For consumers seeking a laptop with a distinctive look, the Presario 700 has style to spare. Its case is rounded and black with metallic highlights, and a large push-in release pops open the clamshell-style lid. The notebook’s silver power switch, volume buttons, and four shortcut buttons stand out at the top of the dark keyboard. A metallic border wraps around the touchpad and transitions into mouse buttons at the ends. Creature comforts include a four-way rocking button that lets you scroll vertically and horizontally through documents and Web pages. Other extras: an eye-pleasing bean-shaped PC Card release, a plastic business-card sheath on the bottom, and flip-out feet that tilt the keyboard for typing at an angle. The Presario 700 has most standard connections–including two USB ports and an S-Video port for connecting a TV–all of which are protected behind a long drop-down cover on the back.

Since both the floppy drive and the DVD-ROM drive are fixed, you can’t swap either out to insert another drive, such as a Zip drive or a second hard drive. The battery poops out after a little over 2 hours, which is rather short battery life in comparison with that of other notebooks. The wraparound mouse buttons may be a minor work of art, but they’re too thin and stiff to be comfortable. Hate designer labels? The 700 carries a huge plastic Presario medallion on the lid. Another minor beef: Instead of hinges, the long rear port cover uses a bendable plastic, which seems likely to break off eventually. Aside from a few pamphlets, the Presario 700 comes with no print documentation; everything is on CD-ROM.
The Presario 700 is of a typical size and weight for an all-in-one laptop, with the floppy drive on the left side of the case and the DVD-ROM drive on the right. Unlike with many other all-in-ones, the speakers aren’t very powerful, and you can’t order a docking connection. You can, however, access memory and storage easily: To remove the hard drive, which sits flush with the bottom of the notebook, you take out one screw and push on a fingerhold. We’ve tested no similarly configured laptops with which we could compare the Presario 700’s performance. Using a 900-MHz AMD Mobile Duron processor and running Windows XP Home, it’s about 20 percent slower than the Gateway Solo 5300 with a 1-GHz/733-MHz Pentium III-M CPU running XP Professional, but it performed basic tasks in our tests fairly quickly.
Stylish in black and silver, the Presario 700 is well suited for consumers tired of the boxy laptop look. However, with its fixed drives and short battery life, it may not suit travelers who prefer swappable drives.

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