Compaq Evo

Prior to the mega-merger of the 21st century ó the Hewlett Packard & Compaq merger ó Compaq had been a stiff competitor to major manufacturers of business-oriented laptops. In 2002, both the giants merged and formed a formidable incorporation that has consistently introduced the latest and best products for information technology and management.

One such series, the Compaq Evo, was designed and rolled out first in May 2001 and was targeted solely towards the business users. The Compaq Evo model was introduced to replace the ageing Compaq Deskpro brand that was fast losing loyal customers due to newer entrants in the market.

Compaq Evo was also designed as a flashy alternative for the good old Armada series of Compaq notebooks, of which Compaq Armada e500 was one of the last successful models. The Compaq Evo range of products is a business notebook and desktop platform that is not sold retail but through mail order over email or telephone.

Compaq designed the Compaq Evo with a much conservative design to cater to the evolving business users’ segment that expected a high performance machine with a certain formal, stylish looking gadget that portrayed class and panache.

The black coloured body was much of a reminiscent of competing IBM ThinkPad and Toshiba series of laptops; the same colour was later extended to the HP Pavilion range of desktops computers, some of which sported a shiny finish as against the default matte finish.

The initial models like the Compaq Evo n110, Compaq Evo n400c/410c/420c, Compaq Evo n600c, Compaq Evo n800w, Compaq Evo n1050, etc. sported a basic configuration of at least 14" or 15" screen; be it the desktop or the laptop model, 256 MB of RAM, and 40 GB/80 GB or hard disk drives. Compaq Evo Laptop models with a minimum 128 MB of RAM were discontinued due to falling RAM prices, which led to Compaq Evo laptops with 256 MB RAM and above.

Speaking of which, Compaq Evo desktops were one of the first PCs that could be easily upgraded, be it RAM, hard drive or even the optical drive. This is one of the prime reasons that the Compaq Evo series of laptops and desktops were a huge success with the home users and small office/home office (SOHO) segment of customers.

Moreover, Compaq with such a design paved the way for future generations of laptop and desktop manufactures to incorporate easily "user-upgradeable" body cases. One last product introduced under the HP Compaq Evo brand was the Compaq Evo N620C ó a notebook that featured the then latest Intel's Pentium-M chip ó slated as the first power-saving processor.

Furthermore, the last of the Compaq Evo branded laptops and desktops were launched in 2003, post merger of HP and Compaq. These were rebranded and repositioned in the market as HP Compaq products, with few models named as HP Pavilion and Compaq Presario notebooks/laptops and desktops.

The current generation of HP pavilion notebooks or HP pavilion laptops can be easily identified as the successor of the original Compaq Evo due to the appearance of their external cases, style and layout of buttons.