So why did I buy it? OK, this wasn't a purchase. This was a gift from a relative so I can't really say why I bought it, because I didn't. Got to admit it's a pretty good gift from someone I can't remember ever meeting, eh? ;o)
If I could afford one, I would have purchased a laptop for all the usual reasons. To be able to do work on the move or out of the house, to have computer that doesn't take up much space that can be packed up easily, just because I can afford one and it'd be cool to own a laptop, etc. My main reason would be to be the first one.
LOOKS
The look of the laptop is quite modern-looking from the front when opened. I think it was released in 2002. It's mostly silver in colour on the outside, with black here and there. The top and bottom of the outer case is silver and the sides, keyboard keys, buttons, around the screen, and the bit where I rest my hands to type are black. The keys are surrounded by silver. See the picture for what it looks like once opened. If I were to pick a laptop based on looks, this may very well be the laptop I choose, that is unless I see one that's even nicer looking.
DURABILITY
It seems like a very durable laptop. I've never dropped it, or dropped anything heavy on it but I've been carrying it around and haven’t had any problems with it from the minor bumps every now and again. I will be happy to drop it from a great height to test the robustness of the laptop if someone will offer to buy me another or a better one. ;o)
PERFORMANCE
How does it perform? Pretty good. With a processor speed of 2Ghz, and a fairly generous amount of RAM of 512MB, it's pretty fast but after a while, like most computers it can get clogged up with stuff and start to slow. Nothing a clean install won't solve! It's a Pentium "4M", short for 'Mobility'(?), which means that it lacks some features that a regular P4 would have. I'm not sure what though so don't ask! :-Þ
2.0Ghz is 4 times the speed of my desktop so I can't really complain about the speed. I've never had anything faster! It's a pretty good speed for laptops and only 'slightly' out dated, even though you can buy PCs with a CPU of over 3.0Ghz for around the same price as this laptop. It'll go more and more out-of-date as time passes though, as all computers do.
32MB graphics is a bit out-of-date by today's standards but I feel that this is sufficient for my needs. People who play lots of 3D games, or want the 'best' would prefer to have more video RAM for faster graphics performance. More video RAM allows the more data to be converted from digital to analogue data to be sent to the screen, so basically, the more you have, the smoother the graphics runs.
At around 3Kg, It's fairly heavy to carry around, especially when you have other stuff to carry around, but I guess that can't be helped for a laptop of this size though.
BATTERY LIFE
Battery life for the Presario 2800 is fairly generous for laptops as I believe some other laptops only have a battery life of about an hour. It comes with an AC power adapter so I use that whenever I can. The 14.4V Li-Ion battery is surprisingly small because I've seen ones double this size. I saw some replacement batteries at $147.95 USD. What a bargain…not! That's the thing with laptops. Difficult to upgrade and buy replacements. Even if you can, you need to get the stuff from the manufacturer.
10MB LAN means the network connection. (LAN's short for Local Area Network if you're wondering). The female RJ45 network port on the back is very much required by myself. I need it to connect the laptop to my PC to transfer files and to connect to my ADSL connection. Needless to say, the 56K port and modem is redundant because I don't need it so I can't say how well it works. To print, I send print jobs over the network to my PC, which sends the job to the printer. Another reason why I need the network.
LIGHTS AND STUFF
Above the keyboard, there are seven buttons. For Information, Email, Search, Power, Music, and lastly, the volume controls. Now that I mention it, I don't ever use the buttons other than the volume one.
There are green LED lights to indicate power source, NUM LOCK, CAPS LOCK, and Hard Disk activity. The usual stuff basically. At the bottom, there's the 'charging' orange LED and the green power LED lights.
MANUALS
I haven't even looked at the manual so can't say anything about it. I'm sure it's very nice. :-)
LIKES
What I like about the laptop is the speed, memory, the look of it and the slimness. Also, the touchpad thing is pretty cool. I've never had a laptop before so it's new to me. Much better for my fingers than a mouse. The navigation circle thing that I can use to scroll is also quite nifty. That's the thing just under the left and right (mouse equivilent) buttons.
DISLIKES
I don't like the design in the way that I need to swap the DVD/CDRW drive with the floppy drive whenever I need the other drive. That's just inconvenient and would've preferred that they chucked the floppy drive in there somewhere. I also dislike the plastic cover that I need to flip open to access the USB, LPT and VGA ports at the back of the laptop. It doesn't stay down, it looks flimsy, 'plasticy' and it looks cheap and crap when opened.
IMPROVEMENTS
To improve it, maybe they could put the floppy drive in and not have me swapping all the time. I need the floppy drive because I don't want to carry my zip drive around which needs a power adapter. Computers at my uni use zip drives, floppy disk drives and a CDROM drive. Burning files to CD is too much effort so I usually resort to floppies.
I wouldn't mind a black outer case as it would probably make the inevitable scratches less visible. Also, more USB ports….can't have enough of those! Don't want to carry around a USB hub. Do something about that lid that covers the ports. Use a different type of lid that doesn't look so flimsy.
CONCLUSION
Overall, I feel that it's a pretty good laptop but would I buy it again? Probably not, unless it were all I could afford. I would want one that's a bit more convenient, with higher specs and more features.
If you were to buy the Presario 2800 today, you would get more features and higher specs. The Presario will come with Blue Tooth, RADEON 7500 (with up to 64Mb DDR SDRAM memo, and even a slightly faster processor of 2.2Ghz, up to 1Gb RAM, etc. That's what I read anyway.
PRICE
I don't know exactly how much it costs but it's probably around £800-£900 now. More if you get one with the newer stuff.
SPECS
Some of the specs are as follows. From what I remember and from looking at the back of the laptop so I might have missed some stuff.
» Pentium 4M 2.0Mhz » 512MB DDR RAM » 30GB HD 7200rpm » ATI Mobility Radeon 32MB PC266 DDR SDRAM » Max Resolution 1024 x 600 » 10Mbit LAN » 56K Modem » 2x USB 2.0 » Infrared » 15" TFT » LPT1 Printer Port » VGA output » S-Video output » Removable 3½" Floppy Diskette drive » Removable DVD/CDRW Combo drive » Approx 3Kg weight » Approx 3 hour battery life » Windows XP Home » PCM expansion slot thingymajig (no experience with these)
More details
Memory / capacity
Good
Ease of use
Satisfactory
Range of Extra Features
Good
Instruction manual
Satisfactory
Manufacturer Support
Satisfactory
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