My Compaq Presario 5000 Series: A Tribute To My Wasted Time
Written: Apr 28 '02 (Updated Apr 29 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: -Design, Power, Price, User Friendly
Cons: -Compaq Tech Support
The Bottom Line: Very Good Computer For The Average Person. Est. Price: $0...I Think Not.
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| pavona21's Full Review: Compaq Presario 5001CL (230691-001) PC Desktop |
A Tribute To My Wasted Time
I guess we should start off by mentioning that "Pav" here knows absolutely nothing about writing a review on a computer. Have I ever wrote one before? Hell no! Do I really ever read any of them? Well not exactly. Luckily though epinions is very helpful when it comes to writing in a new section by giving us tips like: "Who should buy this Computer? Gamers? Grandmas? Who shouldn't?" Yes, that's right my friends. I guess I'm supposed to tell you that I would recommend this computer to women over the age of 70 that don't play games. C'mon epinions, can't you do any better than that? Well, since I know nothing about this kind of thing, and because I'm far too lazy to ever consult an expert, I guess I'll just do what feels natural. But, I must add that if I for some reason do something wrong here, tell me about it. Leave a comment, shoot me an email, kick me in the head, whatever. I'm only here to improve. Let's just hope that I can write a run of the mill computer review, with a little exra style. Now, onto the background.
Pav Meeting His Computer
Sometime in the summer of 2001,(let's not get too exact) I decided that I wanted to get a new computer. Before that time, I had a 1995 Acer, that one day decided that its fan wasn't going to work anymore, and essentially died on me. So, since I was only 15 way back then, and came no where close to affording a new computer, I had to take my dad out with me shopping. Now, just for second, you have understand dads like mine. This is the kind of guy who has so much computer illiteracy, he smacks the tower a couple of times and expects to see text. So, naturally, shopping with him with was like pulling teeth. I originally fell in love with a Hewlett Packard, that was actually on sale, and seemed just fine to me. But, something just didn't seem wright to him. It was out of it's box, and that meant that it wasn't realiable. After an hour of complaining, and throwing a little bit of tantrum, he still turned me down. That was all he could take for the day, so we went home.
The next day came, and this time we decided to head out to Best Buy.(circuit city before) I stepped into the computer section, and noticed a lot of things that I wanted. All I got in return was "too much", "Doesn't look durable", or "I've never heard of that brand." But, then I stepped upon the very compaq computer that I'm reviewing right now. The mythical 5000 series that looked so nice from afar. Then, like anyone interested in electronics, I went up to it and played around for a while. It passed "Pav's Test."(we don't have time to get into that) So, I begged good old dad to purchase this one, and can you guess what he said. Well, if you guess that he said yes, consider yourself the master of the obvious! After all, if he didn't say yes, would you be reading this? Well, enough about me, more about this computer. Let's head to the specs:
-800Mhz AMD Duron Processor
-64MB Memory
-40.0 GB Hard Drive
-CD-Rom Drive(Does that surprise you?)
-CD-RW Drive
-8MB Nvidia TNT2 Vanta LT Graphics Card(There's a mouthfull)
-56K Modem
-10/100 MB PIC NIC(Ethernet)
-Used With A Compaq FS740 17" Monitor
And by the way, just because epinions told me talk about it, it did work properly out of the box.
Design And Style: 9/10"So What Are You Buying?" "Compaq" "Ahh, Presario...Beautiful"
Just by looking at this computer, you can already tell that it's nice. This is mainly becaue of two factors: First, is the fact that this computer is more than a one piece set. I've seen computers before that have the CPU connected to the monitor, or right under the monitor, and they don't look powerful, or very attractive.(just my opinion) But, this thing looks big and powerful with it's big tower, and huge monitor. Which brings me up to another important point. This computer takes up a butt load of space. So, if you're going to buy one, have some room ready. But, again, it's not ugly for 2 reasons, and I've only mentioned one. So, what's the other reason? Well, the other reason why this computer looks very sleek and cool is because I got some nice color panals for it. As a free mail in offer, I was able to get to get 4 green panals for the tower, and the speakers. So, this thing isn't just the bland off white color, it has true style. And, in case you don't like green, it also came in blue, red, and orange.
Speed: 8/10-Just slower than a speeding bullet
When people hear that your computer has 800Mhz, you'll generally get mixed emotions. Some people, like my dad, will respond by asking "And that means what?" Others will congragulate you for having a pretty quick computer. And, a few people might sit you right back down on your seat by saying "well mine has 1.6 Ghz." But, the real truth of the matter is that 800Mhz is above average, but not top of line. Also, I think more importantly than some stupid number is how fast it feels, and this is where this computer shines. This thing feels pretty darn fast, and is able to load various things at one time. For example, right now I have this review up, a webpage in the background, Instant messanger running, my outlook express up, and some downloaded music blaring on Kazaa. And, even with all this, I don't experience any lag, or slowdown whatsoever. Also, when playing computer games, I'll rarely if ever have to stop to wait for things to load. This computer gets things up fast, and is able to handle a pretty large amount of stuff, and that's what should count.
Disk Drives
On the face of the tower, there are 3 different disk drives. The first one of course is the floppy disk drive. While I'm pretty sure that no one really uses this much anymore, I know that this disk drive works pretty well. Plop a disk in, wait for it load, do what you please, and then hit the eject button. It comes out, you put it away, and you're done. On the very top of the face is the regular Cd-Rom drive. I don't think it works any different than other drive of its type. Open it up, slide in a CD, and it'll load up. I have yet to experience any problems with it. Then, in between the two of the afformentioned drives is thd CD-RW drive. The only problem that I've had with thing is that it's only a 4X RW drive. This means that it will take 15 minutes to burn a 60 minute cd. Other than that though, it's pretty nice. And it even comes with some great EZ CD creator software. So, you can rest easy knowing that it'll be EZ to create a CD.
