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The V4000 comes out with
solid features and is a decent notebook for its seven hundred
dollar price tag. I'm sure you can find this notebook at cheaper
prices, but the ones I found at a reliable retailer sold it to me
for a good seven Benjamins. It fairs rather poorly against other
notebooks in its class, but is what I hope, the beginning of an
upward trend for Compaq.
The battery life was one of the best features of the V4000.
Easily, one of the longest lasting batteries in its class, playing
two full hours of movies on just batteries and can last more when
used for less draining tasks such as word processing. I was able
to watch a 90 minute movie and then web surf and word process for
another hour and a half before the battery drained completely. All
this was done on maximum screen brightness, which brings me to a
problem that faces many notebooks in this range.
Very few low range notebooks are able to flaunt a powerful, crisp,
clean screen along with its low price. Toshiba Satellites are
great notebooks to buy for the screen, powered by the TruBrite
technology. Besides Toshiba very few can proudly talk about their
screen. I have talked about this before, when manufacturers are
forced to choose between different qualities and features on their
notebooks. This time, Compaq just chose to ignore the significance
of a good screen, which they could have improved easily. When
watching movies, the screen has lack of brightness which I
couldn't adjust. It seemed dull and vapid enough for me not to
enjoy the movie completely. The screen was impressive in size
though measured at 15.4 in, but screens that large will simply
accentuate the dullness. The big screened notebooks must be crisp
and clear.
Despite the screen quality, there is nothing lacking in the sound
quality. A pair of high quality JBL speakers gave a great effect
when playing music. They have a nice three button external
adjustment which is convenient after just trying out a notebook
that had no external control. The extra problem of opening the
Windows control is more annoying than people believe; especially
for me as I constantly adjust volume during movies to either boost
conversation volume or quite action scenes. There have been
speaker problems with almost every notebook I’ve reviewed and I
began to believe that low price notebooks and good sound couldn’t
go together. I’m relieved that I was wrong.
Yet, even this could not make up for the lack of flash card memory
slots. The fact that there were only 2 USB ports was extremely
frustrating. The third USB port is crucial to convenience and I
fail to understand how most notebooks in the present day have at
least three but the V4000 has only two. An average person has a
mouse and printer hooked up to the notebook, no questions asked.
Yet, there are many external devices that require the USB ports,
such as digital mp3 players, flash drives, and digital camera
cables. In order to use these, I had to unplug my mouse or my
printer, in which either case there was some fumbling with wires,
clumsy use of touch pads, and making sure the hardware was safely
removed and installed on the computer. This hassle could have
easily been avoided with one or more USB ports.
It comes in with a general average quality aura, a decent 1.5 Ghz
processor that handles fairly well, a screen that could be
brighter, a feature that many low-ranged notebooks have problems
with. The screen was 15.4”, but the widescreen caused more
problems in the design than it was worth. The appeal of watching a
movie on a widescreen laptop is sub-par with the screen quality
and it added too much weight to the computer. Weighing in at 6.54
lb, it is one of the heavier notebooks sold in this range and
creates burden of lugging it around.
The V4000 shows itself as a good notebook but a letdown to my high
hopes of a Compaq notebook. For its starting price of $699, there
are other notebooks which can offer more features for the same
price. RATING: 7 out of 10
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The Compaq brand is one that I used to love and enjoy. They experimented with
many different types of chips, many different types sound and video cards, and
many different types of models. They had deals with many companies and were one
of the few large companies venturing into the use of smaller and almost unknown
manufacturers. A classic example is the low-end models that used the small
specialty Cyrix chips. Compaq had a maverick feeling to it, trying to break out
of the shadows of giants like Dell in its own way. They were willing to try
something out of the ordinary while others stuck to the formula and for that it
has always been my favorite. Yet, the good days of the PC and Internet boom are
over and Compaq has come out for the worst. Since being taken over by HP they
still preserve most of their pre-merger computer business. While some may say
that the Compaq name has suffered only because of the end of the boom and not
HP's acquisition, I have seen some bad computers released by them since the
merger and they are slowly getting worse. The V4000, however, is an improvement
over some of their previous notebooks and desktops released in the past years.