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Compaq NX9600

80

Very Good

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Pros
Luxuriously big keyboard
Cons
Extremely short battery life

Performance: Very Good: 81
Features: Very Good: 84
Design: Good: 78

Find out how these scores, and their relative weights, combine to produce the PC World Rating.

Performance
ACD Systems ACDSee	686
Adobe Photoshop	371
Adobe Premiere	534
Ahead Nero	829
Battery Life (Office Applications)	1:20
Discreet 3ds Max DirectX	307
Discreet 3ds Max OpenGL	369
Microsoft Office XP	554
Mozilla	555
Musicmatch Jukebox	478
Number of Included Batteries	1
Roxio VideoWave	291
Windows Media Encoder	385
WinZip	449
World Bench 5 Score	85
World Bench 5 Word Score	Very Good

WorldBench Tests
Multitasking	777

Performance
WorldBench 5: Performance word scores reflect comparisons of notebooks in the same category running the same operating system. See Guide to the Top-Rated Products for more details.	Very Good: 85 (Windows XP Professional)
CPU	3.6-GHz Pentium 4 560
Screen size	17.0 inches
System memory	1024MB of DDR2-400 SDRAM
Hard drive	100GB
Graphics	128MB ATI Mobility Radeon X600
Pointing device	Touchpad
Bays	None
Bundled removable-media drives	Fixed DVD+RW drive
Floppy drive	None
Ports	Five USB 2.0, FireWire, microphone, headphone, S-Video, docking station port, PC Card slot
Communications	V.92 modem, gigabit ethernet, Bluetooth, 802.11g
Business suite	None
Other features	Six-in-one card reader, ExpressCard slot, USB digital drive slot, docking station
Overall design	Very Good
Battery life (hours:minutes)	Fair: 1:20
Weight (typical/minimum, in pounds): Typical weight includes the computer, AC adapter, optical drive, and floppy drive (if offered).	Very Heavy: 12.1/9.4
Vendor's reliability/service	Average/Better
Support policy	Three-year parts and labor warranty; free unlimited 24-hour daily toll-free support

What You Should Know about the NX9600

Not Much RAM for Multitasking

The more RAM your laptop has, the faster programs will run and the greater number of windows you can work in at one time. If your needs are simple and you rarely do more than two things at once on your PC, the relatively modest amount of memory that comes installed in inexpensive laptops will be enough. Today the standard amount of RAM shipped in most PCs is 2GB. If you like to multitask--say, you want to launch a search for a file and start backing up data to a disc while you watch a news video--you need more memory.

Reviewed by: bowdy

Duration of ownership: 1 Year

Strengths: size IS everything, very fast

Weaknesses: gets a little hot, battery life is kind of short

Overall Evaluation: I LOVE IT, er'body love it
Reviewed by: Underworld1020

Duration of ownership: 1 Year

Strengths: -Large Screen -Hard Drive Capacity(100 GB) -DVD Burner -Full Keyboard -All Sorts of Drives -Easy Access to Hard Drive, RAM, Battery -Quality Speakers -Easy Access Buttons

Weaknesses: -Runs Very Hot(If your gaming you'll need to buy a cooling pad) -Fans Are In Bad Positions(Bottom and back, so you'll need to be on a hard/flat surface) -Battery Last About 1 Hour -Loud/Heavy/Large -Hard Drive Speed(Only 5400 RPM) -NOT as fast as you'd think! Don't expect it to be fast! -Only a 128 MB Graphics Card -Extremly Hard to Disassemble and Access Componets -Certain Markings Ware Off(plus/minus signs, mousepad marking)

Overall Evaluation: When I purchased the product a year ago, I thought it was great. But, I soon realized that it wasn't that great at all. The 3.6 GHZ is very misleading, its not really fast at all. I'm not sure exactly what the bottleneck is yet. At first I thought it was the 5400 RPM hard drive, so I put in a 7200 RPM, and seen very little performance increase. Then I thought maybe it was because it was too hot(an average of 59 degrees celceius for the HD), so I bought a cooling pad. It lowered the average HD temp to about 54-55 degrees celceius, but not much performance increase. There's a bottleneck somewhere, but I'm not sure what it is yet. Overall I think this product sounds great, but it doesn't deliver what you'd expect. I'd look elsewhere if I had another chance.