The display on the V2000 and V2000Z is basically identical to what Gateway uses on the NX200S; it's a 12.1" WXGA panel (1280 x 768 native resolution). While it doesn't get nearly as bright as the Dell's panel, the Compaqs are decent.
The M2000Z features a 14.1" XGA (1024 x 768 native resolution) panel, much like the Dell, but with no where near the brightness capability.
Just like Dell, Compaq stuck the function key between the left CTRL and Windows keys, but Compaq has a keyboard that's spread out a little better than the Inspiron's - much like Gateway's, so typing is quite natural.
The keys themselves are probably the noisiest out of the lot, with the Dell being the quietest and the Gateway falling in the middle.
The trackpad on all three Compaqs is pretty nice mainly for their inclusion of a disable button right above the trackpad itself. You simply hit the button, which has its own LED, and the trackpad is instantly disabled. Hit it again to re-enable it. The trackpad has both horizontal and vertical scroll areas, which work just the way that you would expect. The vertical scroll area is obviously the most useful of the two, but it never hurts to have easy access to a virtual horizontal scroll wheel as well.
The wireless NIC has a dedicated on/off button, similar to the trackpad, at the top of the keyboard to the left of the power button. A dedicated wireless NIC button is great for quickly disabling the wireless NIC when not in use, thus conserving battery power. To the right of the power button, you have three audio buttons for volume down, up and mute. If you've ever accidentally forgotten to turn off or turn down your audio, nothing is more useful than having quick access to buttons that will silence the situation.
A single button to disable the wireless network adapter
And easy to access audio control buttons
Once again, like the other notebooks in the roundup, the Compaqs were fairly quiet and didn't put off much heat at all. The base of the notebooks did get warm, but keeping them on your lap won't make you uncomfortable.
The Compaqs performed reasonably in our tests as you will soon see, but interestingly enough, they all performed very similarly - despite the fact that two of the notebooks used Celeron M 1.4GHz processors while the other used a Sempron 2800+. The most interesting item? The V2000 Celeron M notebook offered significantly better battery life than its Sempron counterpart, the V2000Z, in all aspects. We were particularly shocked in how much better the V2000 did in the wireless web browsing tests when compared to the V2000Z. The same performance, but significantly better battery life? We at least found which of the three Compaqs that you should choose.
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OrSin - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
No video benchmarks at all. I'm not saying test BF2, but something would be nice.I think the AMD laptops would show some definate leads in that.
raskren - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
It sounds like you want to see a benchmark where the AMD offerings *might* show an advantage over Intel so you can feel better about *your* company.These are not for gaming. Why should Anand waste his time?
Why don't we do some Geo Metro top speed testing as well?
hondaman - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
Has nothing to do with amd vs intel.Has everything to do with how well laptops do compared to desktops in games.
hondaman - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
I was dissappointed about this too. It was the first thing i looked for when I read this article today on anandtech. I wanted some game benchmarks.Anyone who buys a 600.00 laptop isnt buying it for games, however, I _am_ in the market for a laptop in the 1000.00 range, and I would like to do some casual gaming here and there on it. Severeral of these laptops reviewed share the same video processor as some laptops much more expensive, and good laptop reviews are so hard to come by.
Hacp - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
Bottom line, gaming on integrated graphics is non existant. If you want a gaming laptop, get dedicated graphics.PrinceGaz - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
Gaming does not necessarily mean playing the very latest games, and at the highest graphics quality settings. Some people seem to think all that matters with a game is how pretty the graphics are, and discard it when something that looks better comes along. Gameplay is more important to me, and there are plenty of older games that are just as much fun to play as the current hits.I'm sure all of these $600 laptops with their integrated graphics (especially ATI) would be quite capable of playing the top games of the 2001-2002 era very well, and do a decent job with some later titles as well. The only likely probloem is the 256MB system memory which has to be shared with graphics-- but an upgrade to 512MB is the first thing most people would do to these laptops anyway to make them more flexible.
mikecel79 - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
Why? Who is going to try and game on one of these things?oupei - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
maybe some RTS games or something would have been nice.Hacp - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
Gaming would be horrible. WHo would wnat to play halflife 2 at 800x600 at 24 frames per second?I have a V2000Z and tried playing some games on it. It sucks. About the only "modern" game that I can play is Civ VI.
I'm pretty sure that older games will run fine on it though.
bjacobson - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
Do you have the x300 ATi or the Intel graphics? I'm thinking of getting one of these boards too.