Home > Consumer Reviews > IBM Thinkpad 600E Notebook (366-MHz Pentium II, 64 MB RAM, 6.4 GB hard drive)

The IBM Thinkpads are pretty much all marvels of engineering. Because IBM engineers have optimized the machine's various components to work together, this machine seems faster than 366 Mhz. When it came out, the 600E was a trend-setter. Now, in May 2003, it seems slow compared with today's 2GB machines. But it still will do the job for most applications--I use mine for Photoshop and Nikon Capture 3 -- programs which require manipulating a lot of data. The Thinkpad works brilliantly.

The quality of construction of the 600E is impeccable. These are beautifully built and engineered machines.

The screen is very bright, and with the CD-DVD ROM player it will do a passable if not great job for watching movies. The keyboard is simply the best of any notebook computer I have used. The Trackpoint device, patented by IBM, is the best on-keyboard mouse device yet devised.

Minor quibble: the speakers are placed right where the user's wrists will rest. Not great ergonomics, but not a major problem either...

I've owned a Thinkpad 600E for over three years now, originally bought refurbished, and with upgrades like 128MB RAM, a CD burner/DVD-ROM, a bigger hard drive, and various USB goodies, it's still a device that I use almost every day. The CPU is so well-optimized, as other reviewers have noted, that it's plenty fast enough to play DVD's on with Power DVD, and it also handles USB scanners well. Moreover, it makes a good platform for older games that don't work well on Windows XP. I had the CMOS battery run down last week after over three years of use, but replacements are easy and cheap to find - check on here or eBay. If you need a laptop but don't need or want the so-called "latest and greatest" bleeding-edge stuff and want something well-designed and sturdy instead, get one of the Thinkpad series.

If you want a cheap but good laptop, this is the one to get. At 5 lb, it's light enough to travel with. This notebook feels very robust, unlike some Dell notebooks that I have used. Though it's "only" 366MHz, it's still fast enough for Windows 2000, Photoshop 7, Adobe Acrobat 6, and many other demanding programs. I have been using this notebook for over 2 years and it still hasn't crashed even once. However, you should upgrade the RAM to at least 128MB (max supported is 512MB, if you have the latest BIOS version). Also, this book doesn't have a built-in LAN card, and so you will need to get a PCMCIA LAN adaptor.