Full Review

This is the first non-Toshiba laptop that has been a keeper for me since my last Apple PowerBook in 1996, and is my wife’s primary computer. She owns the Celeron 400 powered Thinkpad 570, with a 10GB hard drive, 128MB of ram, the ultrabase with a 24X CD Rom and floppy drive installed, the 13.3” TFT screen and Windows 2000 Professional operating system. While mostly identical to standard USA models, hers is a Korean market PC, with a bilingual Korean/English keyboard and markings that read “LG IBM” instead of “IBM” and “ThinkPad”. The Windows 2000 OS installed, however, is the US English version, which does include full support for Korean, and almost any other language you might wish to install.

The Korean keyboard was one of the primary reasons for making this purchase, as my wife is a Korean immigrant, and I have studied the Korean language and often correspond by email in Korean. I have an external USB Korean keyboard for that purpose which I use with my Toshiba Portege, however the bilingual keyboard built-into the laptop is a much nicer option, and such keyboards are unavailable from Toshiba. The keyboard provides a special key (the bilingual keyboard has no Windows 95 keys) to toggle between English and Korean input, and of course, the legendary key action IBM Thinkpads are famousfor. The feel of the keyboard is so good, that even desktop keyboards don’t come close. I find that when using the Thinkpad 570, that my typing speed is up around 5 or 10 WPM over my Toshiba, and with far fewer typos. This is one of those real-world ergonomic factors that makes a noticeable difference in productivity – significant enough that my next laptop will likely be an IBM Thinkpad.

One area where I still find Toshiba laptops superior is in the power management software. Toshiba provides a proprietary control panel that gives far more precise control over how the computer uses its power-saving features, and in my own real-world experience, this software gives a noticeable boost to run-time when unplugged. IBM also provides configuration software for the Thinkpad, however they rely on the power management controls and options in the standard Windows 2000 control panel. While these controls are adequate for most use, I would like to see IBM add more options, tied to percentage of battery charge remaining, as Toshiba does.

The rest of the computer is very ordinary and doesn’t attract any attention to itself, which is probably the highest compliment one could pay to any machine. The screen is delightful; sharp, crisp and large enough that even though I could plug in an external display, I see no reason to. The Trackpoint III mouse is also fabulous, with better feel than the similar Toshiba pointing sticks. It even has a third button, that when pressed and held, turns the eraserhead into a scroller, both up-down and left-right. Toshiba has two extra buttons which scroll up and down, and they are a bit easier to use, but the added versatility of the IBM scroll function makes up for the slightly less natural motion of holding the button down.

The computer delights in other ways as well. With the ultrabase attached, the whole thing looks like any other large desktop-replacement-type laptop. While 13.3” is smaller than most such machines have today, the footprint of the unit itself is a bit smaller, with the result that the screen looks positively huge for the size of the machine. With the base attached, it is about 2 inches thick, and gives you the flexibility to choose between a variety of drives for the two bays. I plan on buying a DVD/CDRW combo drive to leave in the larger left bay, and then a second battery for the right bay, as the floppy is both rarely used, and can be connected externally with a cable. With an extra battery and a combo-drive, this becomes a supremely versatile laptop, with an over 5-hour runtime, on-board CD burning and DVD movie capability, and except for the floppy, everything is built-in and ready to use on-demand. The ultrabase is so well integrated that my wife didn’t know from looking that it was removeable, thinking it was simply a nice three-spindle laptop. With the base installed, the unit is the same size and weight as the machine it replaced, a Toshiba Satellite Pro 440CDT, which was a Pentium 133MMX and a 12.1” screen. She was very happy with the 570 as a replacement for her Toshiba, but when I removed it from the ultrabase, she was positively delighted.

