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SCMP Reporter

COMPAQ is the world's largest seller of personal computers. And with the launch of the company's new line Presario home PCs, it is not difficult to see why.

  The new Presarios do have their short-comings, which will be covered later. But overall, the machines are good.

  If there is a single key to the new Presario that should make it popular, it is power.

  Even the entry-level systems have plenty of 'grunt'. The smallest hard-drive, for example, is an ample 630 megabytes (MB), so users should have little to complain about in this regard.

  Buying a new Presario should become easier over the next year or so, as Compaq is putting lots of effort into opening new channels in Hong Kong designed for the home user.

   You will find more of these systems not just within department stores, but also at bookshops, record stores such as Tower or HMV, and traditional telecommunications outlets, such as paging and mobile telephone stores.

  With the market for home computers growing at more than 30 per cent, expect to see great changes in the PC retailing scene over the next 12 months or so.

  All the new Presarios are based on Intel's flagship Pentium processor (which is a good story in itself), so there is plenty of power under the hood - certainly enough to keep most home users happy.

  A year ago, the relationship between Intel and Compaq was far less rosy, with Compaq complaining that Intel's brand-name advertising was detracting from its own differentiation as a quality brand-name clone.

  So bad was the relationship that Compaq actually started sourcing its 486-class chips from other suppliers.

  The fact that Compaq is now not only using Pentium chips in all its new machines, but actively publicising that fact, says a lot about how much closer the companies are these days.

  Compaq claims to have improved its multimedia capabilities dramatically, with three-dimensional surround sound, and hardware-based MPEG video (producing 30 frames per second, rather than software-based systems' 24 frames-per-second). From demonstrations, the multimedia quality claims appear justified.

  With the new machines comes a series of interfaces Compaq is calling its Presario Gallery. Various clicks at the opening screen will take you to Compaq's familiar TabWorks interface, to Windows 3.1 (or Windows 95 if you prefer), plus a couple of other new interfaces designed for the novice user.

  The idea of multiple interfaces may strike some users as being somewhat silly, if not superfluous.

  But, as a home computer user, I think the concept makes excellent sense, essentially catering to different family members, and their different levels of computing skill.

  Each member of the family can choose the interface that best 'fits' his or her skill level without having to reconfiger the system every time.

  A whole series of systems have been launched, with a fairly broad range of configurations and price ranges.

  The entry level system - the Presario 5500 - comes in the now-familiar all-in-one package, with the processing unit and monitor in the same box. And it includes features that will make people who bought 'power-houses' just a year ago jealous.

  The base configuration for the 5500 series is a 75-MHz Pentium, eight MB of random access memory (RAM), 630MB of hard disk space, a 19.2 kilobits per second (Kbps) internal faxmodem, an answering machine and a whole stack of bundled software (from Microsoft's Encarta to the games Lode Runner and Magic Carpet, with lots of generally educational titles in-between).

 It will retail for about HK$17,500 .

  At the upper end of this series are the Presario 9500 systems, which are mini-tower-based models that come with 90-MHz or 100-MHz Pentium processors and hard drives that start at 840MB (though I suspect more models will ship with the one gigabyte [GB] option).

  A 19.2Kbps internal fax/modem and eight MB of RAM (expandable to 136MB) are standard, as well as all the 64-bit PCI-based graphics/sound multimedia systems already described.

  All the new Presarios come with quad-speed CD-ROM drives.

  The minitower 9500 models appear to have a number of spare bays, making them expandable. They also come standard with one-MB of video RAM and the same fairly generous packages of bundled software.

  Pricing for the 9500 series range from just under HK$19,000 to about HK$22,000.

  There are some short-comings with the machines. They are not major design faults, but annoying nonetheless.

  Most glaring, is the Presario's standard 14-inch monitor. This, I presume, was a decision made to keep the price of the systems down - the difference between a 14-inch and a 17-inch monitor is fairly substantial.

  But having built excellent multimedia features into the system, it seems a shame to have them presented on these small monitors.

  The same goes for the modem. The first Presarios came with a 2,400-bps modem, so things have come a long way. But while a 19.2-Kbps is no slouch, why not use a 28.8-Kbps system as the standard device?   They are common enough, and I would have thought cheap enough to build these days.

  While Compaq has given the user plenty of storage space, the same cannot be said for RAM. Systems come standard with eight MB. A year ago that might have seemed generous. But memory-hogging operating systems such as Windows 95 at least double the current RAM needs to at least 16MB.

  Enough of the short-comings. There are still more positive features that rate a mention.

  Compaq in Hong Kong is smart enough to know that increasingly people are buying PCs to gain access to on-line services.

  In the case of the new Presarios, Compaq has bundled two offers - one from CompuServe, the other from Hong Kong Star Internet.

  With Star Internet, the company has built in a single-click sign-on feature that allows users to register on-line. The company guarantees to have you on the Net within three working days, with the first 12 hours of access free.

  The CompuServe offer is somewhat different, with the software for the service simply included with the box. Once new Presario users install it and sign on to the service, CompuService is offering them 10 hours of free access time.

  Compaq in Hong Kong has little to say about the Microsoft Network (MSN) and what its plans are for that service. Right now the MSN network is still being 'built' in Asia as far as local content goes and will not be launched until the first quarter of next year.

  Finally, the Presario has put more thought into the excellent acronym OOBE (out-of-box-experience). Basically OOBE refers the drama or lack thereof you will experience while trying to get your system up and running.

  Each new system comes with a 'map' of where each cable is supposed to go. Not a bad feature.

   Better though, is the fact that Compaq has colour-coded its cables, so that even the brain-dead should be able to get their new toy connected with a minimum of drama.

  For first-time computer users at home, this is smart thinking, and one of the many reasons why the new Presarios should be hot sellers in Hong Kong.

  In Asia, Hong Kong rates high among the countries with a large population of home users, and it is growing fast. By Compaq's own reckoning, about 50,000 PCs will be sold in Hong Kong this year. Next year it expects about 65,000 units to be sold into homes, putting the growth rate at a about 30 per cent.



Compaq backs a winner