Customer Reviews

Compaq Presario 2710US Laptop (1.13-MHz Pentium III, 512 MB RAM, 20 GB hard drive)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

For those shopping by spec, for some reason the LCD specs are messed up in many sources, including Amazon currently. Just looked at models in a store, and neither the 2710 nor the 2715 have "native" 1600x1200 LCDs. The screens are 1400 x 1050. There is indeed a setting for 1600x1200, but this merely allows the 1400x1050 screen to pan across the larger area.
You may also want to know that the 2715 has 16M video RAM vs the 2710's 8M, which woudl be important if you are expecting to use dual-monitor desktop mode.

I have owned a Dell Latitude, an IBM Thinkpad and a Toshiba Satellite and this one beats all of them to dust.

The display is awesome and the PIII rocks at 1.13 Gz. This laptop also has the most robust build among notebooks in this range. Every laptop has some issues, though this one is the best deal, there are a few issues with this one too, though minor.

1. The Floppy drive that comes with the 2710 cannot be used Externally. You have to swap it with something else. Most other laptops let you use the FDD externally.

2. The recovery disk works only when you boot with the disk on the DVD drive ! does not work when u use it from the CD-RW drive. Took me two hours to figure this out, the customer support was totally clueless.

3. Almost all hardware need specific drivers, including the display. The display[...]when you use standard drivers, so DONT LOSE the recover disk at any cost, its the only place to get all the drivers (unless you want to spend hours searching websites).

But yet, this is the best laptop out there for under 2K

I shopped for laptops recently and had quite a bit of bad luck. The first machine I bought was an HP1170 whose sound car died a week after I purchased. I returned the HP for a compaq 2700 which had an overheating problem. I then got a toshiba 5005-S504 which was a nice machine but, it didn't have a mobile pentium so its battery lasted about 1.5 hours only.

Finally I got the Compaq 2710 and I have been thrilled with it. The build quality of this machine is superb and with 512mb of ram and screaming mobile pentium III running 1.13 GHz, this bad boy can easily replace my desktop.

The only negatives are the screen which is a little grainy but, not more than any other laptop I tried out. Also, Compaq service is the pits. It seems that Compaq engineers are very responsive when comes to getting patches out on the web site. Unfortunately, Compaq support seems to be completely unaware of these patches. The support organization gives advice designed to waste the maximum amount of your time and yield no results. If you have a problem, read the user forums. Chances are that someone has already had the problem you're experiencing and a patch already exists. That was my experience with a minor problem I was having.

If you're buying any laptop these days, you're bound to run into minor problems that you'll realize soon after getting it. Generally speaking, these problems are minor and I would say that this machine has fewer of them than most machines I've seen.

I heartily recommend this machine. It's built like a tank and runs like a top. Everything about this machine is quality.

Great keyboard feel
trackpad with easy scroll button (very convenient)
All the ports you need
15" screen
Great sound for a laptop
Good battery life about 3.5 hours with power management

A Smart Purchase

Having always built my own machine I'm used to getting exactly what I want, the best stuff, and at the best price. So when I decided to add a laptop to my rather large collection of PC's it was not easy to find exactly what I wanted. I wanted something that:
1. Had at least 1ghz and 256meg or ram
2. A hard drive with at least 20gb
3. A high resolution 15" display
4. DVD and TV output
5. Something you can find drivers for and supports other OS's

I was not interested in:
1. A CD-RW (have a 24x in my primary desktop)
2. Tech Support (Tech support never knows anything, if they did they wouldn't work in tech support)
3. Light weight (if 7.9 pounds is too much you need to go to the gym, not a lighter laptop)
4. The OS or software it came with
5. Firewire

The first thing I did after receiving my laptop was to wipe Windows XP home off and install Windows XP Pro and Linux. Both OS's installed without any problems and found most of my hardware. Whomever said "there are special drivers, found only on the CD" obviously have never looked at the website. All the drivers are there and easy to find. Getting X to run under Linux was a challenge to say the least, but the newer software required to get it running will be in the next round of distro releases so this shouldn't be a problem for long. So far my likes about this laptop are:

1. Solid, quality, and attractive construction.
2. Excellent performance for a laptop
3. Long battery life (actually get 4 hours)
4. Extra buttons are nice
5. Very nice display quality
6. very good sound quality
7. price was great compared to the other options out there
8. DVD's play flawlessly

Dislikes:
1. Hard drive could be bigger and the 8meg for the video card is about the least you can get away with. The only difference between the 2710 and 2715 is that the 2715 is better in these two areas; 30gb and 16meg on VC. The reason I didn't just get the 2715 instead was that is costs...more! There's no reason for this when the difference between a 20gb and 30gb laptop drive is only $30-40! Video memory price is only around $20 more! For the difference in price I could buy a 2nd 30gb drive and more video memory if I needed it!
2. Viewing angle on the display could be better
3. No IR
4. Door covering the ports seems like it would be easy to break.

This product has been a nightmare for me.
I purchased it new from Amazon and I was very happy with it at first. The screen was very bright for laptops of that era.
It came with the usual battery and you were able to put a second battery in the futurebay. So I was able to run 6 hours without plugging in, something unheard of for laptops of that time period. After awhile, I started to notice the fan sounding very loud. It seems to have two speeds, normal and the turbo mode which is the laptop equivalent of a jet engine. It was so loud, that when I used it in the Mountain View library, I cleared out a wide berth around me. After a year when it was out of warranty I had the very typical problem reported of it overheating and shutting down after a few minutes and the computer was completely useless. Since I had a dual boot machine and it shutdown in Linux too I was able to ascertain that it was a hardware problem.

