Thin, light and well-designed, the ThinkPad 600 earned top marks and was superior to other ThinkPads I've used. Its dual-spindle design makes a third spindle accessible via a cable to the bay. Overall, benchmark performance put the ThinkPad 600 right in the middle of the dozen. Even though the Dell Latitude CPi D266XT scored slightly low on most benchmarks, it is a sophisticated, mature unit worthy of any mobile computer user. A 61 4-pound weight and the longest battery life among the dozen made the Latitude stand out.
Many notebook computers have an energy gauge in a tiny window in a corner.
The Latitude's gauge fills the screen so it is easy to see battery status. And the BIOS layer was easy to reach by a keystroke to adjust power consumption and other settings. Other vendors managed to accommodate most of the 770ED's features in packages weighing less than 8 pounds. It was cool to have but not essential for most government users. IBM's drive worked for the DVD games I tested, but it does not have the appropriate software drivers to play DVD movies.