Compaq Presario 900 1500+: The Radeon IGP Goes Mobile

Construction - Build, Appearance, Size

The name Compaq remains one of the best known names in the computer industry even after the company's merger with Hewlett Packard. Although it is clear that the process of combining these two companies are under way, both HP and Compaq have maintained their own brand names and products. The Presario 900 that we look at in this review is touted as a notebook with "exceptional performance and outstanding value" by Compaq, revealing that its target audience is the midrange consumer. The Presario 900 is also the latest addition to the very popular Presario series of notebook computers.

The Presario 900 shares the same design as three other Presario series notebooks, including the Presario 2800 that we took a look at in May. In the months that have passed since our Presario 2800 review we have gotten a chance to look at many more notebooks. In retrospect, we can say that the design of the Presario 2800 and the Presario 900 is our favorite design yet. The notebooks are sleek, stylish, aggressive, and easy to handle. The color scheme is a silver with black design. Some items on the Presario 900 and 2800 are accented with chrome, including the screen hinges and the touchpad area.

A large button with the Compaq logo is located at the front of the system and serves to unlatch the Presario 900's 15.0" XGA TFT LCD panel (our model came with an SXGA+ display). The screen locking mechanism is very easy to use and, keeping in line with what we mentioned earlier, one of the best designs we have seen to date. Lifting up the screen reveals the keyboard and trackpad input device. Like the Presario 2800, the keyboard on the Presario 900 is an 85-key full sized black keyboard with dedicated arrow, home, page up, page down, and end keys. The Presario 900's keyboard was comfortable to type on.

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Since the Presario 900 and the Presario 2800 share may external similarities, let's turn to the Presario 2800 review to see what we had to say about the Presario 900's touchpad, access buttons, status LEDs, and front. Note that in the following the name "Presario 2800" has been replaced with "Presario 900".

The touchpad on the Presario 900 is unique not only in its shape but also in its buttons. First off, as opposed to a square touchpad, the Presario 900's touchpad surface is oval with chrome border. We really saw no advantage or disadvantage to the touchpad's shape; it was just different. The left and right click buttons below the touchpad were also uniquely shaped, curving to fit the contour of the touchpad. Unfortunately we found the buttons a bit too small for our liking. We did get used to them after a bit of use, however.

Below the touchpad and its buttons lies a four direction control button. The arrow pad serves as a four way scroll button, scrolling up, down, left, and right. The multipurpose button was nice, but it did contribute to the rather small left and right click buttons.

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Above the keyboard are a set of seven "easy access" buttons. The buttons perform any number of tasks that can be set by the user. By default, the i button launches the default browser and goes to Compaq's information page, while the mail button launches the default mail program, and the magnifying glass button goes to a Yahoo search page. The next button over, the large one in the middle of the easy access button row, is the power button. The music note button to the power button's right is set to launch Windows Media Player by default, while the plus and minus buttons on the far right sets the system volume up or down.

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The Presario 900 includes status LEDs for all important functions. On the front of the system, to the left and right of the LCD panel latch are two LEDs. The one on the left of the latch indicates power status: on indicated by a steady green, standby indicated by a blinking green. The LED on the right of the latch indicates battery status: solid green for charging, blinking green indicating that the battery is low.

Four more LEDs are located above the keyboard, to the left and right of the easy access buttons. The far left LED is the AC power status LED which glows green when AC power is being supplied to the laptop. One LED to the right over is the number lock key which turns number lock on and allows for a block of keys on the keyboard to act like a number pad. To the right of the access pad are two more LEDs, the first one indicating caps lock status and the second one indicating IDE drive access.