IBM ThinkPad 600 (IBM Thinkpad 600)

Member Name: GR-Design

Product:	IBM Thinkpad 600
Date:	22/11/01 (4435 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Build quality

Disadvantages: Doesn't look so hot!

About a week ago now I bought an IBM ThinkPad 600 Laptop computer. It is second hand, but only just over a year old. It cost £500 incl VAT and this is what I got for my money?

PII 300 Processor
64 MB Ram
5 Gig HDD
24x CD-Rom
13.3? screen
56K modem

I needed a laptop for work, so was looking for something that isn?t afraid of getting carted around. Now, I know that?s the general idea of laptops, but these days they seem to be built to look good and not to be durable when carrying them around. That?s fine if you leave your laptop on your desk all the time, but this needs to be carried around a lot, and in any case, I?ve got the desktop PC which sits on my desk!

First of all, fashion conscious people will not like the IBM series of laptops. They are built to be durable and tough, not in the slightest to look good. In fact my Laptop looks like an old 486 laptop in the way it?s built and doesn?t look anything like the laptops that you?ll find in curry?s etc. The laptop is square, there are no curves, when you open it up you have a very black keyboard and 3 mice buttons (one which I still haven?t figured out what it does!) that look pretty unsightly. They could have done better, yes I know, but here?s the good bit. The reason the laptop is not all sexy with curves etc is because it is covered in Titanium Composite, a layer of a soft black titanium which sits on the plastic casing. This protects the plastic from splitting (a big problem with laptops I have found) and also stops it from getting scratched or damaged if you accidentally knock it against something. It also feels quite nice. Now, this is a big added bonus for me and it doesn?t look as bad as it sounds, it?s all finished off very nicelyand you would actually think there was no plastic casing underneath the Titanium Composite covers (if you want to know what Titanium Composite is, ask Sarah_Louise, she probably has the answer for you!). Apart from that you have a ve
ry black laptop which is never going to win the Miss Laptop contest!

If any of you are looking for a very durable workhorse of a laptop which is built to do it?s job, then continue reading on and put an IBM laptop high on your list. If however your looking for something which will really impress the woman sitting over the table from you on the train, then stick to the Sony?s or Packard Bells, but then with Packard bell, you may not get something that actually works, you?ll just get something that looks good.

Now, because I got this second hand, I didn?t get any manuals with the laptop, therefore I?m just going on what I have figured out for myself for the rest of the opinion! I also didn?t get any drivers and although I?m working my way through them on the IBM website (www.ibm.com) I still haven?t yet got round to making some of the features the laptop has work. I won?t talk about the specifications of it as they all have different specs, I?ll just tell you about the actual laptop itself!

- BUILD QUALITY

Like I have already mentioned, the build quality is second to none. However, there are some other bits on this laptop that just add that extra bit of quality that I haven?t seen on other laptops. The ports on the side and the back of the laptop are covered apart from the PS/2 mouse and power ports. The cover simply pop?s down and you plug your cable in. They are covered to stop any dust or bits getting into the ports. I had a laptop once where a small bit of dust had got into the video out port. The port no longer worked as the connections were not connecting on one of the pins, the laptop had to be sent back to the suppliers. These covers help stop any things like this happening when your carrying your laptop around. Very nice touch I thought.

All the moveable parts on the laptop are again, not great fashion accessories, but the older type buttons and switches, however, these switches really do their job and last for ag
es without having a problem. Underneath the laptop you have the parts which you can remove, like the battery and CD-Rom which are both locked via a switch, you also have a little light underneath to show you that the laptop is on and not to unlock the items when the light is lit. It has decent rubber feet (unlike a lot of laptops!!) that stop it from sliding around. I know I have seen a bloke on the train having a problem with his laptop moving around on the table a the train rattles along! The screen is secured by two locks which you have to hold open in order for you to lift it open, again, unlike a lot of laptops that have just the one clip. The battery life is also about 3 hours if you are just typing a document and not using too many resources, however if you sit there with a CD playing while your working, you?ll find that your battery won?t last as long as you hoped!

- THE SCREEN

The screen is a 13.3? TFT. I have scanned the screen for any blurred areas and also any pixels that seem to be missing, however there isn?t any. If you have used a few laptops yourself you may have noticed that there are sometimes tiny squares missing, this is all to do with the LCD display, also, the corners might be darker than the middle of the screen, but not this one, the screen is very sharp, bright enough and has no bad areas on it at all.

