Compaq's dummy-proof 1200 Series a mixed bag
Written: Nov 01 '01
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Pros: Great Bargain Buy, Good Laptop for Students and Beginners, Athlon 4 Power
Cons: Only one truly user-alterable memory slot, Product Misrepresentation (Buyer Beware!)
The Bottom Line: Students and Beginners, here is your machine. Gamers and experienced users need not apply.
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| JGillespie's Full Review: Compaq Presario 1215US (470011-356) PC Notebook |
Compaq, ever the bargain-basement strategist in the computer industry, sold thousands of its 1200 Series laptop over the course of mid-2000 through Fall 2001. Although an outdated and thick unit, the 1200 series was nonetheless a good laptop for the money; and odds are most of its buyers are happy with the product.
Most.
Just this August I purchased a 1200Z Custom-Built Laptop through Compaq's online site. I rounded out the unit with the very best specs I could afford, opting for the excellent Athlon 4 processor as opposed to the Celeron and AMD Duron choices also available. Always a minimalist, I stuck with the 13.3" TFT display and took a decent 10GB internal HD, also staying with the standard 128 MB Ram.
I've sold Compaqs before at a past retail job, and have even done light software support on them, and my experience with the units has always been good. While I would have gone with a Dell or IBM if I'd have the funds for spoiling myself, I was a student and was attracted to Compaq because these units have always given a good "bang for buck" quotient.
The unit arrived a week later, and has worked fine, with the exception of an F1 key that has popped out of the rather flimsy keyboard. Laptop keyboards in general are flimsy , but this was pathetic given the unit's two month vintage at that point.
Power usage is good- I get three hours out of the standard Lil-Ion battery, partly due to Athlon's PowerNow management feature, which runs in Windows' background under the monniker of gemmback. For the first few days gemmback crashed more times than I could count, prompting a second installation of the software, which since has worked fine. I have had no problems with any of the software, except for the bundled Norton Antivirus, which, in a cheap move by Compaq, is essentially a glorified trial version. Don't expect Norton to work that long before it begins to demand that you buy the full version.
My primary complaint concerns what I felt was product fraud on the part of Compaq. This is something I should have expected out of the gate, given my experience with Compaq machine innards, which are generally built to the standards of the escape artists Houdini's cages. Compaq's anal-retentive approach towards user-friendly product engineering was epitomized in its decision to make only one of the memory ports user-upgradeable. That's right, I bought a 128 MB unit, so slot 1 has a 64MB Ram chip I can alter as I see fit, but slot 2 is hard-wired into the system, rendering that chip forever a 64MB module. This means the max system memory I can ever have is 320MB (thanks to the 256MB max allowed per slot). This is far below the promised "512 MB max capacity".
But wait. Had Compaq lied or had I not read the fine print? The unit could very well have 512 MB Ram...as long as you made damn sure to have a single 256MB chip selected when you bought the unit. That would leave the other slot free.
The problem with this is that 1200 series retail customers across the country are going to find out the hard way that the stickers on the shelf promising 512MB are a misrepresentation on Compaq's part. While the 1200 series can accomodate up to 512 MB Ram, No 1200 Series unit was ever released to retailers with the required 256MB single chip...as such, this gives me no conclusion other than that Compaq deliberately mislead its customers...some of whom I sold 1200 series laptops too.
This unit has been great in every other way, however, even despite being a little on the thick-and-heavy side. The 8MB Video Card (while depriving me of most of the newest games, augh!) is up-to-task, and the system itself runs quietly and efficiently. I'm pleased with the machine...I'm not pleased with the memory ceiling that Compaq snuck by me.
I'd recommend this unit to students and beginners. Experienced laptop folks will want to stick with someone like Dell or IBM...and pass on this series of hardly-upgradeable units. Looking back, I probably should have too.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1298.00
Operating System: Windows
Processor: AMD Athlon (K7)
Processor speed: 801-900
Screen Size: 13
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: CD-ROM
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
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JGillespie
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Location: Somewhere in Georgia
Reviews written: 64
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About Me:
The master mack-daddy of movies and literature who wishes he had more time for both.
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