Monitor: 10/10This, attractive women and the tv are my favorite things to look at.
I've actually already reviewed the monitor by itself, and you can find that in my profile page,(too lazy to get a url) but for now I can give you a quick run through. First off, this is a 17" compaq FS740 monitor. It has, or atleast had at the time, new flat screen technology that made better to view a monitor for a long period of time. It featured reduced glare aspects, and improved .25mm Dot Pitch.(Truthfully, I have no idea what that is) But, more importantly than some numbers none of us understand, is the fact that its picture is nice, and you can view it for a long time. I have no perminant eye damage because of it, and I sit 2 feet from it for over 2 hours a day. If that's not enough, I don't know what is. Also, it's very user friendly. Its options menu is the easiest options menu I've ever used. Just hit the big button, click around, and use the exit icon when you're done. Overall, great monitor.
Sound: 9/10-Good, and it comes standard
Basically, the sound of this computer depends on its speakers and its microphone. First let's start with the microphone, which is an internal telex mic. It's located on the very top of monitor and is one of the 2 silver parts of the monitor. I can't get too technical with you, but the clarity of this microphone is very good. I can sit 2 or 3 feet away from my monitor, and talk in a normal voice and this thing will pick up my voice, and trasmit it clearly. I've never had to scream into my microphone to get a decent sound, and the playback voice is pretty excellent as well. Lastly, it's built in which will save you from plugging in an add on and having to use that.
The other major add on that was included with this monitor are the JBL platinum series speakers. They slide easily into the left and right side of the monitor, attach, and hold. You won't be able to use them freestand though, because of their "interesting" oval shape. On the right speaker, there is a headphone slot, and a big power button. Click that button in, and begin to hear the sounds of your computer. Let's face it though, these are not quite Bose 36 inch speakers with huge subs or anything. But they do get the job done well. The sound on these things is very clear, and can get moderatly loud as well. Of course, the sound of these isn't exactly huge, or the most quality, but for 8 inch speakers that come standard, these things put together for a pretty nice sound.
Overall Memory: 7/10-You'll want to upgrade your ramWith this computer, I have some mixed emotions about the memory aspect. For starters, the 40GB hard drive is very respectable. I have lots of software installed, plenty of games, tons of music, and various other applications on this computer, and I've still only used about %60 of the total memory. Also, the entire time I've had this computer, I've deleted very little if anything. So, I'd say that you're pretty much in good shape with the hard drive. On the other hand though, you have the RAM. This computer only comes standard with 64MB of RAM, which isn't enough. You'll want more if you're going to run the more recent, better technology games and video apps. But, I guess that can easily be resolved with an upgrade. I bought a 256MB RAM chip for about $60, then just followed the instructions to put into the back of the tower. If you're not very computer savy though, you may want to have someone else put in an upgrade.
Software: 8/10-Good, but without office
For starters, I would say that it's essential to tell you that this computer runs off the Windows ME operating systems. Windows ME, or mellenium edition, is basically just Windows 98 with a few upgrades. So, it should be safe to say that this thing is very user friendly. You also have the preloaded software, which is pretty impressive, but could be better. You can start with all of your basic apps like MS paint, calculator, image viewer, windows media player, and quicktime movie viewer. That stuff comes standard on this computer, and basically all other computers. But, you also get a decent games library to start with. This computer comes preloaded with 11 games, including classics like solitare, and freecell, and also newer games like pinball and internet hearts. This isn't quite the hardcore gamers dream, but anything that you get for free should be appreciated. But, there's also word processing. This computer comes with a new edition of microsoft works. This includes a word processor program, a spreadsheet program, and a slide show program, but I don't really like it. Compared to MS office, this isn't exactly the best thing since sliced bread. Luckily, I just loaded my Office 2000 from my previous computer on here, and everything was fixed again. Finally, the computer also comes with McAfee virus scanner, to keep your computer safe.
Tech Support: 2/10-This sucks!
One thing that made me not like the computer as much, was the crap compaq tech support.(I feel a story coming on) Sometime over the winter(we know I'm not good with dates) my computer became infested with a virus, and my internet explorer would no longer work. So, we called up good old compaq. After talking to 3 different people, we thought that we'd found the guy who could fix all of our problems. But, he said that we had to fork over $40 first. So, we paid the toll. He went through the first method of fixing things, and that didn't work. Then, he told us to change some registry options, which also didn't work. Finally, he told us to change some of the preferences, and of course it dind't work. So, he then decided that it would be best for us to just go through the restore disk, and totally erase the hard drive. After $40, and 3 hours of talking to him, nothing he said helped at all. We still had to pay, and re-install the whole computer by ourselves. That said, this is a great computer, made by horrible people.
Pav's Final Thoughts
Overall, this is a great computer, with only a few setbacks. And, at about $700 now, this is a great computer at a better price. Of course, if you're going to buy one, I would recommend never paying compaq for anything. If your computer gets messed up, just delete the hard drive yourself and call it a day. Oh yes, as for longevity, it's been almost a year since I bought this now, and it's still going strong for me. There is no way that I wouldn't recommend this computer to anyone. Whether you are a hardcore gamer, or a grandmother, you'll love every bit of this thing. That of course concludes my first computer review. Remember, if I did something wrong, you can tell me, it won't hurt my feelings. Until that time, thanks for reading,
-Pav
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 800
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: 701-800
RAM: 64
Internal Storage: CD-RW
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40
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Epinions.com ID:
pavona21
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Member: Eric Pavona
Location: Scenic Michigan
Reviews written: 105
Trusted by: 67 members
About Me:
Well Friends, it'll soon be GTA4 time.
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