Product Reviews

Unlike many lightweight portables that we see at PC Pro, IBM's new ThinkPad is a true subnotebook in every sense the word. Its footprint measures a compact 260 x 202mm, the case is only 27mm thick when shut, and without the PSU and floppy drive it weighs just 1.3kg.

Despite its size, the 240 retains the distinctive ThinkPad look: angular lines, bevelled edges and black body. Being a ThinkPad, it's also well made, both in its fit and finish, and its overall durability. The body of the machine is solid, and although the lid is made of plastic rather than alloy, it seemed solid enough.

The small size of the casing means a re-organisation of components, and the ThinkPad's layout is what's known as a one-spindle design - in other words, the hard disk is the only internal drive. The floppy drive module connects via a proprietary port on the left of the machine, and that is the only drive you get. IBM charges a rather hefty £247 extra for a CD-ROM drive.

If you do opt for the CD-ROM, it connects via the machine's single Type II PC Card slot, also on the left, so the drives tend to get in each other's way unless stacked. At least the 240 comes with an internal fax modem, so you don't lose comms when the CD-ROM is installed.

As far as ports are concerned, everything is as you'd expect, with a PS/2 socket for an external mouse or keyboard, plus parallel, serial, VGA, USB and infrared interfaces. The only thing you don't get is an expansion bus for use with a port replicator or docker. This may be a problem if frequent and easy connection to external peripherals is important.

The hard disk can be removed quite easily after taking out a pair of security screws. The module is properly shielded against

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electrostatic damage, so it can be handled or even pocketed safely. Memory upgrades are straightforward, although again you need to remove a few screws before you can lift up the keyboard to expose the spare memory socket. With 64Mb of SDRAM on board, you can go up to 192Mb if you add a 128Mb module.

IBM's notebook keyboards are usually excellent, and for the most part this one is no exception, despite the pressures placed on it by the size of the machine. The only compromise is that the Home, End, PgUp and PgDn keys are now secondary functions of the cursor group, but this has at least made room for the main pad to be large enough for comfort and feature reasonably sized Enter and Backspace keys. With a little practice you should be able to type normally on this machine, which can't be said for all subnotebooks. However, like all ThinkPads, the 240 is fitted with a TrackPoint instead of a touchpad, which might take a bit of getting used to.

The TFT screen has a 10.4in diagonal and is sensibly restricted to 800 x 600 as its default resolution. The size/resolution combination works well, but the backlight was rather dim, which will make the screen hard to read if there's much in the way of ambient light.

Perhaps one reason for the dimness was IBM trying to conserve battery life, as it only managed 90 minutes in our tests. This is just below average for this size of machine, and it doesn't come close to the Toshiba PortÚgÚ 3110CT's three hours (reviewed p173 ). This is disappointing when you consider that this sort of notebook is designed to be taken everywhere.

Obviously subnotebooks, particularly Celeron ones, aren't the ideal choice if you want a high-powered platform for volume work. However, the ThinkPad is a fast machine considering its humble processor, partially thanks to its IBM Travelstar hard disk and NeoMagic graphics.

The bad news for IBM is that Toshiba has launched the PortÚgÚ 3110CT at the same time . This is almost identical in its specification, except for a faster processor and a CD-ROM drive included in the price. When you take the cost of the CD-ROM into consideration, the ThinkPad 240 costs £47 more too, but you should be able to get more reasonable prices from IBM resellers. However, as things stand, you'd be wiser to invest your money in the 3110CT.