Compaq Presario 900 1500+: The Radeon IGP Goes Mobile

Features - Software

Since our Presario 900 did not come directly from the manufacturer, we were unable to tell what software came on the system standard. Taking a look at the Compaq website, however, did answer some of our questions.

First off, it seems that the Presario 900 comes with Microsoft Windows XP Home installed. Recent months have seen notebook manufacturefs switch away from using older operating systems, such as Windows ME or 2000, in favor of the new Windows XP solutions. We could not be more pleased with this trend. The decision to go with Windows XP Home makes sense considering that the Presario is not targeted at the business market.

The Presario 900 also comes with quite a bit of useful bundled software. First off, the system comes preloaded with Microsoft Works 6.0; a feature that few other notebooks can claim. Although Works 6.0 may not be nearly as full featured as Microsoft Office, the program does allow for a minimum amount of word processing and spread sheet management. By including Works 6.0 standard, Compaq has provided the user with a viable temporary solution that is more than able to perform office tasks until a more powerful office suite is needed. In addition to the Works 6.0 base install, the Presario 900 also comes with Microsoft Money 2001 as well as Microsoft Encarta Online Deluxe. These two programs may go unused by a large portion of people, but for those who need them the programs will save money down the road.

The Presario 900 packages a software DVD player standard enabling DVD playback through the internal DVD drive. The solution Compaq went with is InterVideo's WinDVD program. As we have mentioned before, we think that WinDVD is among the best software DVD programs out there so we were pleased to see it included in the base system setup.

Finally, for that extra level of security, the Presario 900 comes preloaded with Norton Anti-Virus 2002.