Compaq Armada 7400 6366/T

Power management is handled by a Compaq-customised version of the Windows Control Panel Power utility, which lets you set the various timeouts and determine when the notebook enters its standby, suspend and suspend-to-disk modes. The lithium ion battery keeps everything going for up to two and a half hours, which is par for the course for a notebook in this category. The battery unit itself has a charge indicator LED scale, so there's no excuse for setting out with a dud.

The Armada's performance is average for Pentium II/366 portables. Ironically, this reflects quite well on the machine as one might expect it to be slower than some of its PE-based siblings. But despite almost bomb-proof build quality it's the £2,925 price that really lets the Armada down.

Author: Dominic Bucknall