My all day companion
Written: Sep 17 '02
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Pros: Size, quality, magnezium casing, updated drivers, support.
Cons: Keyboard, battery life.
The Bottom Line: Great business portable. Not for gaming, though.
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| imreasztar's Full Review: Compaq Armada M300 (124788-052) PC Notebook |
The Compaq Armada M300 belongs to the subnotebook family, where size matters vs. performance/features.
My model is upgraded to 320 MB Ram (with a Kingston 256 MB module from eCost.com) and has Windows XP installed.
Screen
The screen is of great quality, no faulty pixels on mine, sharp and easy to view at all day long. The 12.1 size TFT is just perfect. Remember that you view laptop screens from closer compared to desktop screens. So this 12.1 inches is like 17 or 19 inches desktop screen for me. I use it with 1024 x 768 resolution, what is great for web browsing (I can have IE fully open with my Favorites on the left side), or document editing. The screen can be turned to any angle you want and keeps its positions.
Touchpad
I could not imagine that I would give up using a mouse, but the Synaptics touchpad on the M300 is really great. The sensitivity is adjustable to your needs, with a function that skips unwanted light touches when typing. The touchpad has many extra features:
- double tap for double click
- tap and drag for click and drag
- vertical and horizontal scrolling
- configurable function for tap at the corners (mine has: Start menu, Program Menu, Minimize and Right click emulation).
All aspects and functions of the touchpad are customizable to your needs.
However, some tasks are better done with a mouse (like photo editing), so I also purchased a Targus Optical Wireless mouse. It plugs to the USB port at the back, and works well together with the touchpad.
I believe now, that touchpads and pointing sticks are not that bad at all, but your satisfaction will depend on the implementation and build quality of it. The M300 has a great touchpad and you will be happy using it.
Keyboard
The keyboard suffers from bad design... First, the footprint of the keys appear on the screen. Then, PgUp/PgDn/Home/End/Ins/End are too close to each other, and always press a different one instead of a desired one. Other important keys, like "Esc" is also very small, and have to look at the keyboard if I want to press it. The travel of the keys is sufficient, rather average.
Battery
This is where the big downside is. The standard 4 cell battery offers only from 1h 30min to 1h 50min runtime, what is relatively short. The solution would be the 6 cell high capacity battery, but it is very expensive, and you can only charge it in the machine itself.
I always have to carry on me the AC power adaptor what is extra bulk and weight. On the other side, I really like the AC adaptors cabling and size, and it also features 100-230V auto switching. It was handy when I left Europe for a trip to Florida (USA).
The battery is attached at the back of the machine, and can be turned into a position that tilts the keyboard at a comfortable angle to type. Good idea.
Performance
The PIII 600 with 256 MB is largely sufficient for most business tasks, playing DVD, website management. Windows XP runs perfectly on this device. However, this platform is not for heavy gaming with is rather old and weak ATi Rage LT pro VGA card.
Size
I really love the size of the Compaq Armada M300: small enough to carry on all day long, but with a sufficiently large screen. The 12" screen of my laptop is like having a 17" desktop screen. It is also thin and light, perfect.
Connectivity
It is really great to have all the legacy ports, on a notebook of this small size. Especially the LPT port is handy. If you travel a lot, and want to print from place to place, you will see that most printers only have a parallel port. You just plug your cable to the printer, and you can use it with some installed general driver of HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark. I mean general driver like HP Laserjet III or similar, that is understood by all modern printers. The infrared port with its 4 Mbps is great to transfer files between laptops without hassle, just beam and its there. Also, if you want to access your mobile phone, infrared is a must. The USB port can handle your mouse, or flash card reader, one port of this is sufficient for most needs. You can use the touchpad if you want to plug something else on the USB port. The 56k modem is rarely used nowadays, I rather access the net via my GSM phone (infrared). The Lan connection is of high quality, great Intel mini PCI lan card. I use it to connect to my home PC, access the intranet at my workplace, and even to use for my ADSL connection. It is a pity, that Compaq did not include an utility like IBM to quickly change network profiles. I am getting tired to change IP, Gateway, DNS address and computer names each time I get to a different location. The PCMCIA card bay can accommodate your Flash card reader, external CD-rom, etc. There is also a VGA connector for projectors or larger screens at home.
I also use the LAN connection to access the mapped CD-Rom of my Desktop computer (rarely happens).
Software Bundle
My configuration only had NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 preinstalled, nothing else in extra. An antivirus would have been nice, though.
Design
The machine is designed with the business user in mind. It has an elegant black finish, that is not eye catching, but shows quality if you examine it from closer. All the casing is made of some kind of a special magnesium-alloy for less weight and improved protection.
The AC adaptor is also usable in US and Europe with 110-22V specs.
What I miss
Buttons for sound control
Larger function keys (Esc, End, Ins, etc.)
Second USB port
Network profile changing utility
Utility to change screen colors (gamma)
All in all, this is a great machine for everyday business and office use. I don't see a reason for having a portable computer with 1 GHz CPUs, when a PII 500 MHz would run perfectly all office tasks. If you can get one refurbished or second hand, this is a good value for money.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1400
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Screen Size: 12 inches
RAM: More than 256
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
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Epinions.com ID:
imreasztar
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Location: Budapest, Hungary
Reviews written: 28
Trusted by: 6 members
About Me:
Bio/chemical engineer who loves mobile tech
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