The first entries in the series were Compaq's first computers after co-founder Rod Canion's ousting and Eckhard Pfeiffer's tenure as the new CEO.

[2] The monochrome passive-matrix LCDs used in the LTE Lites were a co-development between Compaq and Citizen, who developed ways to reduce motion persistence ("ghosting") and crosstalk interference patterns ("bleeding") common in their super-twisted nematic displays.

[12] The magazine also rated it among the fastest in its processor class in terms of memory speed and data processing but found its hard disk performance mediocre.

[8] Mitt Jones, also of PC Magazine, called the battery life "somewhat lackluster" but praised the versatility of the user-definable power consumption modes and found the display bright and sharp with minimal ghosting.

[3] Michael Caton of PC Week, reviewing the LTE Lite/25, praised its battery life, case design, ease of use, and keyboard layout.

[13] Caton found reservation with the keyboard's switches, which he deemed soft, and, the passive-matrix display, which exhibited ghosting most noticeably under Windows.

Like Caton the reviewers found the keyboard too soft, the key travel too shallow, but they were impressed with its display, which exhibited "little bleeding".

[7] Larry Blasko of the St. Petersburg Times, reviewing the LTE Lite 4/25E, found its relatively high price justified by its processing power, display, and keyboard and called the laptop overall a "first-rate job".

The LTE Elite series increased the memory, processors, and networking capabilities and moved the AC adapter to within the notebooks' chassis, eliminating the need for external bricks.