The mid-tier Presario V4000 notebook from HP/Compaq hits a nice sweet spot in terms of both price and performance. Starting out at $749 after rebate, this laptop line offers good speed and a solid list of components without needing too many upgrades.
That starting price gives you a 1.3GHz Intel Celeron M processor and 256MB of DDR memory, so you might want to spend a little to upgrade the power core. You can jump to 512MB of memory for $50 and step up to a 1.5GHz Pentium M processor for $125, both manageable upgrades that will really boost performance.
The large 15.4-inch widescreen display is great for watching DVDs or just making sure you can get all of your application or document on screen at once. If you're doing a lot of graphics work, you may want to opt for the $25 upgrade to a Brightview screen--it's the same size, but gives you sharper contrast and brighter colors. Speaking of graphics, the dell xps m1530 battery relies on an integrated processor which shares video memory with the system, so it's not a great gaming machine.
Below are the notebook's specifications as reviewed:
- Compaq Presario R4125CA
- Processor: 2.2 GHz AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3500+
- Memory: 512MB (2 x 256MB) 333MHz DDR (Max. 2048MB)
- Video: ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M IGP (128MB Dedicated Memory)
- Display: 15.4" WXGA High-Definition BrightView Widescreen Display
- Hard Drive: 100GB (4200 RPM)
- Optical Drive: DVD R/RW and CD-RW Combo Drive with Double Layer Support
- Fax/Modem: High Speed 56k Modem
- Network Card: Integrated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN
- Wireless: 54g 802.11b/g WLAN with SpeedBooster and BroadRange support
- Power: 8 Cell Lithium-Ion Battery
- Microsoft Windows XP Home with SP2
Very few low range notebooks are able to flaunt a powerful, crisp, clean screen along with its low price. Toshiba pa3383u-1brs battery are great notebooks to buy for the screen, powered by the TruBrite technology. Besides Toshiba very few can proudly talk about their screen. I have talked about this before, when manufacturers are forced to choose between different qualities and features on their notebooks. This time, Compaq just chose to ignore the significance of a good screen, which they could have improved easily. When watching movies, the screen has lack of brightness which I couldn't adjust. It seemed dull and vapid enough for me not to enjoy the movie completely. The screen was impressive in size though measured at 15.4 in, but screens that large will simply accentuate the dullness. The big screened notebooks must be crisp and clear.
Despite the screen quality, there is nothing lacking in the sound quality. A pair of high quality JBL speakers gave a great effect when playing music. They have a nice three button external adjustment which is convenient after just trying out a notebook that had no external control. The extra problem of opening the Windows control is more annoying than people believe; especially for me as I constantly adjust volume during movies to either boost conversation volume or quite action scenes. There have been speaker problems with almost every notebook Ive reviewed and I began to believe that low price notebooks and good sound couldnt go together. Im relieved that I was wrong.
Our Presario V4000 test system came equipped with the latest mobile components, including a 2.0GHz Pentium M processor, an 80GB hard drive, and 1GB of 333MHz memory--the maximum amount of RAM the V4000 can accommodate. A bonus is the double-layer DVD burner; for a reasonable fee, you can add HP's LightScribe technology to laser-etch labels directly on the disc's surface. While it's a dell inspiron 1501 battery tolerable movie machine, the Presario V4000 lacks the Pavilion dv4000's instant-play features and remote control, and the V4000's stereo speakers sound too soft. Its 15.4-inch wide-screen BrightView display, with a 1,280x800 native resolution, looked slightly washed-out but offered a good amount of screen real estate. With an integrated Intel 915 graphics accelerator that uses up to 128MB of system memory, the Presario V4000 is not suitable for high-end gamer who require dedicated video memory.
As I have stated, I was planning to have this notebook plugged into power for the most part, so battery life was not the biggest concern for me. This package comes with the 8-cell battery, and if mobility is important to you with this laptop, it would be wise to upgrade to a 12 cell COMPAQ PRESARIO V4000 SERIES battery or get a spare. The advertised battery life was 3 hours; however I have found it to be closer to around 2 hours and 15 minutes. However turning options off like wireless, and keeping screen brightness down, could increase this and get it closer to the advertised figure.
As you can probably feel from the review, I'm a big fan of this notebook and am glad I purchased it. I would strongly recommend this to anyone looking for a notebook with lots of features, lots of power, and presario v4000 battery that doesn't bust the bank. This would be great for a student looking for something that can handle office applications but has enough power to handle most popular games.
