1 Gift I’d LOVE to Get I Got! Compaq Presario 1200 12XL310
Written: Dec 08 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Inexpensive, handy, handsome and mine!
Cons: none
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| djgeiger's Full Review: Hewlett Packard Compaq Presario 1200-XL119 (155727... |
Imagine my surprise as I was sitting in my home office working one morning and UPS pulls up. Our office supply delivery had already arrived. What else did we order? The UPS man walks past my office window with a big box and smiles at me. Curiosity is encompassing me as I head for the door. I reach for the big box. I look at the address label, darn it is addressed to George and he is in the shower. I leave big box on the floor and head back to my office to get back to work. I walk back out to do one more inspection of big box and big box is gone! George is still in the shower. My daughter who is visiting had spirited the box back to George. What are these two people up to? Back to work! Soon George walks into the office and tells me the big box is mine to go open it. It’s my Christmas present! I was secretly wishing for a notebook computer but the box is much to big for a notebook computer! I lift the box and it’s pretty light for such a big box. I open it and it is full of Styrofoam bubbles. I hate Styrofoam bubbles! I carefully start stuffing them in a bag so the bubbles don’t get all over. George and Erika are growing very impatient with me. Like why don’t you just get it open and quick!
I finally make it down to another box. It’s a card board box with a handle on it. I can see a C in red letters. Now I can see an omp. A few more bubbles to go! Compaq! A notebook computer possibly? I pull out the box and it reads Compaq Presario 1200 12XL310. My wish has come true! Wow! I say the proper you shouldn’t have, but really happy you did!
For what I wanted in a notebook computer this Compaq Presario 1200 is perfect. It’s not one of those super lightweight miracles and doesn’t run at supersonic speeds, but then again, neither do I. It has a handsome silver and black case. Two little buttons pull forward to open it. The notebook weighs 7.3 lbs; the height is 1-7/10 in. and the width 12-1/5 in. A perfect mobile connection to the world!
The Compaq has 64 MB of SDRAM upgradeable to 320 MB. The hard drive is 6.0 GB. It has a 600 MHz Intel Celeron processor and a 66 MHz system bus and a 128KB L2 on-clip cache.
On the left side of the notebook is an 8X DVD-ROM and next the DVD-ROM is the 3.5 diskette drive. I’ve never much work with a notebook before the DVD-ROM kind of pops out like it’s on a spring mechanism. In the center the CD must be pushed down until it seeds in. On the other side there is a slot for a PC card.
I was always kind of concerned how easy it would be to see the display on a notebook. The display on the TFT SVGA (12-1/10 in.) is easily seen. You know when you press your finger on the screen it kind of goes blup, like a pebble being thrown in the water. George says I shouldn’t do that, it could hurt the screen. But it looks so neat! He explained it to be a liquid crystal display. I always have been easily entertained! The video graphics support is Trident cyberbladed 3D graphics.
The sound isn’t anywhere near my HP Pavilion 8668C. But I have bass boosters on the HP. The notebook has JBL pro audio speakers with bass reflex. The sound quality isn’t important to me since I mainly will use the notebook for word processing and research. The sound quality is plenty sufficient just not that rich resonance I have grown accustomed to.
The modem is a 56 K V90. (Compaq 56 V.90 Mini PCI Modem) Our desktop computers are networked and are hooked up to a cable modem. We pay for our dial up connection to Softcom a year at a time so we still have access to a dial-up account. The first try I connected around 49,000, certainly satisfactory. Though it feels like running cold molasses through a straw after having a cable connection.
I have only run the notebook on battery power one time. It has a Lilon Lithium-Ion battery. There is a little icon on the bottom of the screen that you can click on to keep track of the battery’s life. On the front of the palm rest is little lights to show if the battery is charging and if your using AC power. The cord has a little box that is a DC power converter.
I love the feel of the keyboard. I like it far more than any keyboard I have ever used. It is a little difficult to get use to the placement of the keys on the right hand side. The delete key on the notebook is in the place where \ key is on my desktop. I’ll get use to it though! I like the touch pad control instead of using a mouse. This is a very handy little item.
The Compaq Presario came preloaded with Microsoft Windows Me. I’m glad that it did. We changed all our computers over to Windows Me because we like it so well. It also came with Microsoft Works and a Compaq recovery CD. It also has Microsoft Word 2000. Microsoft money is a nice addition as well. This is the first time I’ve had a computer that has had both Internet Explorer and Netscape Communicator installed. I usually load Netscape just so I can see what the web pages I have created look like on both browsers.
A variety of very useful books come with the Compaq notebook. A Compaq Presario Mobile Internet PC Safety and Comfort Guide (that I haven’t opened). A Compaq Presario Mobile Intent PC Millennium Edition Microsoft Windows Me Operating System Manual. One book I really like is the Compaq Presario Mobile Internet PC Beyond Setup Guide 1200 Series. This book is full of practical information. Like for instance battery life, and if you let it run on battery to long, that the computer will go into hibernation. It has a darling picture of a computer with its little head on a pillow. You’ll find plenty of humor through out the book.
The warranty for the Presario notebook is free parts for 1 year, Compaq express service for one year, free carry-in labor for one year and a 90-day free software support.
I’m sure my new notebook and I will have a long and productive life together. George always complains that I don’t get enough rest. Now when I get torn away from my desktop to watch TV with him I can plug in my laptop. Then when he insists I get some rest in bed I can take my notebook, plug it in and hide under the covers! I never need to be cut off from the world ever again. For an inexpensive notebook $1,399.99 purchased at Sears I can recommend it highly to anyone that needs a middle of the road computer (in terms of speed, memory and price). Thanks for reading~~~~djgeiger :)
Recommended:
Yes
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djgeiger
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Member: Diana Geiger
Location: Huron, South Dakota USA
Reviews written: 163
Trusted by: 350 members
About Me:
I am a writer and the Exotic Pets Editor for BellaOnline.com.
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