The Compaq Armada E500 emerged as the winner in this
category. It scored the highest in price and features, and the second highest in
performance. The E500 has an ATI Mach64 display card with 8 MB VRAM, which helps
it attain a maximum resolution of 1,600x1,200 with 32-bit color depth. The
notebook is pretty modular and you can easily swap the floppy drive with an
extra battery for more backup time.
Compaq Armada E500 |
Notebook. Rs 111,000 Specs: Celeron/550 MHz; 64 MB RAM; 13.3" TFT; 5 GB HDD; 24x CD-ROM. Pros: Quick recharge; rich feature set. Cons: Could do with more battery backup time. Bundled Software: Ring Central Fax; Compaq Insight Management; Adobe Acrobat Reader 4; Win 95 and Win 98. Source: Compaq Computer 92 Industrial Suburb II Stage Yeshwanthpur Bangalore 560022. Tel: 80-3374785 |
The
E500, along with its power supply, weighed around 3.49 kgs. Its carry bag
weighed another 2 kgs. It wasn’t the lightest in its group, but the difference
between the lightest and this one was only 400 gms. The notebook has pretty good
features too. It has an integrated 56K modem for connecting to the Net, and two
PCMCIA slots for adding additional cards like a LAN card. Another good feature
is its TV out port, which can be used to get the output on a TV screen. It also
has one USB port and an IR port. As for upgradability, the user can easily
upgrade the HDD, but he can’t access the RAM slots.
In Business Winstone 99, the notebook scored 19.1 Winmarks,
which is slightly lower than the rest in its category. But this doesn’t make
much of a difference in normal productivity applications. The audio-quality of
this notebook was amongst the best in its category. Its battery backup time,
through, was the lowest in its category at 2:12 hours. However, in recharging it
was amongst the fastest, and took only 1:55 hours.
When you switch on the notebook for the first time, you can
choose to install either Win 95 or Win 98. Whichever you choose, the appropriate
drivers get installed for all the components. It shipped with two restore CDs,
one each for Win 95 and Win 98. Another plus point is its three-year warranty,
which also covers the battery.
Overall, the rich set of features, competitive price and warranty, and good
performance makes it a winner in this category.