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This is a printable version of the article found at http://onepc.net/reviews/0049/ To print, press CTRL + P on your keyboard now. |
By Kelly Lu (kellylu@onepc.net) - August 24, 2001
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When it comes to notebooks, however, the ability to build my own from scratch is virtually taken away from me, so my only choice would be to look for a major-branded model. In fact, one of the most important factors is to look at how big and respectable the company behind the notebook product is, since repairing and maintaining a notebook can become very much of a hassle. Although you might have to pay a little more for the brand, when you need to get something fixed or replaced, the general rule is that the larger and more respectable the company, the easier it is to get them to fix it or replace it for you.
When it comes to being large and respectable, Compaq is no rookie. Although they have dropped a little in recent times, Compaq is still the world's #2 maker of computer products. This is one of my main reason for wanting to review their Presario 1800 notebook-and also because it's loaded with features.
The Presario 1800 is what one would call a desktop replacement laptop, since it carries almost all the features that one would find in a fully-loaded desktop system. The center of the Presario 1800 is its power processor--our model, the 18XL590, came with an Intel Pentium III 1.0GHz processor, a speed that is very seldom seen in a notebook. Our model also came with 20GB of storage space, which should be plenty for a notebook, but might be lacking a bit for a "desktop replacement," 128MB of SDRAM, which I think is a little inadequate, and has its graphics powered by the ATI Mobility Rage 128 graphics controller. Aside from the core components, Compaq loaded a bunch of goodies to please just about any power user: an 8X DVD-ROM drive, a floppy disk drive, a spacious 15" LCD screen, built-in 56K modem and 10/100Mbps LAN (powered by the Intel 8255x 10/100 network controller), Video-OUT and JBL Pro Performance Audio speakers. Compaq even went further by including their special feature, DisqPlay2, which allows users to play CD's on their laptop without even having to power up the actual computer.
Specifications
| Presario 18XL590 | |
| CPU | Intel Pentium III 1.0GHz w/ SpeedStep |
| Memory | 128MB PC100 SDRAM |
| Hard Drive | 20.0GB |
| Display | 15" TFT LCD |
| Video Controller | ATI Rage™ Mobility 128 hardware-accelerated 3D Graphics |
| Audio | JBL Pro Performance Audio Speakers, Dolby® Digital Certified Sound |
| Modem | 56K ITU v.90 |
| Networking | Integrated 10/100 Ethernet Port |
| Keyboard/Touchpad | Full-size keys and separate cursor control keys (88 keys) - 101-key compatible |
| Battery/Power Supply | High-capacity LiIon battery |
| Diskette Drive | 3.5" 1.44 MB diskette drive |
| Expansion Slots | One (1) Type I, II or III PC Card slots with support for 32-bit CardBus |
| Security Features | Power-on password, Reinforced security slot; accepts 3rd-party security lock devices |
| Other Features | Windows XP Ready, DisqPlay2 |
| Physical | Unit: 11.02" x 12.99" x 1.65"(7.9lbs.) |
As you can see, the Presario 1800 is loaded with features to please just about any user, including ones who are as demanding as me. At a price of $2399 USD (for the 18XL590 model that I am looking at here) it won't lighten up your wallet-too much, that is.
The Presario 1800 comes with a Quick Start guide, a Lithium Ion battery, an AC adapter and a Quick Restore CD, which can come in handy in case your computer's OS goes bad on you. The user's manual comes on a CD, which is my first, if minor, complaint with this product. I am not a fan of placing the only copy of a user's manual on a CD, since how is the user going to be able to read what's on the CD if they run into problem setting up the product in the first place? This is not a big deal for most users, but for users who do not have a second computer handy with a CD-ROM drive ready, it could become a big hassle.
The actual Presario 1800 laptop is one of the most attractive ones that I've seen yet, with its stylish grey-silver top and its many curves. It does seem to be a little too thick for something that one would carry around all the time, but for a desktop replacement laptop, this thickness is about average. Weight wise, the Presario 1800, at about 7.9 lbs., is pretty heavy to carry around all the time--but again, it is quite average, even a little on the light side, for a desktop replacement laptop.
