We've praised past Presario 1700-series models for their smart chassis design and strong performance. The latest in the line, the Presario 1715AP, offers a few new perks, including hardware volume control buttons and a dedicated button for launching your favorite MP3 player.
Thoughtful chassis design
The AU$4,999 Presario 1715AP has a trim 26cm by 30cm x 2.5 centimetre, 5.2-pound case (sans power supply) made from a combination of sturdy silver magnesium-alloy plastics and a charcoal-gray, slightly rubbery material. The case stays slim (and the price stays down) by including room for just one internal secondary-storage drive at a time: either the cool 6x DVD/CD-R/CD-RW drive or a floppy drive. Primary storage is a roomy 27G hard drive.
The rubberized portions of the Presario 1700's chassis include a palm's-width stripe down the lid that helps you get a solid grip on the system. This material also covers the smooth-feeling wrist rest beneath the comfortably wide keyboard. The touchpad sits in the middle of the wrist rest, with the standard set of two mouse buttons located directly underneath. Fans of pointing stick are out of luck because the Presario 1715AP does not include one. Instead, centred below the two mouse buttons is a quarter-sized button that lets you scroll up, down, left, or right through documents or Web pages.
Above the keyboard sit some new additions to the Presario 1715AP: two dedicated volume buttons and four application quick-launch buttons. In keeping with Windows XP's multimedia focus, Compaq has programmed one of the buttons to launch the preloaded Diamond Rio MP3 player. However, you can reprogram any of the four buttons to launch the app of your choice. Towering over it all is a big, bright, 14.1-inch, active-matrix display.
Our only objections to this Presario's blueprint lie in the slightly flimsy lid latch, which could crack off easily, and the rubber port cover that protects the parallel, VGA, and S-Video-out ports. Compaq attached the cover to the notebook's underside with a gummy adhesive that seems likely to lose its strength over time. Additional ports including a 56K modem, Ethernet, two USB, IEEE-1394, headphone, and microphone. Missing from this line-up are legacy ports such as serial and IrDA, and Compaq's support for the Type III PC Card has also gone the way of the dodo with the 1715AP's single Type II slot.
Speed and battery life stay the course
The Presario 1715AP's performance and battery life stand up to the competition well. In our labs' tests, the notebook's 1GHz Pentium III-M, ample 256M of memory, and fast 8M ATI Rage Mobility Radeon graphics chip helped the system plough past similarly configured portables such as the IBM ThinkPad A22p and the WinBook Z1. While both of these systems' larger batteries bested the Presario 1715AP's adequate 161-minute battery-life by as much as 40 minutes, they also bare a weight penalty between 500 grams and 1 kilogram.
Compaq's service and support policies for the Presario 1715AP are fairly typical for the industry; the standard warranty is a one-year guarantee on parts and labour, valid internationally. Compaq doesn't appear to offer an online chat support service but your alternatives include sending questions via email (Compaq claims it can answer most questions within one hour) and querying the Ask Compaq knowledge base (powered by the Ask Jeeves natural-language search engine). You can also tap Compaq's Customer Communities forums to seek help from civilians such as yourself.
The Presario 1715AP is an all-around good notebook, with a good set of features, some nice design touches, and competitive performance. While the company seems to be cutting a few corners in details such as port covers and lifetime support, it's still a solid deal for the money.
Company: Compaq Computers
Price: AU$4999
Distributor: Compaq Australia
Phone: 13 23 93
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