Small-business Pentium shootout - HP Vectra Model 525 5/200 SBC and NEC Ready Office 1625 - Hardware Review - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, March, 1997 by Catherine Greenman, Philip Albinus

HP Vectra 500 Model 525 5/200 SBC

RATING: ***

WIN 95

NEC Ready Office 1525

RATING: *** 1/2

WIN 95

To play with fire or to play it safe--that's the question. We took a look at two new Pentium PC business systems-- both designed with smail businesses in mind.

Whether you're waiting for a document to launch, bundling bulky graphics from the Web, or doing some serious number crunching, there are days when even a midlevel Pentium will grunt and groan. We broke the Windows 95 hourglass barrier with a prerelease model of the Hewlett-Packard Vectra 500 Model 525 5/200 SBC, which is powered with a 200MHz Pentium, 32MB of RAM, and an 8x CD-ROM drive and boasts more speed than an F-16 fighter jet on full afterburners. At press time, HP was unable to provide us with a monitor for the Vectra 525 but according to company representatives, it'll ship with a 15-inch color monitor.

On the other side of the fence (or office divider, as we like to call No Man's Land), we set up the NEC Ready Office 1625, a system packed with powerful hardware components that'll keep you going full-speed ahead. The Ready Office 1625 boasts a 166MHz Pentium processor, a vast 2.5GB hard disk, 32MB of RAM, and a 33.6Kbps fax/modem. NEC doesn't bundle a monitor with this system, but the company recommends either its MultiSync XV15 or XVI7 15- or 17-inch monitors. As Win 95 programs add more features, they need more power to launch in a reasonable amount of time. The powerhouse Vectra 525 launched our applications nearly instantaneously and handled such large applications as Word 97, Excel 97, and Internet Explorer 3.0 without straining. Despite the prerelease sticker on the base of the computer, the Vectra 525 behaved reliably during our testing. We were' equally impressed by the Ready Office 1625, which we used to simultaneously download an 11MB file from the Web, launch several large applications, and play a music CD in the CD-ROM drive with nary a glitch.

We were amazed by the goodies that come with the Vectra, such as the Microsoft Natural Keyboard--an odd-looking keyboard that splits and splays the keypad down the middle to match the angie thai your wrists assume while typing. We nearly overlooked an important feature in the Vectra 525. We checked out the hard disk and noticed that it was only 850MB, which is rather lackluster even for a notebook these days, but we then discovered the secondary drive, where we found an ample 1.6GB hard disk for storing data and applications. With these roomy storage components working in tandem, you'll have room for anything.

Although the Vectra is built for speed, it also provides plenty of small-business tools, including the Microsoft Office Suite, HP's Smart Communications Center--a voice/e-mail/fax messaging product, McAfee's antivirus software, and DataSafe data backup and recovery utility.

In the Ready Office 1625 we found a businessperson's essentials: Microsoft Office 95, which includes Money and Publisher 97, as well as Peachtree First Accounting, and Softkey Multimedia MBA Small Business Edition.

NEC provides a telephone headset and microphone, which we found to be flimsy, for use with its modem to handle incoming calls and activate voice mall. We also used the microphone to operate the bundled Kurzweil VoicePad voice-dictation program. Kurzweil VoicePad could be a useful application for creating quick memos and documents--if only it had worked better. The words Home Office Computing Magazine were translated as Though Office Using Magazine. The manual says VoicePad trains itself to your speech patterns over time.

You're protected by the Ready Office 1625's' data and hardware guardians as well. To back up critical files and to shield you during power outages, NEC offers a built-in 100MB Iomega Zip drive and a separate six-outlet APC Back-UPS Office that safeguards your PC and monitor. The bundled McAfee Web/VirusScan and Cybermedia's First Aid 95 Deluxe software protect your system against viruses and crashes.

Although we're very impressed with the speed and performance of the HP Vectra, we've seen other 200MHz Pentiums with price tags under $2,600. Hewlett-Packard has produced a blazingly fast computer with a nice set of features, but we'd like to see a more competitive price. The Ready Office 1625's strong point is the tools NEC has gathered to protect your investment. The $2,399 price tag (without a monitor--expect to add $600 for a 17-inch monitor) is on the high side, but the bundled insurance benefits could make the overall package worth it for the peace of mind it provides.

--Philip Albinus and Catherine Greenman

HP Vectra 500 Model 525 5/200 SBC

Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard, 800-322-4772, www.hp.com

Est. Street Price: $3,264

Configuration: Windows 95, 200MHz Pentium processor, 850MB primary hard disk, 1.6GB secondary hard disk, 32MB of RAM, 8x CD-ROM drive, 2B.8Kbps modem, 16-bit sound, 15-inch monitor, Microsoft Natural Keyboard, and Microsoft Office Professional

NEC Ready Office 1625

Manufacturer: NEC Technologies, 800-NEC-INFO, www.nec.com