Advantages: Good Solid reliable computer
Disadvantages: Fiddly to upgrade the memory or hard drive.

...I run a charity that gives computers to disabled peole. Mostly, I have had Compaq computers donated to me for this project and I can honestly say that they are about 99% reliable. Of the over 300+ computers donated so far,270+ have been Deskpro EN series, and I have only had 3 callbacks for problems on the units.Normally a plug I hadn't pushed in properly. All the other have proved to be no problem at all. I myself use a Deskpro EN at home, and it has worked flawlessly for over 1.5 years, and its on 24 hours a day. It is also the server for a local LAN in my house, and is the master for Internet connection sharing. Faultless in operation, I would not hesitate to recommend this marque to anybody looking for a reliable unit. Any business looking for long term reliability, and a good strong workhorse should definately consider... Read review

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Advantages: Small and perfectly formed
Disadvantages: Limited upgrade path

...Surprisingly good - considering the age and specification of the machine, were my second impressions of this system, and so far, nothing has led me to stray from that view. I first came across the Deskpro EN at work, around four years ago - my first impressions weren't altogether favourable, but that was almost entirely due to a somewhat overzealous security policy, using an outdated operating system, on an under specified system, with an excess of resource hungry applications. I would be the first to admit how wrong I was. The design brief for these systems is simple; 'put together a small footprint system with everything onboard, and allow an upgrade path which should keep this system running well beyond your expectations' could quite easily have been what was asked for, as that's exactly what you get. 'Big box features... Read review

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Advantages: Easy to work on, good support
Disadvantages: Rather large footprint

...I have run a IT department for over 10 years and have seen many Computer suppliers in that time. I have now standarized on Compaq throughout the company for Desktops because I find that they have worked hard on what used to be very poor in customer service. We tend to now buy EP series because they suit our needs. We are not power users but use standard off the shelf products like Microsoft Office Pro and terminal emulation software for accessing our Unix system. The speeds are more than adequate for most users, why do you need disc access speeds of .00000001 msec if you are only typing memos and reports with 2 fingers. Service calls , which I must admit are not often, are dealt with in an efficient manner by Compaq Direct. Users Manuals are never opened by most users so why spend huges budgets on them. We currently operate about 120... Read review

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Advantages: Support, ease of maintenance, advanced diagnostics
Disadvantages: Can be slightly slower

...These PCs may not be lightning fast but then they're not meant to be. Not to say they're slow just not as fast as the fastest available. Where they excel is support and ease of maintenance. I have had occasion to log fault calls with Dell, HP and Compaq for fault calls and Compaq win. People take ownership of problems there and you're not passed from pillar to post. Logging warranty calls is straight forward - you don't spend half the morning trying to persuade them what the problem is when he is only half way through page nineteen of his diagnosis script - Compaq are a bit better than that and seem to be capable of independant thought. In terms of design the EN is first class- everything slides together and you don't have to take everything else out to fit a drive. Even the motherboard is on rails - handy if the MD is breathing... Read review

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Advantages: Reasonable image quality, In Camera red eye removal,
Disadvantages: Noisy Pictures, Chromatic Abhorrations

...INTRODUCTION The Photosmart 415 is HP's basic entry level 5 MP camera. It comes equipped with a 3x Optical zoom lens, 6 x digital zoom, a 1.5" TFT screen, a supposed 16 Megabytes of internal memory (more on that later), selectable ISO levels, picture effects, in camera red eye removal, innovative Adaptive lighting system and 8 (so HP claim) shooting modes. As a standalone unit it's virtually identical to it's big brother the M417 apart from the smaller LCD, 1x less on the digital zoom, and lack of a burst mode, and as such it's not available in many shops or online stores. HP is selling through their online partner store Insight for the supposed price of £90 (actually £91.99) which, after Arfur Daley's favourite tipple has been added, works out at £108.09, a remarkably cheap price for a branded 5 Megapixel snapper... Read review

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Advantages: Small, stylish functional
Disadvantages: A little noisy in operation