The front of the laptop boasts is a status display LCD that can be semi-seen when the laptop is closed. This status display is one of the many little unique features that Compaq has built into the Presario 1800--and it is really useful too! It will show you the battery level, whether the laptop is turned on or not (or in sleep mode) and also the track number and disc time of the CD that you are playing when you are using Compaq's DisqPlay2 feature, which I will explain later. There are also standard CD audio buttons such as Play/Pause and Next/Previous Track for use with DiscPlay2 as well as very handy controls for volume. All these features without even having to open up the laptop!
The left side houses the floppy disk drive as well as the built-in 8X DVD-ROM drive. I would have preferred to have the DVD-ROM drive be removable, much like with the Presario 1700, so that users can interchange it with other drives such as a CD-RW drive, but this cannot be done on the Presario 1800. The right side carries the battery compartment, jacks for an external headphone and microphone as well as the telephone and network jacks for the built-in modem and 10/100 LAN. I would have, however, favored an extra Line-out jack for plugging the laptop into a separate speaker system since headphone jacks are not specifically designed for that purpose and may output some unnecessary noise. There is also a PC Card slot that supports virtually any type of PC Card or 32-bit Cardbus device you throw at it.
Finally, the rear end of the Presario 1800.
The rear of the laptop is where all the rest of the I/O jacks are located. There is one shared PS/2 plug for either a mouse or keyboard, the power plug, a parallel port, a plug for the optional docking port, a Video-OUT jack for plugging the laptop to a TV, a D-SUB analog connector to use an external monitor, a serial port for plugging in a mouse and a USB port. It would have been nice for Compaq to include two separate PS/2 ports to facilitate for both a PS/2 keyboard and a PS/2 mouse to be used at the same time, though. The serial port that is present can resolve this dilemma if one has a serial mouse, but, if you're anything like me, you've probably given up on serial a long time ago. Also present at the rear of the Presario 1800 is a tiny intake fan, which hardly makes any noise at all, and is automatically turned on and off depending on the internal temperature of the laptop.
Finally, on the bottom of the Presario 1800, there is a hatch that can be unscrewed to facilitate for future memory upgrades. This makes it very easy to upgrade memory.
On the inside, the Presario 1800 looks much like any other laptop except for a few Compaq-extras. The keyboard is pretty standard when it comes to a laptop and is reasonably comfortable when typing. The Presario 1800, like all other Compaq laptops, comes with a touch pad, which is my personal preference (over the touch "points"). Two purple-colored buttons labeled with an up and down arrow are made for easy scrolling, which I thought was a very nice touch. The above-mentioned Compaq-extras are a row of buttons along the top of the keyboard for easy access to commonly-used functions and programs such as Internet browsing, email checking, music, etc. I have yet to find a way to configure these buttons to my own custom functions, though.
Finally, one can never miss the huge 15" TFT LCD monitor that the Presario 1800 includes. Spanning almost from edge to edge, it is one of the largest screens that you'll find on any laptop. The 15" LCD runs at a recommended resolution of 1024x768 and should make looking at the laptop just as if you're was using a desktop.
The process of powering up the Presario 1800 for the first time was very easy, as, once the battery snaps right into place and the AC power adapter is plugged in to charge the battery for the first time, all that was needed to do was press the power button. Once I got through the Windows setup wizard, it was ready to go! This is much easier than having to put together a system piece by piece and then having to do a clean installation of Windows, yadda, yadda, yadda... which is what I'm used to doing in setting up a new system. It is also one of the main benefits of going with a big-brand model--just plug it in and go!
The Presario 1800 comes bundled with Windows ME. Personally, I would have liked Windows 2000 for its better stability and more advanced features, but Windows ME works fine for me too--even better than Windows 98, which is contrary to what many claim. Compaq also includes Microsoft's Money 2001 and Works 2000, which affirms their point that this is targeted for the home user, as well as McAfee Virus Scan for virus protection. Personally, I do not like using virus scanners since they slow down one's computer considerably, so I chose not to install it.
Setting up the Internet was not as simple as I had originally thought it to be, however. Every time that I tried to open up Internet Explorer, it pops up with a registration for Compaq.NET, Compaq's internet service, and, if I chose to skip it, it closes down Internet Explorer also, preventing me from going online through my network. This, as you can imagine, can be quite a pain, especially for a user like me who is used to just plugging in a network cable and having everything automatically configured. This is, however, only a software configuration problem on Compaq's end, but is still a very annoying thing to have to deal with. I can't even remember how I got around this little problem, so, I'm afraid that I cannot document it here for you.
Now that I have all the set out of the way, it's time to test each part of the laptop!
