Compaq Revamps Presario's Style

Home PC line offers many storage, CPU options--including new 1.73-GHz Athlon.

Sean Captain, PCWorld.com

Gone are the bulbous white desktop Presarios with fruit-colored front panels: Compaq has unveiled three new models of its home PC in basic black.

The Presario 4000, 6000, and 8000 are now available through Compaq's Web site, and the 4000 and 6000 should arrive in retail stores by the beginning of April. Though their chassis resemble those of Compaq's business-oriented Evo line, Compaq didn't adopt the design change to make home systems look more businesslike. Instead, the company is aiming for the look of high-end consumer electronics devices such as stereos, says Steven E. Schultis, a company spokesperson.

The three model lines cover a range of features and prices. Compaq's budget unit, the 4000, starts at $649 with a 15-inch CRT monitor, a 1.3-GHz Intel Celeron processor, 128MB of RAM, a 20GB hard drive, and Intel 815E integrated graphics. No other processors choices are yet available, but customers who buy online can upgrade the other components, including replacing the integrated graphics with a 4X AGP video card.

NVidia Inside

With the 6000 and 8000 lines, buyers can choose from systems containing Intel Pentium 4 processors and AMD Athlon XP chips, including the just-announced 1.73-GHz Athlon XP 2100+ on the 8000 line.

The 8000 will always offer the "latest and greatest" components, according to Tiffany Smith, a Compaq spokesperson. The AMD systems come with NVidia's NForce system chip set, which includes an integrated GeForce2 graphics processor with 32MB of memory.

Compaq is the second major PC vendor--after MicronPC, which introduced an NForce-based system last November--to use NVidia's chip set. Like buyers of systems in the 4000 line, purchasers of either Athlon- or Pentium-based systems can upgrade to a dedicated graphics board--in this case topping out at the NVidia GeForce4 Ti 4600-based card and the ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500XT, each with 128MB of DDR memory.

Pricing for the Presario 6000 begins at $799 in a configuration with a 15-inch CRT monitor, 128MB of DDR RAM, and either a 1.6-GHz Pentium 4 or a 1.4-GHz Athlon processor. Base configurations for graphics are either the 32MB NForce integrated (for AMD systems) or a 32MB GeForce-2 based card (for Pentium 4 systems). Top-end processors for this line are currently the 1.67-GHz Athlon XP 2000+ and the 2.2-GHz Pentium 4.

Compaq will sell the 6000 directly from its own online store as well as indirectly through retail outlets. "The 6000 is the workhorse of the retail lineup," says Compaq's Schultis.

The 8000 line's pricing starts at $1199 for a configuration with a 17-inch CRT monitor, 128MB of DDR RAM, and either a 1.8-GHz P4 or a 1.4-GHz Athlon processor. The base graphics configuration for Intel-based systems is a 64MB GeForce2-based card. The 8000 features a larger tower case to accommodate more expansion options than the 6000 can. The 8000 also has the highest-end processors--currently, the 1.7-GHz Athlon XP 2100+ and the 2.4-GHz Pentium 4. These systems are available directly from Compaq only.

Image Conscious

The new Presarios emphasize digital imaging. The 6000 and 8000 lines offer an optional DVD-R/-RW drive ($280 as an upgrade from a CD-ROM or $350 as a second drive), bundled with MyDVD software for capturing, editing, and burning video to DVD discs. Compaq also throws in Pinnacle Studio 7 video editing software. Most of the graphics systems in both the 6000 and the 8000 series include TV-out ports for sending video directly to a television.

Compaq has spiffed up its consumer monitor line and its entry-level ink jet printers in the new color scheme, too. The company is releasing its first 17-inch LCD flat-panel monitor, priced at $799, as well as four new CRT monitors with screens ranging from 15 to 17 inches, at prices of $129 and up.