Lacking a numeric keypad, the A600 is only slightly larger than an IBM PC keyboard, weighing approximately 6 pounds (2.72kg).

Commodore Business Machines began the process of drastically changing its management in late 1990, when Irving Gould, its CEO and chairman, laid off six of its high-level executives.

The computer, codenamed June Bug, had a floppy drive built in and was roughly the same size and weight as a Commodore 64.

[5] Units were manufactured in Commodore's production plants in Irvine, Scotland; Braunschweig, Germany; Kwai Chung, Hong Kong; and the Philippines.

Snydes canceled the still-popular A500 that year to ensure demand for the new system, and development on the Amiga series stalled for the first six months as he and Ali focused on targeting the PC marketplace while selling the new model.

The A600 was the first Amiga model with built-in color composite video (RCA), which allowed the A600 to be used with a standard CRT television without the need for a Commodore A520 RF Modulator adaptor.

As a result, the A600 is compatible with many peripherals available for earlier Amiga models, such as MIDI, sound samplers and video-capture devices.

Expansion capabilities new to the Amiga line were the PCMCIA Type II slot and the internal 44-pin ATA interface both most commonly seen on laptop computers.

[14] Later, a number of compatible laptop-computer peripherals have been made to operate with the A600, including network cards (both wired and wireless), serial modems and CompactFlash adapters.

[17] Graphic modes from: 28–56 kHz maximum DMA sampling rate (dependent on video mode in use) 70 dB S/N ratio Colour Composite video out (RCA) RF audio/video out (RCA) Audio out (2 × RCA) RS-232 serial port (DB-25M) Centronics style parallel port (DB-25F) Floppy disk drive port (DB-23F) 44-pin ATA controller (internal) 16-bit Type II PCMCIA slot AmigaOS 3.1 and 3.2 (the latter requiring 2 MB RAM or more) with Kickstart 3.1 or 3.2 replacement respectively and 3.5/3.9 with 68020 CPU upgrade Despite that the 68000 is soldered to the motherboard, unofficial CPU upgrades include the Motorola 68000 (at higher clock speeds than the default 7.16 MHz or 7.09 MHz), 68010, 68020 (at up to 25 MHz), 68030 (at up to 50 MHz) and FPGA-based processors which are programmed to utilize the Motorola 680x0 instruction set.

This features a localization of the operating system in several languages and has a "CrossDOS" driver providing read/write support for FAT (MS-DOS)-formatted media such as floppy disks or hard drives.

The FPGA-driven Apollo Vampire V2[16] adds 128 MB Fast RAM, HDMI output, SD card for HDD storage and a 64-bit core with full 32-bit compatibility.

Additionally, the Apollo Manticore[17] (Apollo Vampire V4) adds 512 MB DD3 RAM (500Mb Fast RAM and 12Mb Chip RAM), HDMI output, SD card for HDD storage (this device cannot be booted from), 64-bit "68080" core with full 32-bit compatibility, 2 x USB ports, 8/16-bit, 56 kHz, 24-bit audio with 16 DMA voices, 44-pin FastIDE for Compact Flash or 2.5" IDE hard disk support, 10/100 RJ45 Ethernet port, RTC support and RTG video capable of 3D graphics up to 1920x1080 resolution at 60Hz.

The decision to solder all circuitry other than the ROM chip on the motherboard, it said, allowed Commodore to manufacture a model that was more compact and more reliable, albeit with new hurdles on internal upgrading.

Regarding both models, it praised the addition of an RF port, but criticized the power supply brick as the only impediment to the computers' advertised portability.

However, while writing that the move to use surface-mounted technology made the computer more reliable and less prone to error, it conceded that it also meant that attempts to upgrade it internally had more obstacles.

Nevertheless, the magazine predicted that the A600HD model would capture the hobbyist market and stimulate the production of hard drive-installable games.

He similarly criticized the need for the power brick, and also questioned Commodore's design choices, in particular, removing the expansion slot, retaining the Motorola 68000 processor, and replacing an A501 connector with an A601 one, although not minding the loss of the numeric keypad.

[25] Dave Haynie, who worked as a senior engineer for Commodore, described the new features the A600 provided as bloat and noted its compatibility issues with A500 peripherals and lack of numeric keypad.