Display
First up is to evaluate the quality of the built-in 15" LCD monitor. The pictures that it outputs were very sharp and clear and colors were very vibrant, but, like all smaller (< 17" LCD's), which is something that I realized recently, it also has some contrast and viewing angle problems. What I mean is that it has a very narrow viewing angle; only a few degrees off of the optimal angle will bring some terrible color distortions. Another side effect of this narrow viewing angle is the fact that the screen seems to never have the same contrast level when comparing the top and bottom of the screen. For example, while the top of the screen seems to have a perfect contrast ratio, the bottom will always be too bright. This is quite a big annoyance, but is found in mostly all smaller LCD screens, like I mentioned before.
Another big factor in determining the quality of a LCD screen is by counting the number of obvious dysfunctional pixels; the 15" TFT on the Presario 1800 had none that I could notice, which is excellent!
Video
The performance of the Rage Mobility 128, which is the graphics controller that is powering the graphics of the Presario 1800, was surprisingly very good for a mobile video controller. Plugging in a separate monitor, it is capable of outputting very clear images up to a resolution of 1280x1024 and with only a very minimal loss of quality at its highest setting, 1600x1200. What also surprised me was its gaming performance. With its native support for OpenGL and Direct3D, I was able to test out my full suit of games on Presario 1800. I found that the Presario 1800 could run Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed at 800x600 with 32-bit very reasonably, and Quake III: Arena with 800x600x16 at a speed of 31.6 FPS (demo001)! That is very reasonable for a laptop-I can't wait to be fragging away with Quake III: Arena while traveling in an airplane!
DVD/CD-ROM
The built-in 8X DVD-ROM drive performed as one would expect it to perform. Compaq includes their own software DVD player with the Presario 1800, which was very easy to use as well. My only complaint with the DVD-ROM drive is that it vibrates too much and could be a problem if one is watching a DVD movie in bed (long-term vibration is not good for your legs!)--although, I'm quite sure this would be the same for all laptops, it would be nice if somebody finds a way around it. Nevertheless, it is a pleasure to be able to watch a DVD player on the road, since it's the perfect chance for one to show off the capabilities of their laptop--why else would somebody spend this much money on a laptop? Certainly not to do work!
The DVD-ROM drive had no problems reading any CD's as well.
Now, I believe this is the perfect time to finally explain what the DisqPlay2 feature that I have been talking about so much is. As I briefly explained before, DisqPlay2 allows the user to play a CD without even having to open or turn on their laptop. This is a very useful feature that works as great as it sounds! As I mentioned before, Compaq even includes the necessary audio buttons to virtually transform the Presario 1800 into a (very) expensive portable CD audio player. There is even a status display, which is back-lit when in DisqPlay2 mode, that will show you track and disc time information. DisqPlay2 is one of those little features that helps to make the Presario 1800 stand out from the rest of the pack.
What would be even cooler, however, is if DisqPlay2 supports playback from MP3's burned onto CD's… something to think about for DisqPlay3, eh?
Sound and Audio
Being a laptop with such small built-in speakers, one should not expect too much out of the Presario 1800's sound system. Nevertheless, Compaq did a great job of including an excellent set of speakers-pending the circumstances, of course. The high tones were fairly well pronounced and I felt the bass to be somewhat lacking, but is still better than average for a laptop.
It is apparent that Compaq put a lot of thought into the multimedia-appeal of the Presario 1800, since they even included volume controls on the exterior of the laptop! These come in very handy since it's a little harder to "click" on the tiny volume control icon in the Windows system tray with a touchpad. I would have, however, preferred some sort of an indication of the volume level, such as a decibel meter on the status display, which the Presario 1800 lacks.
Input Controllers
As mentioned above, the Presario 1800 has a built-in touchpad for its pointer device. I, personally, feel that touchpads are easier to use, but others might disagree and prefer those touch "points." It is a personal choice, after all. The touchpad in the Presario 1800 is fairly easy to use, although, I find it to be a little bit sticky when the laptop has been sitting in a cool area, such as the basement, for a long time. To simplify things even more and to help users become more efficient, Compaq has built in scroll buttons to help with, well, scrolling. I find these scrolling buttons to be very useful and I use them all the time in place of the touchpad whenever I can.
The keyboard is also fairly good. I find the buttons to be a little too loose, but, again, this is more of a personal preference. The spacebar seems to be a little too small though, and I find that my thumb will not always be able to reach it, but otherwise, the keyboard is your everyday run-of-the-mill laptop keyboard.
