All three of the notebooks share the same general port layout, which ends up being pretty decent although nothing particularly special.
At the front of the notebooks, you have:
- Microphone jack
- Headphone jack
On the right side of the notebooks:
- USB 2.0 port
- S-Video output
Moving onto the left side of the notebooks:
- VGA output
- Ethernet jack
- Modem jack
- USB 2.0 port
- PC Card slot
And finally at the rear, you have the power connector for the AC adapter:
Although all of the notebooks in this roundup felt relatively similar in terms of build quality, the Compaq notebooks offered the most rattles right out of the box. The culprit appears to be the hinges used to attach the display to the base of the notebook, which had far more play in them on these Compaq notebooks than on the Gateway and definitely more than on the Dell.
The top and bottom of the Presario notebooks is a matte black plastic, while the inside and outer edges are silver. While the black/silver color scheme can work, Compaq goes ahead and complicates it with a number of other colors or shades of silver. For starters, there are two shades of silver on the keyboard area itself. Then, you have the keyboard, which is this grey color that isn't aesthetically pleasing at all. Then there are the amber LEDs that Compaq uses everywhere; Compaq should know by now that amber LEDs aren't cool anymore. Even their wireless NIC LED is blue. Why couldn't the rest of the machine follow that trend? So, what you end up having is a notebook that is black, silver, "silver-er", grey, amber and neon blue.
The Compaq V2000
The Compaq M2000
The one design decision that Compaq did make good on was the styling of the exterior of the notebook. The rounded corners along the edges of the notebook are very well done, and the profile of the unit is quite modern. With the lid closed, the notebook has a very nice black/silver look, which is almost slimming - until you get an idea of how big these things are. They aren't of a desktop replacement size, but it's tough to actually keep the word "slimming" in the last sentence without cringing.
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Hacp - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
x200 graphics with/o dedicated memory.If you get x300 graphics with some dedicated memory, it should play some of hte latest games at halfway acceptable settings. Just dont' expect to be playing FPS smoothly though, but RPGs/rts should be fine. Racing should be fine too.
manno - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
meLoneWolf15 - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
Interesting to note that even without Speedstep, the Celeron-M still has better battery life. Then again, didn't Intel change some designs in transistor-switching to make battery performance better even at full speed?One comment, more to notebook manufacturers: Where the heck is my Trackpoint mouse? I can't stand touchpads, which require me to take my fingers off the keyboard to use, when a trackpoint can be used almost simultaneously. I can type 75-80wpm, and don't find touchpads very efficient for this reason (my older but top-of-the-line-when-released Latitude C840 has both devices). Somebody, please bring back the Trackpoint!
Hacp - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
Also, why do you have to take your fingers of the keyboard to use the touchpad? I keep one hand on the keyboard, and one hand on the touchpad when using my computer. Rightclick is tap top right corner, leftclick is tap anywhere on the touchpad that doesn't involve the top right corner.Zorba - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
I too hate touchpads and miss the old mouse sticks. I always rub the touchpad with my arm when typing and usually end up clicking some where I don't want to. It also takes me much longer to navigate with a touchpad and I usually accidently click something because I change the amount of pressure on the pad (I know you can turn the clicking off, but I still don't like the pad). It is a personal preference but I would like to at least be given the chance to pick between the two.matthewfoley - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
Yeah, well I hate the mouse sticks. Who cares.Zorba - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
The point the original poster and I were trying to make is manufacturers should include both devices, which a lot of them used to do.Hacp - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
The battery life difference is most likely due to the ATI chipset and integrated graphics, which uses more power than intel EE.Tamale - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
page 9's link to page 10 is shotTamale - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
nvm :]