Quote-start

media laptop, fantastic!!

Quote-end

4 Dec 20th, 2007 

24 Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful

Advantages:
the media centre

Disadvantages:
the small hard drive space

Recommendable Yes:

Detailed rating:

Speed

Look & Feel

Comfort & Portability

Robustness & Durability

Value For Money

techno_man_37

techno_man_37

About me:

im back. and im going to stay this time. ill rate n e one who rates me, so giv us a shout if i miss...

Member since:21.11.2007

Reviews:146

Members who trust:74

The Compaq Presario media centre c310EU is exactly what it says on the tin, its basically a media centre laptop, so if you love your photos, love your videos and love listening to loads of music. Then this laptop is designed for you.

Because it has windows media centre built in, when you turn it on, it automatically goes straight onto the media centre screen, and it does this very fast too.
From this screen, you can listen to all your music tracks, view all of your photos, look at all your videos and even tape and watch recorded TV. However you will need to purchase a TV tuner card if you want to record TV from your laptop. However these can be bought for just £40 and they go straight into your USB port, and you can then record thing straight onto your laptop, watch TV live, pause live TV (on some of the TV cards) and even set it to record at a special time.

This laptop runs on the windows XP media centre edition, however don't let this fool you, this is actually on windows vista too, and whenever you want to get of media centre, you can easily exit and it will load the windows vista normal screens up in no time.
Another thing to notice, is that this also comes with windows vista premium, this has a lot more features than vista basic so it's a case of more for your money.

Then installed ram on this laptop is ok, it has 1GB, which is fine most of the time, however sometimes when in use it struggles with high powered applications and the new games, and when it does this the fan inside can get quite loud. However when in normal use, you could easily have a lot of applications open and the fan cant be heard at all most of the time.

This ram can however be upgraded to 2 GB, so maybe this is a possibility for some people if they like the sound of the laptop, but need it to be faster. However I have never done this, so I can not really say how much it will increase the speed of the laptop, but I would think quite a lot.

Now it's a real shame about this laptops storage. It only has an 80GB hard drive, which is basically the bare minimum these days. However because this laptop has such great media features you would think that Compaq would have given it at least a little more hard drive capacity. So this is quite a bit of a let down.

The screen size of this laptop is 15.4 inch, this makes it a bit more portable, however it would have been nice to see this laptop with a 17 inch screen, scene as its meant to be for watching videos on and with only a 15.4 inch screen this isn't very good for it.

However the screens quality is very good, it features bright view, which is really what it sounds like. It makes the screen that little bit brighter than normal, and than little bit sharper which just makes viewing your pictures and watching videos so much better.

I quite like the design of this laptop, however some people might think its too boxy, however I really like it and think this is a good point.
Its all silver, and I usually go against one colour laptops, as I like to see a combination or it just looks a bit old fashioned. However this laptop really does look great and what I really like about it, is that there is little space around the screen which makes it as more portable as It can possible be.
Don't get the wrong idea, this laptop really isn't flimsy either, and just from closing the lid, you know that it will never break off in your hands.

Altogether this laptop is a really good buy, its great for media use, however it can be used as just a normal laptop too, and its even pretty good for that. However games aren't really that good on it, so if you want something specifically for gaming then I advise you look around a while longer. 

How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines

exceptional

very helpful

helpful

somewhat helpful

not helpful

off topic

Products you might be interested in »

Compaq Presario CQ61-120SA

Compaq Presario CQ61-120SA

Notebook - 15.6 in - CPU: Pentium - 2 GHz - RAM: 3 GB

User reviews (1)

Buy now for only £ 355.35

Acer Aspire 5738ZG

Acer Aspire 5738ZG

15.6 - Intel Core Duo, Pentium, Core 2 Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo - 2, 2.13 GHz, 2.16 GHz - HDD: 250 - RAM: 4096, 4, 3

User reviews (3)

Buy now for only £ 399.99

HP Pavilion dv6

HP Pavilion dv6

16, 15.6 in, 15.4 - Intel Core 2 Duo, Pentium, Turion X2 mobile processor, Core 2 Duo, Athlon X2, Turion II mobile processor, Core i7 - 2.13, 2.1 GHz, 2 GHz, 2.2 GHz, 2.3 GHz, 1.6 GHz - HDD: 400, 500, 320 - RAM: 4096, 4 GB, 3

User reviews (6)

Buy now for only £ 435.00

Dell Inspiron 1545 Laptop

Dell Inspiron 1545 Laptop

(+) 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!

User reviews (29)

Buy now for only £ 298.99

HP Mini 110

HP Mini 110

(+) small in size, economical and great perfomace for net users
(-) Thicker than other models in the market,

User reviews (1)

Buy now for only £ 75.15

Toshiba Satellite L500

Toshiba Satellite L500

Notebook - 15.6 in - CPU: Pentium, Core 2 Duo, Celeron, Turion X2 mobile processor, Athlon II - 2 GHz, 2.1 GHz, 2.2 GHz, 1.8 GHz - RAM: 4 GB, 3 GB - Battery run time: 3.4 hour(s), 2.4 hour(s), 2.2 hour(s)

User reviews (1)

Buy now for only £ 417.99

Comments about this review »

fna2007 22.12.2007 20:02

nice review

just.bcoz 20.12.2007 22:25

good review

podgepig 20.12.2007 19:51

Good, detailed review. Hmmm... I sense a theme with the subject matters of your reviews, hehe. WIll browse through your reviews next time I want to buy a new computer. Thanks





Are you the manufacturer / provider of Compaq Presario Media Center C310EU? Click here