Since it was out of warranty, I decided to take it to a local small repair shop called CompuRun as I like to support the little guy. This turned out to be a near fatal mistake. After paying him a couple of hundred dollars, he correctly determined that this was caused by the heatsink detaching from the processor. However, instead of getting the right repair kit sold by Compaq for this he jury-rigged by gluing the heatsink on, a solution that only lasted a few weeks. After I knew what the problem was I was able to determine from HP user forums the problem was very common and that HP actually had a retrofit kit for this problem. I then tried to contact HP support and tried to have them fix this problem for free since this in my opinion was a design defect.

Staying on the line to HP support which is all in India is enough to drive anybody crazy. They put you on hold for a hour and then you get some guy in India who can't escalate a complaint to anybody. Just forget about calling the HP service line completely.
I then wrote a letter to the president of HP at the time, Carly Fiorina and I ordered the repair kit.

I got the repair kit which cost me something like $70. The repair kit basically consists of a square of rubber very similar to what you would patch a flat bike tire with and four very long screws and four nuts to make sure it doesn't come off the processor like the original square
I then received a telephone call from a secretive group within the Silicon Valley HP that really handles customer problems. I told them the problem and without much hesitation they offered to pay the cost of this repair guy to put the square of rubber /heatsink on the processor. The story should have had a happy ending after the repair guy put the heat sink after charging me another of couple of hundred dollars, but that was just the beginning of a new nightmare. The CompuRun guy did not put the laptop back together solidly. After about a month, I had to bend the case to get it to power up. I brought it back to him again and after I argued with him extensively, he agreed to put it back together correctly. I think his idea of a warranty is a tail-light warranty.
However, when I got it back from him after he tightened everything up, he claimed the backlite had just coincidently gone out by itself, he could not repair it. Now the laptop was completely useless once again. I then sent the laptop to authorized Compaq repair for about $40 service fee and they told me it would cost $700 to repair it. I decided that the whole computer was not worth that much. After about a year, I located Moniserve in Hayward which specializes in fixing LCD/Monitors. They told me that the inverter board was fried (by my "friend" from CompuRun). They were able to locate an after market board and repair it for $110.

I still have a problem where all sounds on the machine sound like they are stuttering at the end of the sentences, but I can live with that!
So the bottom of line is if you have this repair problem contact HP in writing/calling directly to the president, use an authorized repair shop and stay away from CompuRun in Mountain View

I bought this laptop computer in January (2002). It is the greatest. Its screen is crystal clear, its speed is enough for anyone, and so are the drives. A lot of people don't like the swappable floppy drive but I think its better. But I must WARN you future purchasers of this computer to either get the 2715US model because it has 16MB of video ram, which will come in handy for like Microsoft Plus! For Windows XP. Or just wait a couple of monthes and get the new Compaq laptop with 64MB of video ram and the new mobile Pentium 4. But if you R A computer Freak like me, than just go ahead and get this cool one and don't wait!!!

I've had a lot of laptops in my career, and this one is by far the worst. I've been waiting for windows vista to come out before I buy a new laptop, so I've had the chance to get very well aquainted with this machine. I've figured out how to manage the computer so that it doesn't overheat and die on me--basically, I cannot run anything that takes up a lot of memory. No games, multimedia programs, interactive websites...This computer get hot fast and shuts down without warning. I thought it was only my machine at first, but I've found out that the problem is common and that compaq offers a heat sink repair kit that doesn't really work either...I recommend against buying one of these machines unless you have no other alternative or you get it for less than 100 bucks.

Cronic heat related problems with Laptop shutting down after a few minutes of use. Keyboard issues after just a few months. Compaq/HP did a lousy job addressing cronic Heatsink issue. They made a fix and listed it on their parts website for $50.00 + dollars. I have read a number of complaints on this issue. I won't buy an HP/Compaq product again. Will sell as is for $600.00!

What do I like the most about my new (2001 model) Compaq notebook?
The quality, workmanship, and features for the "end of the model" production price! Imagine--512 RAM, 20 gig hard drive, floppy drive (educational world still operated in this mode), DVD drive, CD-CW drive, and a 15" screen that is as big as my 17" desktop viewing area!! Not to mention the 1.13 Pent III speed. What? --you want the P-4M and have a battery life of about an hour??-- This beautiful machine has a battery life of about 3.5 hours!! ...
Now, if you plan to do some serious traveling- this model may be a bit too heavy to be lugging around! Because I only go between two schools- the 7 plus pounds of this unit is no problem. Thanks to Amazon.com and their reviews for introducing me to this outstanding laptop computer.

overall it is a nice laptop, from the clear screen to the speed.
The full keypad is great and the screen is so clear when I'm playing a dvd but, the speakers doesn't have enough base. I play
cd's on my desktop all the time and it sounds great but it doesn't sound so good on the laptop. I didn't know I can't use
external speakers. I like the fact that the dvd has a drive to
itself but, I thought the floppy drive wasn't swappable. As with any product it will have its ups and downs. But I love my laptop and I think I made a wise purchase.