WHAT'S HOT: Equally at home on the road or on the desktop, the Evo N410c can serve as a lightweight ultraportable or as a desktop alternative, depending on your needs. It weighs a scant 3.6 pounds without add-ons, but includes a surprisingly full set of connections and wireless connectivity via a Wi-Fi (802.11b) module that mounts on the lid. (A Bluetooth module sells for $129.) An extra battery can be snapped onto the back. When plunked atop its Mobile Expansion Unit docking station, or MEU, the N410c gains two modular bays that bring a whole raft of additional configuration possibilities. With the MEU attached, you can equip the N410c with two optical drives at once, or with a total of four batteries for (according to Compaq) up to 10 hours of cord-free computing. The MEU also replicates the notebook's connections, adds two USB 1.1 ports (for a total of four), and provides good stereo speakers.

WHAT'S NOT: You might feel nickel-and-dimed trying to get everything you'll need for the N410c. The optical drive and an internal or external floppy drive cost extra ($219 for the 8X DVD-ROM drive we got with our test unit and $69 for the internal floppy drive). The MEU, or docking station, costs another $199 and adds two pounds to the weight. Battery life with the N410c's standard 4-cell internal power pack is about the same as its predecessor's, the N400c: only two hours. Should you need longer battery life, a second, high-capacity external 4-cell battery adds $219 to the price. For top longevity, you can buy two additional two-cell batteries for the MEU's modular bays at $149 apiece for a total of four power packs in use simultaneously.

The MEU is easy to pop on and off the notebook using a big blue latch button on the side, but its drives are difficult to eject. You have to slide a release on the bottom, and the devices tend to stick in the bay--our DVD-ROM drive and floppy drive froze halfway, and we had to tug them out. Finally, the hard drive isn't removable by the user.

WHAT ELSE: A modest refresh of last year's N400c, the 410c doesn't include many changes, except for an upward tick in processing speed and a different pointing device, but then it didn't need many improvements. Equipped with the top processor currently available for its size, the 1.2-GHz/800-MHz Pentium III-M, the Evo turned in a terrific PC WorldBench 4 score of 101, better than that of many full-size Pentium 4-M-equipped notebooks we've tested. The keyboard now sports a touchpad instead of an eraserhead and better-positioned mouse buttons: both welcome changes. With its full stroke and spacing, the 400 line's keyboard has always been easier to type on than those of most other ultraportable notebooks. That hasn't changed with the N410c. Neither has the handy set of four dedicated shortcut buttons and the notebook's crisp 12.1-inch screen. You even get volume buttons on the front of the notebook and a TV-out port on the back (although it has no FireWire port). The MEU adds impressive-sounding speakers for such a small notebook. Overall, Compaq provides attractive, handy, and thorough documentation, including troubleshooting and ergonomic booklets; we only wish that the Acrobat-format manuals on CD-ROM were also provided in easier-to-access print form.

UPSHOT: Although the Evo N410c's price is higher than those of some other ultraportables, its docking station's flexibility is unique. All in all, it's a compelling wireless-ready portable, great for the road (and easy to set back up on the desktop).

SUMMARY

Compaq Evo N410c $