HP Compaq Presario 2701US

WHAT'S HOT: The Presario 2701 comes standard with two optical drives. With the bundled 8X/4X/24X CD-RW drive inserted in the notebook's modular bay, you can copy data or music from a disc loaded in the Presario's 8X DVD-ROM drive, which is fixed on the opposite side of the case. The 2701 that we evaluated also came with a second battery. (The optional $99 battery does not come standard, but its cost is included in the $1999 system price listed in this review.) With the second battery in the modular bay, you can stretch the Presario's already fine battery life of 3 hours, 19 minutes. Both the secondary and main batteries have handy LED gauges, so you don't have to turn the notebook on to check how much longer they'll last.

Eye-catching accents on this dark laptop include a shiny chrome border around the deepset touchpad, stylized mouse buttons partially bisected by a four-way scroll button, and black shortcut and volume buttons in a chrome panel above the keyboard. Compaq also gets points for the stylish way that the sole PC Card slot dovetails with the DVD-ROM drive.

WHAT'S NOT: This Presario model is heavier than most all-in-one notebooks, at 8.4 pounds including the floppy drive, AC adapter, and power cord. With both optical drives and the second battery inserted, the total weight amounts to 10.1 pounds. You can lower the weight to a still-heavy but more manageable 7.5 pounds by using the weight-saver module.

You could be swapping modular devices--such as the the floppy drive and the optical drive--often. The bay's "quick-release" doesn't eject devices far enough, leaving you to tug them out the rest of the way. Our only other beef is that you cannot access the hard drive, so you'll have to send the notebook back to the vendor if you want to upgrade it.

WHAT ELSE: The Presario 2701 has all standard notebook connections and then some, including an S-Video port for using a TV as a monitor, and a high-speed FireWire (IEEE 1394) port. These reside on the back, along with two USB ports and most of the notebook's other connections, under a long plastic door that refused to close properly on our unit. As another extra, Compaq throws in a network cable.

The Presario 2701 lacks dedicated audio controls beyond volume buttons, but the sound is fairly strong, thanks in part to speakers on the front of the case. Typing is comfortable, and flip-out feet on the bottom of the notebook let you adjust the angle. Both a printed manual and an Acrobat-format manual come with the laptop. The 2701 does not come with any productivity software, though, so you'll have to buy and load that yourself. The Presario's PC WorldBench 4 score of 97 is about what we would expect from a 1-GHz/733-MHz Pentium III-M laptop with 512MB of RAM.

UPSHOT: Compaq offers consumers nice extras with the Presario 2701, at a reasonable price. Those who spend a lot of time burning CDs should appreciate the Presario 2701's fixed DVD-ROM drive and the bundled CD-RW drive in the modular bay. However, this heavy unit is not really convenient for toting around.

SUMMARY

Compaq Presario 2701 PC WorldBench 4 score of 97, 1-GHz/733-MHz Pentium III-M CPU, 512MB of SDRAM, 512KB L2 cache, Windows XP Home, 15-inch active-matrix screen, ATI Radeon M6 Mobility graphics chip with 32MB of SDRAM, 30GB hard drive, 8X DVD-ROM drive, 8X/4X/24X CD-RW drive, built-in V.92 modem and network adapter, touchpad pointing device, 10.1 pounds (including AC adapter, phone cord, floppy drive, and CD-RW drive). One-year parts and labor warranty, free 24-hour unlimited toll-free technical support. $1999 800/345-1518 www.compaq.com