (or did they?). I have yet to call IBM for support, but if I had to, they have offices everywhere around the world. No lock-ups and it runs reliably, day after day, at the touch of a button. Sure it costs more, but how much is your time worth?
I would give this unit 4.5 stars if possible. 5 starts would be perfect and no laptop is perfect......maybe next year IBM.....
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
koottung
|
|
Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.