...colour quality goes UP TO 4800x1200 dpi (on special HP paper, and an original input of at least 1200 dpi) and 600x800 in black best quality. The cartages these uses are: C8727AE HP No. 27 Black Inkjet Print Cartridge (10 ml) approx 220 pgs depending on print quality C6656AE HP No. 56 Black Inkjet Print Cartridge (19 ml) approx 450 pgs depending on print quality C8728AE HP No. 28 Tri-colour Inkjet Print (8 ml) approx 190 pgs depending on print quality C6657AE HP No. 57 Tri-colour Inkjet Print (17 ml) approx 400 pgs depending on print quality Scanner type is a flat bed, with optical scanning up to 600x2400 dpi, which can be further enhanced to up to 19,200 dpi (why oh why would anyone use this higher setting?). Colour depth is 32 bit, and you can zoom from the original anywhere from 50% to 400% of the original source. When... Read review

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Advantages: Clear bright pictures, Excellent built-in features, Good value for money, easy to use
Disadvantages: None in my view

...It all started on our Marriage Anniversary (it was our 8th), we took some pictures from our normal digital camera, put them on our PC and send them to our family and friends. End of the story…………….. Well actually NO……….. I asked my Mum how I was looking in my new outfit and whether I was looking fat. But guess what my Mum said she couldn't see me properly because the picture quality was poor and that all the pictures seemed to be too dark. That was the day we decided to buy a new digital camera. So we got the pleasure of bringing home the new HP PhotoSmart R927. OUTLOOK It is really amazing to know that such a cute little and compact metal body measuring about 9.6 x 5.4 x 6.2 cm and weighing 0.2kg could exhibit such HiFi features and totally amazing results. I like the metallic grey colour as well. PRIMARY FEATURES….. •... Read review

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Advantages: fast,simple,easy,good price
Disadvantages: none so far

...that match an internal drive, (you can purchase internal SCSI drives), meaning if you buy a good CD-Writer a full disk may only take 5 minutes for the whole thing! But as usual you don’t get anything for nothing. A USB drive on average is about £200, and a SCSI £300 - £400. And also note that a SCSI drive requires another card for your PC, meaning you STILL have to open it up. So I went for USB, my Hp CD Writer + 8930e, cost £190 of my savings, not a fortune compared to the standard internal drives. The installation was so easy, even a novice could understand it, the manual told you precisely what you have to do. Unpack the drive, plug in the power cable, connect to your PC, and switch it on. And then a message in Win98 is displayed, asking for your supplied installation disks. That is what really made this purchase a result for me... Read review

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Advantages: Negative scanning
Disadvantages: none

...The Scanjet 3800 photo scanner gives great value for money as a means of digitising your photo collection. Your can scan photos, slides and negatives quickly and efficiently. Also it is possible to digitise and copy your old photos with a resolution of up to 2,400 s 4,900 ppp and with a colour depth of 48 bits for warm rich images. The software you receive with the scanner is , HP Image Zone; a simple, comprehensive solution that provides you with a range of easy-to-use tools to get the most out of digital photography. HP Image Zone enables convenient download, archiving and preservation of digital memories, as well as simple editing, project creation and photo sharing. HP Image Zone photo and imaging software lets you optimize and enhance your digital photography and video experience with one, all-inclusive digital photography... Read review

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Advantages: Small, Lightweight, Long battery life, Good screen
Disadvantages: Battery cover a bit flimsy but thats nothing.

...This is my first PDA but I have used many others and so far I have not used one which is better than the RX3715. The software included is excellent especially Avantgo (A news program where you add your preferred channels and it updates every sync). Software to control TV's, Radios, DVD players, etc is also included and puts the IR port to good use. this software allows more than one users account and in each user more than one room so you can have hundreds of remotes in one PDA. A large system memory of 56Mb is available for running prgrams and storage. On top of that a further 96Mb is built in like a memory card which is very useful for putting all of your programs on. It is a bit limiting with only 1 SD card slot but personnally I have not needed a CF slot yet and with a 1GB SD card I can fit 4 films on to it or about 400 songs... Read review

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