The announcement, however, is less appealing than it may sound due to the exclusion of the monitor and the buyers will be asked by the company to choose between a 15" colour monitor priced at Rs 9,995, or a 17" one for Rs 15,995.

Besides offering 32X CD-ROM and a 4.3 GB hard disk drive, Presario 4010 will have Aureal A3D Surround Sound (true theater quality sound) and will come bundled with free software worth Rs 15,000 and 10 hours of free internet time. In addition, the Easy Access internet keyboard will allow one-touch access to the Net enabling browsing, Web search and e-mail.

Though the announcement was touted as `strategic' by Compaq Computer products director Ravi Swaminathan as it will help Compaq make inroads into the existing PC market byoffering an attractive upgrade path, it does not match the domestic manufacturer Zenith's scheme under which the latter has been offering almost a similar machine for about Rs 30,000 with free internet time of 25 hours. Compaq will also charge about Rs 3,000 extra for the modem which is included in the Zenith offer.

A colour printer will, however, be provided by Compaq for as low as Rs 3,400 and a scanner for Rs 3,500 as part of the add-on package.