The screen also has an independent brightness control slider which really I don?t like because it does look really bad and like something your 1980 television set would have on it. But again, it won?t go wrong unlike a lot of the automatic brightness controls. The screen will also be even brighter when you are using the mains power, but when your using the battery, it goes a slight bit darker, it?s nothing to worry about, it?s just to save battery power.

- KEYBOARD & MOUSE

The keyboard is nice. I have always liked laptop keyboards and have yet to figure out why they don?t make a normal desktop k
eyboard feel the same as a laptop keyboard. Along the top of the keyboard ou have the normal F keys, but on these F keys in purple is a graphic, which when pressed while holding down the Func key will carry out a function to do with the laptop, like put it into sleep mode and higher or lower the volume. There are two separate volumes by the way, the windows volume and the laptop volume. Apart from that you have a standard laptop keyboard which will last you a considerable amount of time, obviously depending on how much typing you actually do on it! The keys are of a good size, there?s no pressing two keys at once like I have found on smaller laptops, which is always good and you also get a full sized backspace, enter and shift key.

The mouse is the bit I don?t like. Now, most laptops have a touch pad now where you move your finger along the pad and the mouse cursor moves around the screen. This laptop has a small red, prickly thing in the middle of the keyboard which is where you move the mouse. You basically put the tip of your finger on it and very gently move your finger in the way you want the cursor to go. You hardly have to move your finger and it is very sensitive. To start with I couldn?t use it at all, but I have got used to it now and can now use it nearly as easily as a touch pad. Apparently this is how all laptops are going to be made in the future because of its very durable design (a touch pad can easily wear out). Where the touch pad is on other laptops is where the 3 mouse buttons are located on the IBM ThinkPad laptops. The buttons are rather big and bulky and quite unsightly. However, again, the buttons feel as if they will last me until the laptop dies as they give a very responsive bounce, instead of a creaky click which again, I have found on other keyboards. I have yet to find out what the 3rd button does that?s indicated with a purple stripe, so if anyone knows, please leave a comment!

- MULTIMEDIA

The laptop has t
wo speakers, positioned where your wrists fall. Not the best of positions I know, but as the laptop is slim line, they couldn?t have put them in any other way. The speakers may be small, but they are a lot better than some laptop speakers. Ok, they have no bass whatsoever but can cope with quite high volumes without any distortion.

The CD Rom drive is located at the front of the laptop and again doesn?t look great but looks as if it?s built to a high standard. The CD-Drive itself can be taken out and the floppy drive put in its place. However, don?t worry, you can use the floppy drive and the CD Drive at the same time as it comes with an extra bit of casing where you can slot your free drive into and then plug it into the side of the laptop, so it?s a case of keeping whichever drive you use most in the laptop itself and carrying round the other drive around in your laptop carry case. Can be a bit annoying, but I myself hardly ever use floppy disks anymore, unless I?m installing drivers or swapping work between the laptop and the desktop computer.

- OVERALL

Overall I?m very pleased with the laptop. When I first got it out I thought it looked like something from 1980, but once I got used to it and figured out just how good the build quality was, and just how highly people have rated IBM for their reliability I quickly changed my tune! I must also add that IBM notebook spares are easy to come across. Things like keyboards, cd-rom drives and batteries can easily be found and because of the way the laptops are designed, most IBM parts will fit your laptop model.

I think I have the right laptop for what I wanted a laptop for, which was carrying it around while I?m on my travels to and from different work locations and on trains etc. I would like it to have looked a bit better, but I can?t compromise on the build quality.

I would in no way recommend this laptop to you if you are a gadget freak though or like the look of lapt
ops more than anything else. Its like flash cars, they are ok to look at, but a lot of things go wrong with them, but a bland car, like my fiesta will go on and on with hardly any problems. This is a very good laptop and hopefully will last me a couple of years yet until I have to go and get myself a new one, and then I think it will be an IBM, unless I want to show off! It gets 4/5 from me, cus it could have looked better!

It also has, if your interested:

Video out port
Printer port
USB port
Serial port
PS/2 Mouse or keyboard port
Infrared capabilities
2 PCMCIA slots
Microphone and headphone ports

Summary: