Chris,
Have you messed with the brightness and contrast? I don't have a Compaq, but on a Dell laptop you hold down a key (FN key) and press other keys to make the changes. And the Dell will use different (lower intensity) settings when it is running on battery power.

>Hi - I just bought a new laptop - the Compaq Presario 2548EA which I am very pleased with however I wondered whether anyone had any tips on getting better colour definition. I have it at 1024x768 with 32bit colour quality. The display says Digital Flat Panel (1024x768) on Radeon IGP 345M. The problem is when I am working with forms, the white of the textboxes is barely indistinguishable from the background grey of the forms. I have resorted to changing the background colour of the forms during design time so I can see what's going on! I am pretty sure the laptop is OK - just wondered whether I was missing some settings...