Great value superlight notebook
Written: Oct 20 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great value, good design
Cons: keyboard a little small
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| t-chang2's Full Review: Compaq Presario 305 (102331-003) PC Notebook |
My existing laptop is about 7 lbs and it is heavy when you have to lug it around. I find that the weight kind of discourage me from carrying it around. So I decided to look for a fly-weight laptop. I have done some research and find that the compaq 305 is the best one within my budget. It is retail for $1300 new, but I found a used one at Ebay for $800. Here is my experience with it so far.
The machine comes with an expansion base that has the floppy drive and the cd rom. This is kind of unusal since most laptops in this class don’t include a cdrom. So the value here is pretty good. The base also has the usual connections like serial, parallel, usb, mouse and keyboard, audio I/O. It also has two speakers built-in. So if you want to use the cd rom, you have to connect the machine to the base. On the other hand, the floppy can be taken out and connect to the machine through a supplied parallel cable. Without the base, the machine is about 3 lbs. The footprint is quite small and can be easily fitted into any bag that one would want to carry. It has one usb, one pcmcia, infra red, monitor, parallel, serial port. However, it does not have the mouse or keyboard ports. So either you have to use the expansion base or use USB devices. One thing I do like about it is that it does have the infra red port. Some laptops nowadays don’t have it and I find it quite useful for syncing with my palm. The battery lasts about 1 hour 30 minutes. It is not the best but I usually use ac anyway. So it is not a big deal to me. But if you do plan to use it extensively with a power outlet. Then remember to get some batteries. The screen is 11 inch and is 800 by 600. For what I need to do (mainly web browsing, word processing), it is large enough and is quite bright. One thing I was impressed was how stylish it looked. It had a metallic blue outer finish and seems to be quite durable. If you are style conscious, then this won’t disappoint.
Another concern I have with laptop is overheating. I have another laptop that is kind of hot when it runs. The fan would just drive me crazy. Fortunately, the 333 megahertz celeron seems to be quite cool and the bottom of the machine was not hot at all. You can hear the fan but it is pretty quiet.
It has 64M of memory which is enough for me and probably for this class of machine. The hard drive is 4.5G and might be a bit small depending on what you store.
One thing people don’t talk about much is the ac adapter. You don’t really want a big and heavy adapter when you are carrying a 3lb notebook. Kind of defeating the purpose. In this case, the adapter is not the smallest I have seen, but is small enough that it can be easily carried. One thing good about it is that the cord is quite long and should be long enough for any situation.
Finally, let me talk about the keyboard. It is smaller than a full-size keyboard. You would definitely need to get use to it. I used it for a few days and find that there was not a big problem. But I can see a problem with people that have big hands.
In conclusion, I like this machine a lot. When I put it in my bag, I don’t feel that much weigh. So, I am much more inclined to carry it than my old machine. And this is what I really cared about the most. So for me, this is a winner.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
t-chang2
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Reviews written: 2
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