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Thursday October 30, 2008
HP Compaq CQ20 Review
By Jonathan Cheah
At A Glance:
Local Distributor: HP Malaysia
Price: RM 2709 (September 2008)
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Build quality: 9/10
Applications: 8/10
Interface: 8/10
Value-for-money: 9/10
Overall rating: 8.5/10
+ Very light in weight
+ Lighted hotkeys
+ Sleek metallic touchpad
- No User Manual
- Volume controls not tactile
- Less RAM and HDD space than seen on HP website (HK).
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The HP Compaq CQ20 is apparently a laptop designed exclusively for the Asian market. There is little information about it on the web, but it appears to be sold in countries designated as being part of the APAC region.
In the box
- Laptop
- Battery
- Charger set
- Carry bag
Exterior
The CQ20 (Sounds like a distant relative of CJ7) has a glossy black top, with a metallic logo right in the middle of the surface. An SD/MMC card slot is on the right side of the device, followed by the HDMI port, two USB ports and a port for an additional monitor.
A lightscribe-capable combo drive is on the left side of the device, then a USB port followed by the modem and network ports. The power jack is right after that. There is nothing on the back edge of the device, but a headphone and a microphone jack are in front of the device.
The volume controls are on the top of the keyboard, just next to the hinge that connects both halves of the device.
Buttons/Screen
The screen of this device just a little over 26 cm across, which is a little small but contributes towards the very light weight of this device. The graphics card in use is a Mobile Intel 4 Series Express Chipset with a native display resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels.
The keys on the keyboard are black, slightly bevelled and a little matte in finish. The function keys are small at around half the size of the regular keys. However, the volume
controls had no tactile response and therefore it was difficult to tell if one had pressed down hard enough to input a command to the system.
Hardware
What we used was a system with an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, the T8400 @ 2.26 GHz, The unit has 1GB of memory and a 149GB Hard Disk, which is listed as a ST9160827ASS. Someone needs to get educated in product naming. Anyway, the product code appears to be that of a Seagate HDD.
Software
The OS in use on this unit is Windows Vista 6.0, which appears to be a little out of date compared to what we have been seeing on competing devices in recent times.
There is MS Office on the device. It comprises Access and Publisher in addition to the usual Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook components. There is also preloaded software for Microsoft SQL server in the package.
Camera/Video
There is a webcam on the top of the screen. Two microphone icons sit next to pin-sized holes on either side of the camera lens. This is curious. They did have a microphone port at the front edge of the device as we mentioned earlier.
Connectivity
The WLAN is 802.11 a/b/g/n compatible. The specs on HP.com (hk/en/ho) don’t say this but Bluetooth capabilities are present. There is a PCI-Express Card slot just above the SD-MMC card slot but both are uncommonly placed on the right side of the device.
Editor’s Opinion
This is a very light device with a very powerful processor. However, HP has loaded it with a lot of software, which isn’t always what the experienced user wants. The finish of the product was very appealing. Lightscribe disk writing is supported by the optical drive.
I would say this was a fairly decent device and a very good portable. Sacrifices have been made in the size of the screen and keyboard, but if I hauled hardware a lot, then this would be near the top of my list, simply because of its weight advantage.
Conclusion: Excellent device, even though some of the specs are less than what was advertised.
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