Advantages: Quite a fast drive.
Disadvantages: One of the "Deathstar" drives.

...Whether you are thinking of buying this drive (2nd hand, most likely as it's a couple of years old) or own one of IBM's 60GXP, 75GXP or 120GXP models, read on for important information about issues with these drives and fixing them. ** THE DRIVE ** Capacity: 40 GB (38.3 GB as reported in windows) Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM Interface: ATA-100 Average seek time: 8.5 ms It's a fast enough drive. It seems to perform quite a bit better than the 5400 rpm 45 GB Western Digital drive I had, it's quite a bit quieter and this one's not dead ... yet. ** BORROWING NAMES FROM STAR WARS ** The main reason I thought I'd write a review on this drive, is to hopefully help a few others who have this or one of the other 60GXP, 75GXP or 120GXP models (as I've read these are equally affected). It didn't take long for a lot of people... Read review

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Advantages: Good extra features. Can play CD's from keyboard
Disadvantages: Price?

...Now here’s an opinion that nearly didn’t get written, mainly because I’m too busy using the damned thing to write about it. I’m talking about my IBM Rapid Access Keyboard. I have been using this for about 18 months now, and if I remember correctly it cost me about £30 from PCW, the shop whose name I can’t bring myself to say in full! Since keyboards can be had for a fiver upwards, what’s so special about it? Well, nothing from the “Immense Bowel Movement”* is ever going to be cheap, but it does carry some extra features, which set it part from the “fiver jobs”. *Some “IBMers” have their own pet theories. “I Bin Moved” is one heartfelt cry, whilst German employees have been known to call it “Ich Bin Müde” – I am tired. Firstly... Read review

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Advantages: Very versatile mid range server
Disadvantages: support web site can be awkward to navigate

...and and 4 143GB 15K disks for the data configured as RAID5 (with the addition of an IBM 7k RAID card) with a hot spare. This gives a 73GB OS partition which should be ample for most SBS installations including the exchange store. I tend to find that most SBS base builds come to about 20GB once everything is installed. This leaves just over 50GB for the exchange store and page file. The data partition would then be about 250GB which should be ample for most SMB's. Inside the server is just as good and as this model has the dual power supplies installed I would imagine it also comes with 6 cooling fans. If you see a cheaper price for the same model make sure it has dual supplies. There is a thick perspex cover directing air from 2 of the fans over the CPU and memory slots whilst two fans at the bottom suck air through the hard drive bays... Read review

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Advantages: Very neat little movements, and, for me at least, more control than a TouchPad
Disadvantages: Can make the tip of your finger sore during long sessions!

...When I first opened my Thinkpad, I was impressed, as you'd expect when opening your first laptop. However, when I came to try and move the cursor I was stumped. I looked all over the keypad, and couldn't find anything I recognised as a way to move the cursor. I had only ever used laptops with Touchpads (the little window you slide your figner over to move the cursor). Eventually (yes, shamefully it was a good 10-15 minutes), my brushed against the small red dot in the centre of the keyboard that I had mistaked for a microphone, or perhaps some device to stop the screen touching the keys when closed. The cursor moved! And so began my adventures with the IBM TrackPoint. At first it is a bit difficult to navigate with it. But after about and hour of use, I was happily playing slow-reaction games (Chicken Invaders, Kahuna Reef... Read review

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Advantages: Reliable
Disadvantages: Pricey

...I was lucky enough to ckoose an Aptiva as my home PC around four years ago. I say lucky because I had considered various other machines, but went for the Aptiva in the end. While not the cheapest, or even the highest spec machine that I had to choose from, I was finally convinced by the fact that it was an IBM machine. IBM are a massive company, and working in the computer industry I know the vast amounts of money that they spend on research and development. This has been money well spent when it comes to the Aptiva series. In my workplace I have had three new machines since I bought the Aptiva for home use. The Aptiva has outshone all three in terms of reliability. Because the machine is now four years old I have had to make a few small upgrades. I have added more memory and a bigger hard drive. I also upgraded the processor recently... Read review

