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What's New

Power and Portability Combined

IBM's ThinkPad 600 combines the power of the ThinkPad 760 and the lightweight portability of
the 560 in one machine.

The 600' case is 1.4 inches thick, barely thicker than the 560's. It weighs in at 4.99 pounds with
an empty bay (5.55 pounds with a full bay) and measures 11.8 inches long by 9.4 inches wide.
At a cost of $4599, the 600 comes with a 266-MHZ Mobile Pentium II, a 4-GB hard drive, 32
MB of RAM, 2 MB of graphics memory, one Type III or two Type II CardBus slots, an
internal 56K fax-modem, and a 13.3-inch-thin-film transistor (TFT) screen.

The floppy drive can either be used with an external connection or be swapped with the 24X
CD-ROM drive. Once nice new enhancement on the 600 is the TrackPoint pointer, which lets
you press the pointing device itself to click on the screen. The device also includes a button for
fast scrolling.

The microphone and headphone ports are easily accessible, but we found that the sound card
didn't work with a number of voice-recognition products, including IBM's own ViaVoice. The
system's lightweight plastic case is sturdy enough, although several of the plastic door flaps are
easy to break off. The battery, which lasted for 3 1/4 hours of continuous use, has been
redesigned so that it pops out of the unit. This is an improvement over its slide-out predecessor,
which tended to let in dust.

Overall, the ThinkPad 600 is a nice blend of power and portability.
Chrystie Kilbourn-Terry, Editorial Assistant

Contact: IBM Corp. White Plains, NY
Phone: 800-426-7255 xt.4751
Internet: http://www.ibm.com/pc/us/thinkpad
Enter HotBYTEs No. 1008.