Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I bought one of these Compaq Presario CQ60 laptops at Walmart last weekend on their "special deal" day. [...] I wasn't expecting lightning performance, but I since I wanted this laptop for "basic" service while travelling, that was okay. I have a Dell Vostro 17" with a dual-core CPU for my heavy-duty work, so figured that this inexpensive Compaq would be fine for email, reading ebooks, web surfing, or storing digital photos. I also liked the idea that the low price [...], would be more bearable to lose if the laptop were to be stolen or damaged somehow.
1. FEATURES:
CPU = a single-core AMD Sempron, running at 2.1 gHz. To make a comparison, I have two other computers with Dual-core 2.5 gHz Pentium CPU's. Those machines can convert MPEG2 video from my Canon High-Def camcorder (1920 x 1080) to XVID MPEG4 at around 4 to 5 frames per second. This Sempron CPU can manage 1 to 2 frames per second. That said, it can play my HighDef videos in Windows Media Player at 1920x1080i Full Screen with a CPU load of only 60~65%. So this Sempron CPU might not have enough power for high-end gamers, but if it can easily play high def MPEG video, it's got more than enough power for everyday tasks like email, web surfing, or photo editing.
HDD=One SATA 160gb 5400 rpm Seagate. This can be easily upgraded to a 500gb 5400rpm drive for under[...] if you need more space. By the end of the year, 750 gb drives will likely be available under [...]. There is only one HDD drive bay.
RAM= 3 gb. The memory cards are user-accessible under a hatch on the bottom cover if you want to upgrade. 3 gb is barely adequate for Vista, but would by plenty if you downgrade to XP (see last section of this review).
Optical drive= One Optiarc DVD/RW. I've heard of this brand name, hope it's a decent quality drive.
I/O= 3 USB ports, 1 Ethernet port, 1 telephone jack for the modem, 1 Microphone jack, 1 Headphone jack, 1 VGA Video connector for external monitors or projectors.
Networking= 10/100/1000 Ethernet and Atheros AR5007 802.11b/g WiFi Adapter.
Speakers= Altec Lansing built in stereo speakers. They sound okay, actually better than I had expected for the [...] price. Listening to music or watching videos sounds a lot better with headphones (no surprise).
Sound card= Conexant HD SmartAudio 221. I've played a few MP3's and a couple of video clips to test it and it sounds pretty good, as good as any other laptop I've owned.
Graphics Adapter= NVIDIA GeForce 8200M. Maximum resolution on the laptop's screen is 1366x768, 32 bit color. The VGA connector can supply 1920x1020 (32 bit) to an external monitor, and the card can be configured for either spanning the desktop across both monitors or cloning the desktop on both monitors (use this mode for projectors). The graphics output looks very nice on both the laptop's screen and my Samsung 1920x1080 22" LCD monitor. I'm very happy with the graphics, especially for the price.
Keyboard= 102 Key with numeric keypad! Feel of the keys is very nice, and the numeric keypad is an unexpected bonus on a 15" laptop. The keypad was one of the features (besides price) that attracted me to this laptop.
Touchpad= Synaptics touchpad with two buttons and vertical scroll slider on left hand. I prefer a mouse but this touchpad works okay if no mouse available.
Battery= 6 cells. Expected battery life about 90 minutes for light load tasks, maybe 60 minutes if playing videos.
Noisiness= This laptop seems very quiet, when the fan does come on, it's not obtrusive. My Acer Aspire laptop's fan sounds like a hurricane by comparison.
WHAT THIS LAPTOP DOESN'T HAVE:
Firewire (IEEE-1394). Without firewire, you will not be able to connect many models of video camcorder, especially those that record to 8mm or MiniDV tape. External hard drives that use Firewire are also precluded.
There is no expansion card slot, so no way to add firewire or additional USB slots.
There are no built-in card readers for your digital camera flash cards (i.e. SD, Compact Flash, etc). However, you can easily connect an external card reader, or the camera directly, to any of the USB ports so this isn't really a problem.
There is no HDMI jack for directly connecting the computer to a high-def television set to play videos.
No web cam (I've never used one so don't miss it).
No recovery disks in box, but you can burn your own (takes two DVD's) from the Recovery Partition on the hard drive.
SUMMARY:
Pros- A surprisingly good feature set and performance for half the price of the average 15" laptop makes this a more-than-adequate computer for most tasks, except power-gaming and video editing. Enough CPU power to play even High Def video.
Very nice LCD screen with sharp, clear image display and VGA jack can supply an external monitor with up to 1920x1080 resolution.
Comes with MicroSoft Works and DVD burning software. However, you can download OpenOffice Suite for free and it's got lots more capability than MS Works.
Cons- Not much to complain about, except the lack of a Firewire port and no expansion card slot. These omissions are no doubt part of the reason that this laptop costs so little. If you need these features, you can spend [...] and get a laptop that has everything. If you are a dedicated Vista-hater, Dell still sells some of their laptops with XP on their "small business" website, or you can downgrade this Presario CQ60 to XP (see last part of review).
Build quality: Seems about average. The keyboard and touchpad feel pretty good. The video screen is really quite good. Only time will tell the story of the overall quality, durability and reliability of this computer.VISTA TO XP DOWNGRADE:
After unpacking the machine and powering it up, it took far too long for the initial setup routines to run; it was about 45 minutes before setup was done and the Desktop was presented so I could do some actual work. Part of this is Vista, which always takes an extraordinarily long time to do it's first boot-up and shut down on a new installation, and part is HP's fault: they force the user to go through a tedious 5-step setup routine that seems unnecessarily complicated to me. Anyway, my first task on this new laptop was to go on the internet and search for XP drivers (bye-bye Vista, hello XP!). The good news is that there are XP drivers out there for all the hardware on this Compaq, but they're not easy to find - the sound card driver was especially hard to nail down. I have posted a step-by-step procedure on [...] on how to downgrade this laptop from Vista to XP at [...] has only 1/4 Vista's "footprint" size on your hard disk, not to mention a much lighter drag on the CPU and other system resources, so overall system performance should be at least a little better with XP. CAUTION: If you do this downgrade during the warranty period, you will have to re-install Vista if you have to return the machine to HP for a warranty repair. I got around this by swapping the OEM hard drive (with Vista still on it) for a new 500gb drive [...] If the machine malfunctions under warranty, just swap the original drive back in. Hard drive swap on this laptop is easy, in fact much easier than on most Desktop computers.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Compaq Presario CQ60-419WM 15.6" Notebook PC (2.10 GHz AMD Sempron SI-42 Processor, 3GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, Windows Vista Home Basic (32-bit))
Compaq Presario CQ60-419WM
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