My sleepy laptop
Written: Apr 03 '01
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Pros: easy to use, good price, small
Cons: tendency to shut itself off or go into sleep mode
The Bottom Line: Good for the price, but the 12-inch screen is limiting.
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| candylee's Full Review: Compaq Presario 12XL301 (199375-167) PC Notebook |
My Compaq Presario is usually a great little laptop. It just has one problem- it likes to go to sleep on me. I spoke with other people who have presarios and many admitted to having the same problem. Either the computer freezes or the screen suddenly goes into "sleep mode" and turns black. Both problems result in you having to manually shut the computer off and then restart. When you restart that way, the computer automatically runs scan disk at start-up. I finally got too impatient and now just cancel the scan disk most of the time.
The other odd thing about the computer is that when I use the on-screen shut down option, sometimes it doesn't really shut down, but goes into sleep mode again. It looks off, but the screen continues to emit an odd glow, forcing me to use the manual shut off again. I called customer service about this problem, and they had me do a system restore. That solved the problem for one whole day. It's a small nuisance, so I just decided to live with it.
Now for the good stuff-
It is actually a good computer once you get past it's quirks (and most computers have or develope quirks, right?) It is cost effecient, but it could have been even more so if I hadn't wanted a DVD player in mine. I don't really recommend getting one if your screen is only 12 inches wide. I haven't even watched an entire movie yet. My brilliant idea of watching movies on planes (I travel a lot) fell flat when I couldn't hear over the engine noise, and my battery puttered out before the movie finished.
The picture on the TFT display screen is really nice though, so the movies look good. I only ran into problems when scanning photos. It seems the light & contrast is off, even after I did the screen configuration to try and get it right.
OK- I was supposed to cover the good stuff-
It's pretty fast and totally portable. It only gets heavy after lugging it around all day. It has plenty of ports in the back to add on extras, like a monitor and keyboard. The only problem being that you have to choose between a keyboard or a mouse- there isn't room for both to plug in. There are 2 USB ports, which is convenient. I have my zip drive and CD-RW hooked up to them.
And while this laptop is not meant to be the main computer of the house, it is for me, so I really put it to the test. I find it is handier to have the keyboard hooked up, and just use the touch pad for a mouse. The touch pad works really well, and I like it better than the mouse now that I've gotten so used to it.
I think it was a pretty good investment overall.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1400
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Celeron
Processor speed: 501-600
Screen Size: 12
RAM: 64
Internal Storage: DVD
Hard Drive (GB): Under 4
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Epinions.com ID:
candylee
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Member: Candy Keane
Location: Jacksonville, FL
Reviews written: 39
Trusted by: 6 members
About Me:
I am a costume designer and owner of www.ThreeMusesClothing.com
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