The best of its line
Written: Apr 09 '00 (Updated Apr 11 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Portable and convenient, slim, light, bright screen.
Cons: The floppy drive bay is still an issue; DVD drive takes up a lot of battery life
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| guadelupe's Full Review: Lenovo ThinkPad 600 X (6005FUK) PC Notebook |
I spent quite a bit of time in my previous job assessing laptops. I needed to know as much as possible about Compaq Armadas (the 41XX series), Dell Latitudes, Toshibas (as many as you can count), IBM Thinkpads, and Sony Vaios. I've always been fond of the IBM 500 and 600 series for their slim lines and relative durability, and the 600x seems to be the best of the line. The model I am assessing is a 600x PIII/650 with Speedstep Technology, 12G HD, 64M of RAM upgraded to 320 megs, 256 K L2 cache, with 4M of video RAM.
FORM
When you are buying a laptop, you are looking for one of two things - portability or compactness. The portability lovers are interested in something light and functional, and the compactness fiends are looking for an all-in-one solution that will offer everything you could ever need in that 12" footprint.
The 600x will not please the compactness lovers:
-as before, you have to choose whether you want the CD or the floppy in the front bay
-attaching the floppy is, once again, inconvenient. it sits on the right side, making external mouse usage uncomfortable for righties, and it is too close to the PC card slot.
On the other hand, portability fanatics will love the fact that the CD/DVD is a few ounces lighter than in the 560 series, so it still weighs in under 5 pounds. True lap-top use (on the train, for example) is better than before, since the 600x has a 9.5 x 12" footprint.
FUNCTION
Using the 600x is very easy - the 13.3" active matrix screen is wonderfully bright and surprisingly easy to read, and the keyboard is easy to use and responsive to touch. If you aren't a Trackpoint mouse lover, this version won't be any improvement at all - it still requires occasional re-customization and it still sometimes wanders when you're not touching it.
The CD/DVD drive is great, but quite the power hog (as is to be expected). The battery, which under normal usage can go for 3.5 hours, ends up with its life cut in half when watching a DVD. CD use will also cut down on battery life, but not as drastically.
If you use infrared functions on laptops, you'll still have the typical conflicts with anything that you try to use with the serial port - there was a bit of confusion when someone tried to configure my laptop for an infrared printer, and my COM port switched from COM2 to COM6... I have no need for infrared, so just overwrite the Windows 98 default IRQ.
Speaking of which...the only time I have issues with Windows 98 crashing is when I am streaming anything - audio, video, web cam. It will perform admirably, but the system will eventually run out of resources. Then again, I know a lot of people with that problem, no matter what the machine is. However, the 600x has a surprisingly good sound - you just can't type at the same time, or your wrists get in the way.
The Thinkpad line has also always had great options for docking or add-ons, and this one is no different - I use a docking station at work which allows me another USB port and easy attachment of extra mouse and keyboard (alone, you always have to choose between them). The docking station is incredibly simple, and though hotdocking the machine is problematic, I don't need to pick up and go often enough for that to cause an issue.
OVERALL
As far as laptops go, you really can't beat some of the features of the Thinkpad 600x - slim, easy to carry, convenient, and flexible with attachments. IBM has it all over Toshiba or Compaq in terms of backwards compatibility of hardware: I am still able to use the power adapter of the 501c on the 600x! I could go into far more detail about the internal functions of the machine - email me if you're interested.
All in all, an incredible machine and a good investment.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
guadelupe
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Location: new york, new york
Reviews written: 13
Trusted by: 3 members
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