The Tests
I decided to test against one of my desktop systems. I tried my best to match up the components in the desktop system to match the components in the Presario 1800. For example, I chose to use a GeForce2 MX graphics card instead of the default GeForce2 GTS that was originally in the system. Below is the system configuration of the desktop:
| Test System | |
| CPU | Intel Pentium III 1.0GHz |
| Motherboard | ASUS CU-SL2 |
| Memory | 128MB "Generic" PC133 SDRAM |
| Video | PowerColor PowerGene GeForce2 MX |
| Hard Drive | Quantum Fireball Plus LM 30GB |
| Network | Realtek 10BaseT Network Interface Card |
| Windows | Microsoft Windows ME (4.90.3000) |
| Drivers | NVIDIA Detonator 3 Reference drivers (version 12.41) |
No other programs were left running in the background, no screen savers or power saving features were configured and the mouse was left still for the entire duration of the benchmark for both systems. Each test was run three times, and the average of the three scores is shown within the results shown here.
From the results above, it is apparent that the performance of the Presario 1800 is somewhat lacking compared to a similar Pentium III 1.0GHz desktop system. This is due to many reasons, the main ones being that the desktop has a faster hard drive (7200RPM, compared to only 4300RPM), faster bus and memory speed (133MHz compared to only 100MHz) and because of its faster video card. Another important reason note, as mentioned before, is that the Compaq Presario 1800 has more extra programs running in the background than the desktop.
I also decided to run the benchmarks using the SpeedStep feature of the Pentium III 1.0GHz processor that is in the Presario 1800. I have not mentioned about this feature much before, but SpeedStep is a feature of the mobile Pentium III processor that allows the processor to slow down when it is not being utilized to its full extent. This can be usefull in extending the life of the battery, while minimizing performance loss at the same time.
The results above show a considerable dip in performance. This is very much expected, since the processor is really just running at a frequency of 700MHz, compared to 1000MHz of the other tests. Keep in mind, however, that this is not an accurate representation of what SpeedStep is able to do, since the whole point of SpeedStep is to minimize performance loss by reducing the frequency of the processor only when it is not being utilized up to its full extent!
Heat Problems
This, being something that I could not fit into one of the other categories, I felt that I should mention. With the increasing speed of components these days, heat is becoming more and more of a problem with computers. The Presario 1800, with its 1.0GHz Pentium III processor, 8X DVD-ROM drive and hard drive, is certainly not immune to these heat problems. Although it is apparent that Compaq has taken some effort into reducing the heat by placing a very tiny intake fan at the rear of the Presario 1800, I still think that it generates way too much heat. After using the laptop for extended periods of time, and especially if I am playing games, watching DVD's or doing anything else CPU-intensive, the Presario 1800 gets very warm, sometimes even hot to the touch.
I also noticed that the fan at the rear only gets turned on if the Presario 1800 reaches a very hot temperature. I think that it could be put to more use and that it should be turned on at a lower temperature threshold than it currently is set to.
Finally, after reading a few reports around the Internet, I have found that the Presario 1800 has its CPU placed somewhat directly underneath where the PC Card goes into the laptop. This, I have found, is a big problem especially with more fragile PC Card devices. After inserting and using my D-Link DWL-650 wireless network adapter for a period of time, and then taking it out, it was too hot to even touch! I am lucky to have a card that can withstand such high temperatures, but others might not be.
The Presario 1800, powered by an Intel Pentium III 1.0GHz processor (maximum), is truly one of the most powerful laptops one can find on the market today. Even just glancing at its specifications, which states that it includes everything from an 8X DVD-ROM drive to a huge, rarely-seen-on-a-laptop 15" TFT LCD screen, to a spacious 20.0GB hard drive, can affirm that. One part of the specs that I feel can be worked on, however, is the measly, in today's terms, 128MB of SDRAM; Compaq has already addressed that concern with their newer Presario 1800 models which boasts 192MB of SDRAM and leaves a lot more breathing room than the 128MB in my 18XL590. Finally, Compaq has made sure that the Presario 1800 will stand out from the rest of the pack with its Video-Out feature, useful for playing games or making presentations, and their exclusive DisqPlay2 feature. With all these features to show off to the person sitting next you on your flight, the Compaq Presario 1800 is sure to please.
Pros
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