Customer Reviews

Compaq Presario 2700US Laptop (1-GHz Pentium III, 256 MB RAM, 20 GB hard drive)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It does NOT come with the restore CD and the driver CD, so if the system need to be reloaded, you simply can't!! I talked to the Compaq customer service, she said it does not come with one!! So good luck. But so far, this is a nice machine, wishing they will make one with a faster HD.

Like the others I loved my little toy - good performance (but not great as I used to get the odd few crashes now and then), solid build quality and a fancy looking gagdet indeed. However, after 2 years use it has developed this annoying habit of powering down suddenly after a few minutes use. Not much good to write a thesis on which was why I bought it.

I'm still in the 'realisation phase' of post laptop-disaster trauma meaning I'm just finding out what's going on and realising that running a virus checker and a simple reinstall of OS won't fix it. Looking on the web tells me this seems to be a recognized fault with this model (to everyone but Compaq it seems!)

Compaq/HP customer service is apparently useful,... but is actually almost utterly useless! The service reps on the phone simply point you to the closest thing that they find on their own website - which is not a lot really for this model. BTW when your Presario 2700 breaks like mine - you remember they didn't send you a manual?... That's because there isn't one! The closest model's manual available is for the Compaq Evo N180 which is what I hope to use when I attack my long-loved laptop-shaped door-stop later this week in the vague hope of resurrecting it.

I bought this laptop in Feb. 2002 on a whim while browsing Best Buy's return aisle. It didn't have the Floppy or any of the CDs but it was about $300 cheaper than a new one. At the time I wasn't aware of Compaq's reputation for having probably the worse customer service in the known universe, but I was quickly introduced after finding myself in their 800 number black hole (a voice-prompt carousel designed to frustrate customers into hanging up); and all I wanted were the restore CDs!
Luckily I found out they can be downloaded from the HP Website.

However the laptop itself is suprisingly good. Key features are the seperate DVD & CDRW drives and the JBL speakers. I was playing a music CD & my friends had to go outside to hear themselves talk. There is minimal distortion at high volume - something that quality desktop speakers have trouble doing.

Now for the bad: Must boot up to have a music CD play but hey it's an 8lb laptop not a CD Player. Intermittingly the keyboard interface becomes hashed on some bootups - letters are numbers etc. unless I reboot & the mouse button became worn after a few months of left-clicking that I now use a USB Mouse & Keyboard. Other problems that were XP Home/Install related (driver searches on boot-up,etc) until I did a fresh install of Pro. Also for a time I had SuSe Linux 8.0 dual booting no problems except it ran very hot, uninstalled it because with a 20GB hard drive things got cramped real fast.

I started out with 8mb video and 256mb RAM and upgraded to 32mb video & 512mb RAM, bought the port replicator and a PCMCIA-USB 2.0 Card and have been using my 2700US as a desktop relacement for a little over a year now flawlessly, except for a problem using an external monitor until I upgraded the video driver for dual monitor support. I use several desktops but I keep going back to my 2700 because it's capabilities are evenly balanced -DVD viewing, web surfing, CD-Burning, & music with non-tinny quality speakers, but Compaq's Customer Service is by far the worse HP can't save them so I can only give 4 stars but this is truly a 5 star laptop for those who have taken the chance - like me - to own one.

After comparing and testing most major brand notebook in the market, I found that compaq 2700US has good value in both price and performance. Compared to 1700US, the new model has two optic drive design. That can prevent the user from swapping the drives can make me be easy to do my works!

Of course, it's fashion design makes it looks much better than other major brand products ! It's performance is terrific! I got good and smooth performance when running XP in 1GHz and 256MB! Even much faster than running WINME!!

If you wanna buy a high peroformance, fashion design, all-in-one, and good price notebook, then compaq 2700US is your best choice!

18 months after purchase, my laptop is still one of the best available.

There are newer laptops with technicaly faster proscessors. But that is the only quality they have that is in any way than mine. Mine smokes through stuff. With 512 mb ram, and the 16 mb video, this machine is awesome. With a upgrade to 32 mb video, life was that much better.

As a laptop repair-person, I would have to say that the ease of assembly and repair is also pretty high. The dual optical bays are the best thing i have yet for a laptop, and the ability to use a second battery in the future-bay is a close second in the amazing cool category. You can easily watch a whole movie on the go. I have 2 batteries plus a future-bay, and I can do a whole days work on just battery power.

All that said, there are some imperfections.
First: the futurebay battery drains before the regular battery. I would prefer it to be set opposite that, and at the very least it should be user definable.

Second: other removable drive systems allow for a secondary hard drive, and so far as I can tell this one does not. that should change.

Third: USB ports mounted vertically on the back is not 100% ideal.

Fourth and last: the rubber feet come off very easily, and the flip down "legs" are an extraordinarily bad idea. All in all, the bottom of the case takes way to much wear because of this. Its superficial, but still annoying.


(edited at 6 years after purchase) I would still stack my 2700 against most of todays products, and find my better in many comparisons. my review stands

The heat sink problem.. I encountered it. Not that big a problem if you use your laptop like a computer, not like a book. Don't leave it running when its not needed, don't block the air vents. With all laptops, you need to be aware of heat, it is the third killer (liquids, droppage, heat) That said, Compaq should have planned out the construction of the offset better. most people are not able/willing to take a computer apart regularly to clean, and wouldnt have caught the problem early as I did.

I owned a Presario laptop about a year ago, and swore it would be the last Compaq I'd ever buy. Why, oh why, didn't I listen to my own words. When I needed a more powerful laptop I foolshly decided to get a Presario 2700 since the price was better than comperable, competing brands. Unfortunatly, you get what you pay for (who'd of thought [$$$$] would be low-end?) The first 2700 that I received had a CDR drive that died after 2 days. The computer was replaced with a new unit which was fine right out of the box. However, it soon exhibited sluggish performance, frequent system lock-ups, and nasty crashes and it continues to get worse. I spend more time fixing things than working with this doorstop. So, THIS is THE last Compaq I'll ever buy!

So, you're thinking of buying the Compaq Presario 2700US Notebook. Good choice. It's everything I need as a college student. I can write reports, do research, watch movies, make cd's, and play video games. You get all this for a great price.

Everything about this laptop probably works great as it was intended to (e.g., MS Office, web browsing).

However, I had a problem with DVD playback--the playback was stuttering. After researching on the web, I disabled the ACPI--the video card and sound card were sharing the same ICQs, and it worked fine.

And then when I play Wolfenstein, the game would hard freeze (I have to hard reboot to regain control of the laptop) randomly every 5 - 20 minutes into the game.

The same thing happens with Everquest (Luclin) as well. But, at least I get the play the game a little bit longer--20 - 45 minutes in the game it would freeze the same way. I have tried everything. The game was barely playable before I disable the ACPI. But, by disabling it, it will play for a while and crashes.

I tried putting Win2k on it--hoping that it was some driver issue I was facing, but suffer the same fate. May be I have a defective machine or something.

I don't know if I should bother contact the COMPAQ Technical support.

I have with my laptop 8 months, I use programs on 3D, and this computer is perfect, is easy and fast.

I recently purchased this laptop earlier this year. It's very easy for a person who has basic knowledge of computers. But the only problem is that at times it is slow to start up. But other than that I recommend this laptop for anyone!