Compaq Presario 80XL300
Mitac M722J
The Compaq and Mitac are nearly the same. You could place one notebook next to the other and you wouldn't see much of a difference. The Mitac weighs a little more than the Compaq--it weighed in at 1.622kg compared to the Compaq's 1.591kg.
Both notebooks feature identical modems and network adaptors. Pretty much all the I/O connectors and slots were in the same place. Even when you turn each notebook upside down you will find that both of these notebooks have a similar layout. The memory expansion panel is in the same spot and the batteries are also shaped the same. Both of the batteries are rated at 14.8V and 1400mAh. We tried swapping the batteries around to see if they were actually identical. The Compaq battery slid right into the Mitac notebook but the Mitac battery would not fit correctly into the Compaq. Both batteries featured life indicators. Pressing a little button shows how much life is left in the battery. The good thing about the Mitac notebook was that there was an additional battery indicator which was located on the front of the notebook so you don't have to pull the battery out to check.
The Mitac had an extra panel on the back, which let you access the CPU. If you wanted to upgrade the processor in the Compaq it would take you much longer. Both of these notebooks had a recessed reset button. This feature comes in very handy if your notebook ever hangs. Both notebooks ship with external DVD drives and floppy drives. The Floppy drives had USB connectors on the end while the DVD drives had their own external connectors. Compaq had sent us an additional CD-ROM drive as well. There is no real need for one though--especially if you've got a DVD drive. What we found interesting was the extra USB ports that came with the Mitac. What we had not seen before were mini USB connectors. The Mitac shipped with two of these built-in mini USB connectors. Mitac also supply the adaptors for these mini connectors so you can plug in a conventional USB connector. In total, the Mitac offered four USB connectors compared to everyone else's two.
When we pulled back the display panel and had a look at the keypad we noticed more similarities. The keys look and feel the same. They are quite good compared to all the other offerings. One difference was the colour of their keys. The Compaq had an additional scrolling button, which made it look a little different from the Mitac.
Both the Compaq and Mitac had good support for their displays, though they didn't feel like they were built quite as tough as the IBM. When we applied some pressure with our thumbs to the back of the display, however, there was hardly any rippling to be seen. The picture quality was excellent on both of the notebooks and somewhat better than most of the other displays that we tested. The Compaq notebook sounded a lot better than the Mitac. The sound out of the Mitac was very muffled. The Mitac only had a single speaker while the Compaq had two.
The Compaq featured an Intel PIII 650 processor while the Mitac shipped with an Intel PIII 750. Both used the same ATI graphics accelerator but used different hard disks.
The Compaq actually recorded the highest score for Content Creation Winstone and Business Winstone. When we had a close look at the disk scores we noticed that the Compaq PC scored marginally higher than everyone else.
The motherboard as well as the drivers that had been used by Compaq would have also increased the overall performance of the Mitac. The hard drive alone would have only increased the overall performance by so much. The Mitac, on the other hand, was not much further behind.
Both of these notebooks did well in our speed tests. In BatteryMark they both managed to hover around the one-hour mark, so you probably wouldn't want to stray too far away from a powerpoint.
The Compaq was outstanding, and with a faster processor it would have left its opposition for dead. Both of these notebooks are excellent systems.
Compaq Presario 80XL300
Mitac M722J
Company:Compaq Australia, Synnex
Price:AU$4,699 (Compaq), AU$4,495 (Mitac)
Ph:1300 368 369 (Compaq), 03 9538 0000 (Mitac)
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