The available ports offer an odd mix of old and new. The system has four USB ports as well as headphone, microphone, external monitor, FireWire and S-Video Out. There's also an antiquated RS232 serial port for those with legacy serial hardware, like bar-code readers. The flash card reader on the right supports SD, Memory Stick and the petite xD cards, while on the left there's an Express card slot.

It's easy to stay online with Gigabit Ethernet and a Broadcom Wi-Fi card that handles 802.11 a/b/g/n networks. There's also a modem for when broadband abandons you on the road. Like the others, no Bluetooth.

The Compaq 6735b lagged behind the pack on performance, although it should be just fine for most mobile tasks. Its 347.8 on the Passmark Performance test put it in the cellar, and its battery life of 2 hours 35 minutes was middle-of-the-pack. It shone on Wi-Fi data transfers with a throughput of 24.5Mbit/sec., but its range was limited to 100 feet.

Even at $829, the Compaq 6735b is a lot of notebook for the money. It comes with a one-year warranty; upping that to three years of coverage costs $169. The machine comes with Vista Business as well as McAfee's optimistic-sounding Total Protection suite and HP utilities that encrypt a hard drive's data and wipe it clean when it's time to dispose of the notebook.

Overall, it's a competent machine that is built around an odd mix of hardware.