Compaq Presario SR1800NX

“Compatibility and Quality.” Those two words comprise the acronym “Compaq,” the name given to the Texas-based company credited with being one of the first producers of IBM PC compatible computers as well as the forefather of today’s laptop. In the late 1990s, acquistions and successful marketing of IBM PC clones made Compaq the world's second largest computer maker in terms of revenue. Since then, a stormy merger with Hewlett-Packard and lost market share to Dell have resulted in falling stock prices, causing the IT community to wonder if Compaq could still produce reliable machines in the face of such hardships. We decided to take a look and see for ourselves whether Compaq machines still retain the compatibility and quality guarantee embedded within the ubitiquous six red letters.