Compaq Evo N620c

Compaq's Evo brand is a popular corporate stalwart that HP has chosen to stick with, but the emphasis is clearly on productivity rather than flashy styling. The N620c is a fine example, mixing recent mobile technology with the tried and tested black box of conventional business machines. There's practically no concession to aesthetics and this machine looks and feels so angular it makes the IBM ThinkPad T40 look positively curvy.

However, not to judge a book by its cover, a closer inspection reveals generally robust build quality with all the key areas being solidly protected. The magnesium alloy lid, for example, protects the screen effectively and will stay looking smart for a while too. This also houses Compaq's MultiPort system - remove a single screw, slide off the silver plate, and you can then add a peripheral without using up your ports or PC Card slots. The N620c already makes good use of this by including a Bluetooth module.

The clever design continues around the notebook, with fine examples including the sensible placing of the audio and infrared ports on the front, along with a handy volume control. Meanwhile, the back offers parallel, serial, PS/2 and two USB 2 ports to expand upon - it's a healthy mix of both high-speed and legacy ports that's lacking on the IBM. There are also two Type II PC Card slots and an Agere 802.11b WLAN adaptor. This means it just misses out on Intel's Centrino branding, but it still shares many of the benefits.

One of which is undoubtedly battery life. Lasting more than five hours in our light-use test, the Evo is easily comparable to the IBM and makes mobile working truly viable. Even under intensive use, the Evo topped just under two hours - not bad for a 2.53kg two-spindle machine. While the weight's still enough to make you think twice about taking it on business trips, it's certainly a fair trade-off, especially when you consider the speed of the Pentium-M processor, which turns the N620c into a sleek performer.

Our review sample came with a 1.6GHz processor, but you're currently only able to buy a 1.5GHz version. Nevertheless, this will be more than enough to handle the next few years' processing demands. With the 1.6GHz chip in place and 512MB of PC2100 memory, the N620c managed a commendable benchmark result of 1.37, and this is only likely to drop by around 0.1 with the 1.5GHz chip. This is backed up by a generous 60GB hard disk too, while the nippy 8x DVD-ROM and 24x/10x/24x CD-RW combo drive capably looks after removable storage.

The 14.1in screen is crisp and clear, and runs at a respectable resolution of 1,400 x 1,050. It isn't as immediately eye-friendly as the IBM's 14.1in XGA screen, but it's a better option if you want to run several apps on the screen at once. As on many notebooks, getting a comfortable contrast level isn't always easy, but the viewing angles are reasonable enough, and there's good backlighting too.

So far it all looks good, but the N620c doesn't fare quite so well when you're using it, partly because of the aforementioned angular styling. The chassis' unsympathetic corners occasionally dig into your palms while you type - there's functional ergonomics, and there's plain uncomfortable.

Otherwise, the keyboard is reasonably usable and benefits from an excellent layout of full-size keys, separate page-navigation functions and, of course, a Windows key. The keyboard feels a little spongy, and the shallow key depth will penalise those who don't have reasonable aim when typing, but it's adequate and not overly rattly. What's more, whichever pointing device you're used to, you'll be pleased to see that the N620c comes with both a trackpoint and a touchpad, although the latter's mouse buttons feel a bit loose, and there's no scrolling function either.