COMPAQ has launched the Contura Aero, its least expensive, fully-featured subnotebook.
The Compaq Contura Aero 4/25, which comes with a monochrome display, weighs 1.5 kilograms, and provides up to six hours of battery life. It has a colour display.
It is about 45 per cent lighter and 33 per cent smaller than most notebook PCs.
The energy-efficient notebook comes with a back-lit VGA display (eight-inch on monochrome models, 7.8-inch on colour models), four megabytes of random access memory (RAM) expandable to 12 MB and hard drives ranging from 84 to 250 MB.
It also features a built-in trackball pointing device, a comfortable touch-typeable keyboard with a plan rest, and a PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) Type II slot.
Compaq has introduced another industry first - an external floppy drive option. This connects to the notebook through the PCMCIA slot.
The floppy drive does not require an external power source, making it easy to travel with on business trips.
