# Need advice on Compaq laptop



## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

I've been eyeing Laptops for use at school. The specification are:
Runs Windows XP (current OS Software)
Has both wired and wireless networking (b for class, g for home)
Must be able to play DVDs 
512MB of memory (more is better)
Decent screen
40GB hard drive
It appears that this notebook from Circuit City might just fit the bill. I've seen some higher-end laptops, but they exceed my needs. The only gotcha seems to be the battery life, so I'll end up having to purchase a second battery.

Thoughts?


----------



## invaliduser88 (Apr 23, 2002)

Just make sure you have a good warranty. I have had the motherboard in my laptop replaced twice already and it's approx 2 years old (never had these issues when the company used Dell). 

BTW, compaq onsite support sucks compared to Dell. Compaq's next day service (which I have and paid extra for) takes at least at couple of days to get to you, since they don't keep any parts on hand. With Dell, next day is next day.


----------



## tonyp56 (Apr 26, 2004)

Just for gigles why don't you look at Dell.com. You never know, I like Dell a lot more than I do Compaq/HP, but that is up to you. Just an idea!


----------



## cdru (Dec 4, 2003)

You might also check to see if you can have two batteries installed at the same time as well as if the battery is easily removable. My company had some old Dell Latitude laptops where the floppy drive would pull out and you could just install a 2nd battery there. If one battery ran low, you could replace a battery without having to shut down (or use an AC adapter). Unfortunately they had to go back on a lease. The cheap Inspiron laptops we got as a replacement has an internal battery that can't be easily removed when the juice runs low. So now we are stuck only watching about 3/4 of a movie on a airplane flight.


----------



## Bogy (Mar 23, 2002)

This is one of the few items where an extended warrenty makes sense. I can take care of most problems in a desktop, but trying to do something in a laptop is a whole different story.


----------



## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

Yeah, but the extended warranty offerred by Circuit City is about 50% of the final price of the laptop. I can see it being necessary if I was dropping a lot more money into the laptop. That's part of the reason I want low-end cheap... if it breaks, I don't look too terribly silly.


----------



## BuckeyeChris (Apr 20, 2004)

A $300 service agreement for four years is worth it on a laptop in my opinion. I purchased my Dell Inspirion 5100 a year and half ago and have already had to have the motherboard, cpu replaced. I'm on my second keyboard also.


----------



## CoriBright (May 30, 2002)

Toshiba makes some very nice notebooks. I have a (now elderly!) P3 850, coming up on 4 years old and not a single problem ever.


----------



## AllieVi (Apr 10, 2002)

At $600 I doubt you're going to find notebooks that offer more than this one. I agree with your throw-away thoughts in case something goes wrong in lieu of spending a lot on a contract after the original warranty goes away.

I have a Dell (portable), but used a Compaq (also portable) a few years back as my main computer. The Compaq worked just fine for the years I used it. It now sits in the closet, but is still fully functional. Its 1 GB hard drive, Pentium 120 processor and dim monochrome screen leave a bit to be desired today.


----------



## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

I have a Compaq portable that I have owned for about 2 years now. It goes in my car everytime I leave the house. I have used it on commercial satellite repairs, hauling it into gas stations, convenience stores, etc. It has held up very well (knocking on wood) for the time that I have owned it. About half of my messages posted here are posted from the laptop over a wireless connection (plug in wireless adaptor) to my in house network. Mine is a 1.8G Celeron with a 30G(?) hard drive. The laptop went with me on the King Tour 2004 and was used along the way to download all my pix that I took along the way. If there is a King Tour '05 it will go along on that also. I bought it on one of those Best Buy weekend sales where they had very limited quanties. I paid about $900 for it after rebates which was a great deal at the time.


----------



## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

Well, got back from Circuit City. They were out of stock, all of the stores in town are out of stock, and none can be found in California. I have the funny feeling I'll get the same answer at Best Buy.


----------



## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

CoriBright said:


> Toshiba makes some very nice notebooks. I have a (now elderly!) P3 850, coming up on 4 years old and not a single problem ever.


What Cori said. The Toshiba's seem to be the best deal going. We're telling our desktop & service customers to head for Circuit City or Best Buy and grab the 15" widescreen with Centrino. Big HDD, plenty of RAM. Burner, media reader. Good deal. http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Tosh...sem/rpsm/oid/114382/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

I also strongly agree with the general consensus that Compaqs suck. So do HPs. I see it all the time.

I've got one customer that went through two Compaq laptops - neither one lasting more than 6 months without needing work. Second one's HDD failed at about 18 months. Compaq wanted *$500* to replace it. *WTF!* Retail for that drive was around $129 at the time. I told her, she said "do it". Opened the unit, checked the drive on the disk manufacturer's website (Maxtor, WD, Seagate - I don't remember). *The drive was still under warranty*. I did the RA and she got her machine back for $50 labor. Compaq would've been very happy *RIPPING HER OFF FOR $500.*


----------



## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

I seen reports where HP/Compaq quality has dropped since those two companies merged. I bought a Dell Inspiron 8500 laptop a little over a year ago but I got a steal of a deal on a Toshiba Satellite laptop that was only a little over a month old because the guy needed money to buy something that he wanted so I could not pass the offer up so now I have a spare laptop and figure I could always sell the Dell and get the money back out of it for what I got in my Toshiba. I like the Toshiba better than the Dell.


