Gadgetory

probably the most unusual and I think in some ways clever laptop I ever reviewed and you might say looking at how thick it is and I'm telling you it's heavy you might say what I'm Walt Mossberg I have been reviewing tech gadgets since the early 90s and collecting them since the 80s and I wanted to show you some of my collection this is the IBM ThinkPads 701 and it's in the Museum of Modern Art we're here at Epcot Center to show you this powerful new system it weighs a mere 4.5 pounds and it measures a diminutive nine point seven by seven point nine by one point seven inches came out in 1995 and here's what's interesting about it it was state-of-the-art digital technology at the time it came out but this piece of mechanical technology is what made this special when you opened it the keyboard expanded boom the trouble with most notebooks this size is that most hands are this size that's why we created the four and a half pound think pad 701 and it solved a really important problem that people in the early days of laptops felt very strongly about which was these keyboards are too small we really are used to the keyboards we have on our desktops and we want something bigger but we don't want to carry around something this wide this giant so IBM solve it with this they drop this whole idea a couple years later the screens got bigger so you didn't need the butterfly keyboard anymore because you you had the width I gave this model this butter butterfly a keyboard and pad a great review I've been I remember took out ads quoting my review bragging about their innovation it's really a seriously well thought out mechanical engineering marvel