Compaq Presario 800 Review

Good To Go?

As you'd imagine from the system's overall size, the Compaq's 88-key keyboard is rather petite -- small enough to take a bit of getting used to, but not too small to use accurately and painlessly after a little practice. A smooth typing feel helps offset the lack of dedicated Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn keys (as with many notebooks, the latter piggyback on the cursor arrows via a special shift or Fn key, which is awkwardly adjacent to the Ctrl key).

Like Compaq's consumer Presario desktops, the 800 offers one-touch Internet and e-mail (and, sigh, online shopping) launch buttons above the main keyboard. The Fn key doubles with function keys for handy CD/DVD control buttons (play, pause, previous or next track). A rocker switch on the system's front edge raises and lowers audio volume.

Though its tap-to-click function is switched off by default, we enjoyed controlling the pointer with the square touch pad beneath the space bar; its snazzy chrome mouse buttons are accompanied by an up/down button that serves as a (slightly sluggish) scroll wheel for cruising through word processing documents or Web pages.

As we've said elsewhere, a 700MHz Pentium III with 128MB of SDRAM is ample power for office reporting, e-mail, and even routine image-editing work, and the Presario's performance when launching applications or recalculating spreadsheets didn't disappoint. Memory is expandable from the standard 128MB to 192MB or a maximum of 256MB (and through June 16, those who buy a Presario 800 from Compaq's Web site can pick up a 64MB module for $1 or a 128MB module for $99, a sweet deal -- Ed.), though the 10GB or 20GB hard disk is fixed and not upgradeable.

That leaves only our battery-life letdown: The 800's four-cell battery stick repeatedly conked out after between an hour and three minutes and an hour and eight minutes in our real-world work sessions, shutting down the system and helpfully saving open applications and files to the hard disk (hibernation) after only a couple of warning beeps.

Activating and deactivating the Pentium III's SpeedStep slowdown didn't make a noticeable difference (no surprise); neither did a session of simple word processing with no CD or DVD play (surprise). A spare battery is $99, but we'd opt for Compaq's bulkier 12-cell "extended life" battery for $199, even at the risk of putting a love handle on the Presario's svelte physique.

Frankly, the rest of our experience with Compaq's affordable ultralight was so positive that we'd leave it on our shopping list despite the too-brief battery. Put it this way:

Pros:

• Wonderfully light and compact
• Great value
• Surprisingly capable, virtually "first" instead of "second PC" caliber performance

Cons:

• Itty-bitty battery life
• Keyboard and screen a tad small for all-day use
• Requires USB, not old parallel printers or PS/2 mice

That said, we'd face a tough choice between the 800 and Dell's Inspiron 2100, with its nearly identical specs, size, and price. The Inspiron delivered longer battery life in our review and has good old-fashioned parallel and PS/2 ports, but just one USB and no FireWire port.

Either way, we're happy to say that ultra-convenient, slimline notebooks aren't just for jet-setting executives anymore. The Presario 800 is worth a look from any laptop shopper.

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