I hear it now, questions of watching DVDs on a Celeron 400. Well, I have an external DVD drive with a CardBus interface and have Installed PowerDVD 4.0 on this unit, and honestly, DVD playback is all but indistinguishable from my 600MHz Portege 3480. Motion is fluid and there is very little pixelation or other artifacts in movie playback. I believe that the Celeron chips got a bad reputation from the early 300MHz desktop models which lacked on-board cache memory. Mobile Celerons never had that problem, and are fitted with 128k of on chip cache that runs at full clock speed. Even the first generation of Pentium II processors ran their cache at half speed, with the result being that the Celeron in this Thinkpad feels every bit as fast as the PIII 600 in my Portege. Of course, the Celeron should feel the same for almost everything you do, as it is essentially the same chip, built on the same P6 architecture. Sure, the PII and PIII have a few instructions (SIMD) that the Celeron lacks, but these are for specialized applications like rendering (game play) and pattern recognition (dictation and voice response). DVD decoding with the PowerDVD software I use may take advantage of these instructions, but from my experience here is obviously well-enough written that it does just fine without them.

One area where the Thinkpad 570 is very slow is booting-up. This could just be a bios setting I’ve not found, but every time I power up the unit, it goes through a lengthy POST check, verifying memory, activating the mouse at bios level, etc. Before the actual Windows startup process begins, it takes about 20 seconds to go through all of its processes, which on my Toshiba takes perhaps 4 seconds at most. Once Windows begins loading, however, it is as fast as any other laptop I own. Windows open quickly, applications are responsive, and drive moves data swiftly, feeling every bit as fast as my Portege’s drive, which was one of the quickest drives I’ve had in a laptop. Even with Windows 2000’s hibernation feature, resume is still too slow, as the computer goes through the same Pre-OS checks as it does on boot-up. Like most other laptop computers of any manufacturer and with any OS, standbye simply isn’t reliable enough for me.

What really sets the Thinkpad 570 apart from other laptops, however, is that you can detach the ultrabase. It is in this condition, as a one-spindle thin and light that the Thinkpad 570 really shines. In comparison with my Portege 3480, also a single spindle machine, the 570 weighs .6lbs more, but for that small weight penalty, you get a screen that is a full 13.3”, a full-size keyboard with a full 3mm (feels like 5mm its so good) keyboard and an overall feeling of spaciousness that makes you totally forget you are using a lightweight model. Sure, it needs a full-size case to carry, and it doesn’t have the rigidity of the titanium T-series or the magnesium Portege, but it is in no-sense flimsy or cheap0-feeling, and functionally, the only laptop I’ve ever tried that is as comfortable is the IBM T-series, which are much more expensive than any 570 will be. Even the T-series, is only as-good for daily work as the 570, with no improvement in comfort or ergonomics. In contrast,my Portege, at 3.4lbs, is a bit thinner (.8” vs. 1”), but compromises with a small 11.3” screen and a very cramped keyboard that while possible to get used to, will never match the IBM’s for comfort, speed or accuracyI was faster and made fewer typographical errors in my first five minutes on the Thinkpad than I do with the Portege after two years of use, and for an ultralight, the Portege keyboard is considered one of the best.

Are there compromises? Well, this is an older laptop, so wireless networking will have to be added through a PC card, rather than an integrated solution like the new ones have. Also, if you do want to play high-end games or do engineering or other CPU intensive work, even the fastest 570 processors will not be satisfactory. While Windows XP will run well on a 570, 2000 Professional or 98 SE will be smoother and faster, especially if you don’t max out the memory. That is about it for compromises though. If you are someone who really wants a thin and light for when you travel, but dislike the Portege/Vaio approach of using external drives and port replicators, then the 570 is your laptop. Leave the ultrabase attached all the time and enjoy a high-quality desktop-replacement portable. When you do take a trip, pack the ultrabase in your suitcase (or leave it home completely) and you now have a 1” thin laptop that weighs only 4lbs. Sure it’s a bit heavier than the ultralights, and you will be much more crowded using it in that coach class airplane seat, but when you reach your destination, you will have 13.3 inches of gorgeous TFT to their 10.4 or 11.3, and it does make a difference.