Product Reviews

All the big players are gradually leaving their big beige boxes on the retro shelf of history, but each in its own way. Dell and IBM are taking a look at Henry Ford's philosophy of providing any colour as long as it's black, and HP's e-pc is continuing at the halfway point with its two-tone beige and dark blue colour scheme. Compaq, meanwhile, has taken a sidestep into the futuristic world of grey and silver with a bit of black thrown in for good measure.

We had our first glimpse of this with the original Evo D500 (see Reviews, issue 87, p145), but the new Ultra Slim model is even more mouth-wateringly swish in appearance. The silver and grey finish gives it a touch of style without looking unprofessional or gimmicky, and its modest dimensions of 310 x 324 x 68mm (W x D x H) will fit on even the smallest of desks.

With such a compact case, you might expect the insides to be overly cramped, but you'd be wrong. The D500's sparse interior is like a barren desert once you're inside, and that's because the specification has been kept basic. So basic, in fact, that there's not a single peripheral card or slot in the whole machine.

Everything from the Intel 815 graphics to the Ethernet controller is integrated onto the motherboard. Your only standard internal upgrade route is the single spare 168-pin DIMM socket. This is a wise move, as you may find the current 128Mb allocation restrictive, particularly if you upgrade to Windows XP.

The lack of clutter in the case means less need for extravagant cooling, and the D500 is consequently very quiet. The CPU heatsink has a small fan attached to the side, and the tiny 50W power supply also has a fan a fraction of the size of the usual desktop affair. The formula is simple - integrated components plus less power equals less clutter and less noise.

Without a Pentium 4 or Athlon

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XP processor, the Evo's cooling needs are less extravagant, but the 1.3GHz Celeron still pushes out performance where it counts. Unlike the Socket 478 1.7GHz Celeron featured in the Evesham Evolution 1.7 (see Reviews, issue 93, p99), the 1.3GHz chip is still based on the FC-PGA Pentium III Tualatin core, but this is powerful enough for office applications.

Even with just 128Mb of RAM and a lowly 20Gb 5,400rpm Maxtor hard disk, the Evo managed an overall score of 0.68 in our 2D benchmarks. And, while this is half the speed of the latest and greatest desktops, it's respectable for a machine costing just £499.

Despite its otherwise limited upgrade potential, there's room for a notebook-sized optical drive in the D500, and Compaq is offering a CD-ROM for £57, an eight-speed CD-RW for £207 and a range of drive options including LS-120, Zip 250 and a standard floppy drive. All the drives are compatible with Evo notebooks through the MultiBay. Like many Evo notebooks, the D500 also has a MultiPort built into the silver strip on the top of the case, which can be used to add Wireless LAN functionality for £140 or Bluetooth for £106.

There are five USB ports, one of which is front-mounted. After plugging in the keyboard and mouse, this leaves you three free for external peripherals. The microphone and headphone jack sockets are also sensibly front-mounted for easy access.

As with most corporate PCs, there's no monitor supplied as standard, but Compaq has a range of options available if you don't already have one. Our review sample came with a Compaq TFT 530, which costs an extra £479. However, we advise you to go for something like the £399 Philips Brilliance 150P3A (see p133), especially as its analog performance is superb, and also because there's disappointingly no DVI output on the D500.

No matter what's inside the D500, it's still an attractive and quiet piece of kit that provides all the essentials for office work for £499. This may not buy you a monitor, but you get a great three-year, on-site warranty, guaranteeing next-business-day response, and that includes both parts and labour. It's not easy to upgrade in the usual sense, but five USB ports and the MultiPort provide all you'll ever need in an office.

This adds up to an impressive piece of design. You can see why, following the merger of Compaq and HP, the long-established Vectra range is to be dropped in favour of the Evo.