As a gift to myself and to further my blogging, I decided to purchase a laptop.

The selection process was hard. I was torn between getting an Apple Macbook or a PC laptop. Financial constraints led me to stick it with a familiar friend — PC. This review is a bit long so I suggest watching this funny or annoying ad (depending on which side you’re on) as an ice breaker.

 

On to the actual review

Out of the box, the Compaq Presario C794TU notebook comes pre-installed with a licensed copy of Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic. Initially, I was thinking of buying the lower model (C767TU) pre-installed with FreeDOS as I had concerns with Vista’s performance but went on to buy this higher-end model because of the faster processor and bigger hard drive capacity.

For a Vista laptop, I can say that it performs well given the limited 1 x 1 GB DDR 2 RAM that came pre-installed. Typical applications such as Yahoo Messenger, Skype, MS Office 2007, and Adobe Photoshop CS2 load in under six (6) seconds. The manual says that this lappy can accomodate an additional 1 GB for a maximum of 2 GB system RAM.

The embedded graphics card, an intel graphics media accelerator X3100, performs well for photo and movie applications. Casual games and most games released in 2007 or earlier also work well but i doubt if it can hold against graphics-intensive games such as Crysis. The crisp and bright widescreen 15.4? XGA display is ideal for watching HD movies and online videos with the HD-audio capable altec lansing speakers embedded near the screen. If the 1280×800 maximum screen resolution is not enough, this presario can also output video to widescreen televisions in 16:9 via the S-Video port.

The built-in webcam is decent but not the best of its kind. It needs some adjustment in low light conditions and I can see visible flickers on the photo and video output.

As for the optical media drive, it can read and write double layer DVDs (8.5 GB) which can store twice the capacity of regular DVDs (4.7 GB). This is particularly useful when burning large files like making recovery discs for the pre-installed Microsoft Windows Vista image stored in the 160 GB hard drive. Lightscribe (a.k.a direct disc labeling) support would have been a great addition but unfortunately, it is not supported.

Adding peripherals is limited to devices with USB connectivity. Hewlett Packard engineers decided to stuff in three (3) USB 2.0 ports to the presario and left out firewire devices which would have been very useful for video editing since most video cameras transfer digital videos faster using firewire. Complementing the USB ports is a 5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader for Secure Digital cards, MultiMedia cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, or xD Picture cards. The built-in card reader is a convenient substitute for the unfortunate absence of built-in bluetooth a feature that comes standard with most laptops today.

Internet connectivity is a breeze with the WiFi 802.11A/B/G, Ethernet port, and 56K modem.

As with all laptops, majors issues are battery performance and heat management. Based on my limited run, my presario’s 6-cell lithium ion battery’s power went down from 100% to 39% after one (1) hour and twenty (20) minutes of full-screen skype video conferencing over WiFi. The heat vent on the laptop dissipates the heat well keeping the laptop relatively cool despite hours of non-stop use in a non-airconditioned room.

Priced at Php34,950.00 (Suggested Retail Price), the Compaq Presario C794TU notebook is a good laptop for regular users such as professionals, students, and even bloggers.