----------



## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

> because the guy needed money to buy something that he wanted


It's not nice to help drug addicts with their habits. :lol:


----------



## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

> I also strongly agree with the general consensus that Compaqs suck.


I must have just gotten lucky I guess. Mine has held up very well (knocking on wood again).


----------



## Jason Nipp (Jun 10, 2004)

Richard King said:


> I must have just gotten lucky I guess. Mine has held up very well (knocking on wood again).


My company notebook, I just went from a Dell Lattitude CPJ840 to a HP compaq nc4010. I did not think I would like how small the screen was on the HP but this thing is pretty nice. Very compact and light weight. Plenty of horsepower, however I do not like how all the drives are external and the docking station and monitor stand on the HP suck! The Dell has a very nice dock. Oh this HP also doesn't have a PS2 port but it does have a serial port.


----------



## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

Well, my wallet is screaming at me, but I did pick up the ze4930us laptop from Best Buy this morning. The memory was doubled from the default 256MB to 512MB.

I shouldn't be surprised, but the notebook does include a modem. I figured if worse comes to wose, I can use my cell phone as a modem. It does have a ethernet as well as wireless connectivity. No serial, parallel, or S-video ports. Also, the Norton Anti-Virus expired out on me. (Time to install a fresh copy or use the free one from grisoft). Just have to download a few dozen updates and fill out a half-dozen rebate forms.


----------



## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

The guy wanted a specific four wheeler and was trying to help his friend out with wedding costs.


----------



## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Mark: Go with the GriSoft AVG7 Free version.

I've seen it pick up stuff that both Norton and McAfee have missed.


----------



## Bogy (Mar 23, 2002)

SimpleSimon said:


> Mark: Go with the GriSoft AVG7 Free version.
> 
> I've seen it pick up stuff that both Norton and McAfee have missed.


We just bought some new computers that came with a trial of Norton loaded. I got annoyed with the constant messages and boxes from the virus scanner and firewall, so last night I deleted Norton and put AVG7 on both of them. Today my son called and pleaded with me to do the same on his computer, Norton was driving him nuts, insisting every 5 minutes that it had to restart the computer. That reminds me, I guess I should take care of that.


----------



## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

Congrats on the purchase, Mark. I hope it works out well for you.


----------



## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

Two weeks, and I'm still tweaking the notebook to fit my needs, including dropping all the junk that I don't need. Some notes:
Ghost is my friend. I have made two CD snapshots of the system, one that is factory fresh, the other with all the patches and fixes applied as well as the apps that I use. Probably will need to do a third snapshot after Office 2003 expires and I install Office 2000.
Knoppix and Ultimate Boot CD won't start up.
WinDVD is pretty good, but it has a nasty habit of keeping the toolbar visible at the bottom of the screen. Can't seem to find the option to change it.
I'm going to have to carry around a small bag of goodies of necessary laptop accessories, including mouse, power supply, security cable, LAN cable, cell phone cable.
Yes, I can hook up my cell phone to my laptop and use THAT as a modem. A very fast modem too.
I can't believe how many people have a wide open unsecured wireless connection in a office enviroment.
IOn a few months, I'm going to see if I can find a longer lasting battery and more memory.
The ze4930us is a value notebook, and there are some shortcomings. But, I'm a student, not a road warrior nor a hard core gamer.


----------



## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

> including mouse


I went to the EHX (Home Automation Convention) over the weekend. While there one of the displayers at the show was giving away a mouse that had a cord that retracts into the body of the mouse when not in use. I thought it was pretty neat (oops, cool... showing my age). It's made by an outfit called Shape Global Technology Inc. Wow does their website suck! They don't even shoe the product. http://shop.store.yahoo.com/unityelectronics/shapglobtecm.html


----------



## CoriBright (May 30, 2002)

Got a beautiful new Toshiba A75-231 at CompUSA over the weekend with a 15.4" W/S. I did look at the Compaqs but since this is an addition to my desktop for digital stuff I had specific requirements and neither the HP or Compaq had what I wanted.

P4 3.3Ghz with DVD+/- burner and 512mb RAM (which will go to 1Gbb soonest)

100gb drive (although only 4200rpm)

First thing on getting it home....... format and clean install XP Pro instead of Home and then all the rest of my software. Finally it's looking like I want it to.

Really nice display... looks great with DVDs.


----------



## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

I am typing this from my Toshiba Satellite I got last summer. It has a 3.06 GHZ P4 with 512 MB memory DVD burner and 15.4" wide screen. I like it better than my Dell.

The service from Dell was great. Never had any problems with my Toshiba that would merit a return yet.


----------



## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Toshiba's are aces - just had to do a system restore on one today - NOT the notebook's fault AT ALL.

The restore was from a DVD and it was a Norton Ghost of the disk :up:

Smooth as silk - easiest fix in a week.


----------



## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

I had to reinstall windows on mine because I got the blue screen of death on it. My Dell Inspiron never done that. I had to have my Dell replaced within a month after I got it because it had VERY weird unusual bugs with it and they gave me another new one in exchange. The power adapter also failed then I got the message again about the power adapter but then havent had any problems since.


----------

