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Compaq Presario 800 Review
May 25, 2001
By Eric Grevstad
A Slimline for Slim Budgets
A Slimline for Slim Budgets
You could say that the history of portable technology involves expensive, executive status symbols evolving into mainstream consumer products. It happened with the first laptop computers, and with cell phones and PDAs. Now Compaq is helping it happen with slimline or "thin and light" notebooks.
The fact that the new Presario 800 weighs just 3.5 pounds and is under an inch thick is only its secondary appeal. Its primary appeal is that you can buy it for $1,699, reasonably equipped with a 700MHz Pentium III processor, 128MB of memory, a 10GB hard disk, and the external floppy and CD-ROM drives that some slimlines charge extra for.
Our test unit, upgraded with a 20GB hard disk and external DVD-ROM instead of CD-ROM, was $1,899. (Add $129 to these prices if you'd like Microsoft Office Small Business Edition instead of Microsoft Works preinstalled.)
It's been a couple of years since ultrathin Sony Vaio and Toshiba Portege notebooks first caught frequent fliers' eyes, but those vendors haven't brought prices down as aggressively: The Presario 800, which has a crisp 12.1-inch, active-matrix screen, costs about as much as a Vaio SR17 with 10.4-inch or Portege T3490CT with 11.3-inch display. And the Compaq comes with both 56Kbps modem and 10/100Mbps Ethernet ports built in, as well as two USB ports and even an IEEE 1394 FireWire port for high-speed storage or video peripherals.
More important, its modest impact on your credit-card bill isn't the only time the Presario will make you smile. After carrying the compact Compaq for two weeks, we're hooked on the convenience of having a versatile Windows Millennium Edition notebook that's no bigger than last year's Windows CE dedicated devices -- a computer we can not only use comfortably in our lap instead of on a desk, but use sitting back with our legs crossed.
And while we wouldn't rely on it for industrial-strength AutoCAD or Adobe Premiere, the 800 proved a perky performer for everyday office tasks and even the occasional DVD flick or game. Its lack of parallel and PS/2 ports means that anyone planning to connect a printer, mouse, or full-sized keyboard will have to go the USB route, but that's a tradeoff we can live with.
Is there anything we disliked? Unfortunately, yes -- lightweight laptops tend to have lightweight batteries, and the Compaq's lithium-ion cell is downright wimpy. We don't expect a system this small to give us the three- or four-hours-plus we want from a desktop replacement, but our Presario 800 repeatedly faded after barely one hour. That's awfully weak -- and the sole reason this is a three- instead of four-star review.
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