I bought this laptop second-hand, from eBay, it was in good condition and had been well looked after. I paid £220 including postage. It came with Windows XP Professional (the license sticker on the base was for Home edition) and Office Professional 2003 which was the main reason that I bought it, I just wanted a cheap laptop that I could use for word processing and other college work so at the time I thought it was a great price - the software on its own would normally cost more than that! However later on I went to the Microsoft website, tried to download updates, only to find out that Windows and Office on it were both pirate copies and the website would not let me update it - well it was from ebay so I guess there would be a lot of other systems being sold with pirate software.
Anyway, moving on. After a few weeks of using it, I noticed the battery life
gradually decreasing, when I first got it, it used to last about 2 hours, but it was getting down to nearer 1 hour which was not really long enough to be much use. I always looked after the battery - letting it run completely flat at least once a day before re-charging it but it still kept decreasing.
Me being a fan of the Linux operating system, I felt like a change and installed Mandriva 2005 Linux on it to see how well it would perform. It worked a lot better than Windows, it was a lot quicker to install then Windows, it boots up and runs lot faster than Windows. After about a month of using Linux on it, the battery was lasting substantially longer, creeping up towards the 3 hour mark, and that was with a wireless network adapter and an external hard drive plugged in, without those plugged it it lasted longer still - the most I have had out of it was 3 hours 20 minutes, I think when I looked on the Compaq website before I got the laptop it said the max battery life was about 1.5-2 hours so it runs a lot longer with Linux.
I also has some other handy features. It has an S-Video out port so you can plug it into your TV and watch DVDs or do what you want on your TV. The only problem with that is that the signal is NTSC so it doesn't display properly on english TVs (mine shows a good detail image but it is black and white - no colour) however, I picked up a converter on ebay that converts it from NTSC to PAL signal and now it works fine.
It has a scroll button just below the touch pad which allows you to scroll up, down and also left and right - this is easier than dragging the cursor along the on-screen scroll bars.
One other good point about it is that it has a floppy and CD/DVD-ROM drive built in - but Compaq could have made it better by adding a CD writer. I use the floppy drive quite often at college to transfer my work to another PC to print it (surprising I know but some of their computers don't have a CD drive, and some don't even have USB!) so floppy is the way to go in that scenario.
Onto the bad points. After having it about 4 months, the hinges on the screen started to get loose - very loose in fact, the screen usually had to be propped up against a wall to stop it falling shut. This was a major downfall because if I was travelling with it, like on a train or bus, I could only type with one hand while holding the screen with the other.
The lid I feel is also of bad quality, where the hinges join on to the bottom of the lid, the plastic started cracking. I went to my local hardware store and picked up a tube of super-strongplastic adhesive in an attempt to repair it, this solved the problem for a few more weeks, then it totally snapped of. I have a relative that is in the metal-working industry and he kindly made me an aluminium plate which fits between the back of the screen and the plastic lid, at the bottom it is screwed to the hinges and the plastic lid is glued to it which works quite well. But that doesn't solve the problem of the hinges being loose, so I got him to make 2 small brackets that slot on each side which keeps the screen at a set angle to the base - problem solved.
From my experience with this laptop, it was good considering what I paid for it. The performance is also quite good (runs 3D games like GTA Vice City and Dungeon Keeper 2 with no probs, although you have to change the video memory in bios from 16mb to 32mb in order for the graphics to be any good). This laptop is ideal for students at this price but I would not recommend it if you do a lot of travelling (it is quite heavy, and the problem with the hinges doesn't help matters). My one just stays at home now (I use it as my file/web/print server on an external monitor because I have sold the screen) I have since bought a Toshiba Tecra A4 which is a lot better quality - I will be reviewing it soon.
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(+) cool and quite robust trackpad, good display,64-bit windows 7 (-) few connectors,dell drivers only, not realy for gameing (most models), finger print prone!
Nice Review and definetely cheap at that price. Makes you wonder what the previous owner did to it before you got it though. Anyway have a nice christmas and a Happy New Year. JPEG
LegendaryMrDude 23.12.2005 09:22
Sounds like a relative bargain - shame about the pirate software. YOu should be entitled to buy the Student/teacher edition of MS office though which works out a lot cheaper. >3hrs battery life out of any laptop is amazing, but for one this old I am deeply impressed! Sam.
LostWitness 22.12.2005 23:00
For £220 it sounds as though it was an OK buy but that build quality would have been no good for me. My laptops get so battered they've got to be able to stand up to rough treatment! :O)
Advantages: Good Looks; very good WiFi adapter; Widescreen; Card Reader; Awesome sound; nice keyboard Disadvantages: Very Poor Battery!!! ; Overheating
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