Compaq Armada E500

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.

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.