On the go with stye
Written: Dec 28 '99
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Light, bright, sturdy.
Cons: Battery life
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| sbrogden's Full Review: Compaq Presario 305 (102331-003) PC Notebook |
Many PC users want to the ultimate composite - low cost, light weight, big screen, fast CPU, etc. For those of us in the real world, there's the Presario 305.
This notebook is not the lowest price small PC you can buy, but you will have to look long and hard to equal its value. For a list price of $2k (and bound to be on the drop by the time you read this), you get solid construction and great looks and tons of features.
The PC itself weighs just 3 pounds and sports an 11.3 inch active matrix screen which is bright and fast enough for most games. There's also the Celeron 333 CPU, 64MB of PC100 SDRAM and a 4.3GB hard drive. The CD-ROM and floppy drives are housed in the Multi-bay Expansion Unit (MEU)- no wires or cables running all over your desk. This doubles the height to about 2 inches and brings the weight up to 5 pounds, still light enough to travel wherever you go. The MEU disconnects with the push of one button. Both the MEU and the PC have a full array of standard ports and connectors to connect to your printer, external monitor, keyboard, etc. The PC also has an infrared port and an option for a mode/NIC card which frees up the PC card slot for something beside your LAN connection.
I use this PC as my work unit, plugged into a keyboard, mouse and monitor while at my desk. In a few seconds I can be unplugged and on my way to a meeting with ALL my data at my fingertips. No synchronizing, no copies to keep up with. Under normal use in the office I get just under 2 hours on the battery. This is the only significant downer with this PC, if mobility is your bag. But stay tuned if it's a problem for you - I hear that Compaq is coming out with a bigger battery for this PC (and its commercial brother, the Armada M300).
Bottom line - this is a home run for those of us who like reliability and mobility.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
sbrogden
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Member: Stuart Brogden
Reviews written: 10
Trusted by: 0 members
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