Compaq Evo Notebook N1005v

...the price of the official Compaq spare part.

Styling
You'll probably either love or loathe the styling, the laptop is finished in a striking silver and black with chrome details around the hinges and trackpad. The finish is hard wearing and doesn't show scratches too badly.

Screen
The 14" screen is excellent - clear and sharp and supporting a resolution of up 1024 x 768 (XGA). Compaq also produce a ...
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Ports
The laptop has all the 'usual' ports - connectors for external mouse/keyboard, a couple of usb ports, headphone and microphone sockets, s-video out for connecting to a tv, vga for connection to an external monitor or projector, an infra red port and a plain old serial port.

Drives
The laptop has a a floppy drive and a DVD-CD Writer combo drive. I believe the CD Writer is a 24x speed model. The hard disk ... more

The company I work for runs a fleet of 120 of these laptops, which are now just over a year old.

So have any gone wrong?
Of the 120 around 30 have been returned at some point for warranty repairs, though many of these returns were as a result of the laptop being dropped!

There have been a few hard disk problems and one or two have had a problem with the connection to the screen around the hinge. Also a weak point has been the clip which retains the battery - allowing the battery to fall out with obvious result when not plugged into the mains!

The biggest problem has been with the power supplies, wrapping the lead around the unit has caused many to fail and these aren't covered by warranty. Fortunately one of the 'universal' laptop power supplies works perfectly as these are half the price of the official Compaq spare part.

Styling
You'll probably either love or loathe the styling, the laptop is finished in a striking silver and black with chrome details around the hinges and trackpad. The finish is hard wearing and doesn't show scratches too badly.

Screen
The 14" screen is excellent - clear and sharp and supporting a resolution of up 1024 x 768 (XGA). Compaq also produce a version with a 15” screen in the same chassis.

Ports
The laptop has all the 'usual' ports - connectors for external mouse/keyboard, a couple of usb ports, headphone and microphone sockets, s-video out for connecting to a tv, vga for connection to an external monitor or projector, an infra red port and a plain old serial port.

Drives
The laptop has a a floppy drive and a DVD-CD Writer combo drive. I believe the CD Writer is a 24x speed model. The hard disk is a 30gb model.

Networking
The laptop has built in 10/100 wired ethernet. There is a PCMCIA socket on the side to plug in a wireless network card or other PCMCIA device.

Also built in is a plain old 56k modem.

Battery Life
Battery life is around 2.5-3 using the laptop for general Office applications, this would drop when using the DVD drive.

Usability
The keyboard is good, but not perfect, the keys feel a little spongy. The trackpad is accurate and responsive. The laptop has an extra row of 'quick access' buttons which can be configured to load applications of your choice. The built in speakers are surprisingly good and there is also a built in microphone.

The laptop uses an Athlon processor (though there are Pentium 4 versions available) and so does run rather hot making it uncomfortable to use on your lap for extended periods of time.
 

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