Compaq Presario 800 Review

See the Light

The Presario 800 measures 0.9 by 8.9 by 10.5 inches and tips the scales at 3.5 pounds exactly. Even tossing a few accessories into your briefcase -- the AC adapter and Walkman-sized DVD-ROM drive weigh a pound apiece, while the external USB floppy drive weighs 9 ounces -- you'll have plenty of room left for papers, a cell phone, and a sandwich.

Most of the ports -- two USB, 1394, modem, Ethernet, and one PC Card Type II slot -- are at the left side of the notebook, along with a proprietary IDE connector for Compaq's 24X CD-ROM, 8X DVD-ROM ($100 more than the CD-ROM if you're custom ordering), or 4X CD-RW ($150 more than the DVD ditto).

You can buy the CD-RW drive separately for $399, which seems steep considering that (admittedly slower) external USB burners are available for half that. The floppy drive conveniently hot-swaps or plugs in and out while the system's running (an "eject PC Card," meaning "disconnect USB drive," icon appears in the Taskbar tray when it's inserted), but you must turn the computer off and fiddle with the tiny, balky connector to attach or detach the DVD-ROM.

A guaranteed-to-lose rubber plug at the rear hides the VGA external monitor port; an infrared port is at the right, beside a row of vents for the system's usually inactive but occasionally whirring, hot-breathed cooling fan. Microphone and headphone/speaker jacks are at the front edge of the system, between two of the smallest, tinniest speakers we've ever heard -- DVD movie dialogue sounded tolerable, but listening to audio CDs through the speakers is strictly for masochists.

Speaking of DVDs, they looked darn good on the Compaq's small (12.1-inch) but sharp (1,024 by 768-pixel) LCD, driven by a 4MB ATI Mobility M1 2X AGP accelerator. We developed a headache after one session of Space Cadet Pinball under fluorescent office lights, but otherwise the Presario's text and images were swift and clear, and pressing Fn-F3 to toggle between the LCD, a CRT, and both at once made presentations a pleasure. When using just a CRT at 1,024 by 768 resolution, the ATI chipset can drive it at a flicker-free 85Hz refresh rate that's much easier on the eyes than the LCD's native 60Hz.

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