The ActionNote received mixed, mostly positive, reception in its lifespan before Epson America silently left the personal computer market in 1996.

[3] Development for the ActionNote was led by Sanford Weisman, portable computer product manager at Epson America, who was also instrumental in the design of the company's earlier NB series of laptops.

[12] The 650 series, marketed as a low-cost entry to the ActionNote line-up, sold between US$1,499 and US$1,999—depending on whether the user wanted a color LCD—and featured a clock-switchable 25 or 50 MHz Cyrix DX2.

[13] The more expensive 800 series upgraded the ActionNote's styling and was among the first Wintel laptops to feature an integrated touchpad, replacing the trackballs of earlier models.

In addition, Epson said that the laptops developed stress fractures in the plastic casings after minimal use due to a processing flaw on the part of Jabil.

Bryan Hastings of PC World called its display small but "quite readable" and its keyboard comfortable but found the 2.5-hour battery life "on the short side" for a subnotebook.

[30] Albert G. Holzinger and Ripley Hotch of Nation's Business called it "not quite as technologically refined" as the ThinkPad 500 but found the 4000's display and keyboard similarly high quality.

The 866C possessed a large color screen for its small size and "everything the busy salesperson would need on board" but was let down by its "somewhat clackety-noisy" and shallow-stroke keyboard, according to Jeff Hecox of Sales and Marketing Management.

[35] In a review of the 880CX, Anush Yegyazarian of PC Magazine deemed it a good as a road warrior's machine but only fair as a desktop replacement.

Despite the stock 8 MB of RAM leading to below-average scores in the magazine's benchmarks, Yegyazarian wrote that it offered a "an impressive array of features" for its retail price.

He called the execution of its touchpad flawed in contrast to the one on the PowerBook 500, with its left and right click buttons too small and the act of dragging and dropping items on the screen cumbersome.