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Advantages: Ready to use, easy to setup.
Disadvantages: Not enough memory

...IBM provide a 30day up and running facility to get you started. Very useful as the modem was not configured from factory, for use in UK. However, as an experienced user of PCs I found most of the problems started after this period. My Hard Drive has been re-formatted (taking about 30 minutes) twice, but has been operating efficiently for abut 6 months. Hardware support is excellent, covered by a 12 month warranty. Manuals are basic, but a comprehensive windows-based help manual is available. Lifetime IBM on line support for as long you own the PC.... Read review

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Advantages: Interchangeable processors
Disadvantages: Its a desktop

...The IBM PC 300GL was origionaly made for the business sector. The higher spec machine similar to the 300GL was the 300PL which some had AGP graphics and LAN comunications support. This was the lower spec of the two machines but still there wasn't alot of difference. If you wanted to have better graphics or LAN support you could fit a PCI graphics card or an extra LAN card. Many motherboards of this spec had at least 4 PCI slots and for this machine that was enough. Some machines were fitted with Celeron 233-333 processors and others were fitted with Pentium 2's or 3's. The higher Pentium 3 machines were the better becuase of the extra 256 or 512 L2 cache which made processing quicker. My origional machine had a Celeron 333 with 64mb ram fitted. The machine i then upgraded to a Pentium 3 which had 512 L2 cache and 384mb... Read review

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Advantages: Flatpanel : take up little space. Great quality sound.
Disadvantages: Simplistic design, slightly flimsy. Lack of volume/treble/bass switches. Expensive.

...Introduction Late last month, I was asked to build a high quality PC for a friend. I don't just mean high quality internal components either, the guy wanted a high definition monitor, top class keyboard and optical mouse...and yeah you guessed it : brilliant speakers. Being only used to purchasing speakers for under 20 quid, I was rather stumped when he asked for speakers in the 50 pounds and up range. So off I went, scouring the computer fairs of the northwest in search of some super speakers. Eventually I came across a stall which seemed to specialise in input components and speakers. After browsing for awhile I caught sight of the IBM multimedia speaker box. The first thing I noticed was the pricetag, a rather hefty 59.99 pounds. I'm no pro regarding speaker specs, but a quick scan of the back of the box convinced me... Read review

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Advantages: A trustworthy Notebook from the creators of the PC
Disadvantages: Now a little out of date

...There are many notebooks avaliable today, from your £300 own brand notebooks to the £1000 top of the range notebooks. IBM provides notebooks for all price ranges. The T series is the ultimate in Travel Notebooks, they combine performance and reliability with travel. These are there Top Models. All T series' have an outstanding battery life, my T23 started with 4 REAL hours of usability. Most manufacturers claim 3-4 hours but when IBM says 4 Hours, they actually mean it, bearing in mind that my battery is 2 years old. The Notebook comes with some really good IBM plus points, like the nipple, and the keyboard light. Yes this notebook has a nipple, this may sound strange, but it is the best alternative to the mouse, it is more accurate and much easier to use than a glide pad. Its amazing how that small little red dot can... Read review

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Advantages: Great for the time
Disadvantages: Old now :(

...**THE TRUE PC STORY** Story: Way way back in the year 1999 just before the internet boom my dad got a job which required him to own a PC the company being greedy wouldn’t issue him with one so we had to get one for ourselves, so my dad and I toddled of to the late Tempo ( now taken over by PC World ) to see the range. Love at first sight: The IBM Aptiva caught our eyes, with impressive specifications ( for the time ! ) and the new brilliant Windows Operating System Windows 98. My dad was familiar with IBM PCs and soon we were driving home with a shiny well grey PC in the back of our F reg Passat ( old for the time :P ). Connecting it up: Even now I still remember it well after getting the enormous boxes into the house we tore them open ! It was pretty tricky to set up as we had never had a PC... Read review

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