Customer Reviews

Compaq Presario F560US 15.4" Laptop (AMD Sempron Processor 3500+, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, Vista Basic)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The previous reviewer was either misguided about the amount of RAM in his or her notebook, or was writing about an older version of the laptop. The present laptop has 1GB of RAM, which is quite adequate for Vista Home Premium (included with this laptop). I have just purchased it for $479 from Staples. I found it running Vista just fine. If you are new to Vista, there is some adjusting to do, because quite a bit of the interfaces have changed. If you install Linux then this laptop is very good value for its price.

There are however some weaknesses: (1) Battery life is short. For me, it has been about 1.5 to 2 hours. There are two reasons for this: (a) this laptop only has a 6-cell battery, and surprisingly Compaq does not even have a 9-cell battery upgrade for this model; (b) secondly, this laptop uses the (relatively) more power hungry Athlon X2 processor, usually used in desktop computers. You will find that other notebooks that use AMD's Turion processors will give you better battery life, perhaps 1.5 times of what Athlon will give you.

The second weakness is what I consider a design flaw -- the touchpad is located right at the center. It is a problem because when I position my index fingers at "F" and "J", my right palm will be touching the touchpad and subsequently will inadvertently drag the cursor around while I am typing. I will try to look for a way to make the touchpad less sensitive to my "palm-click" and report here if I find one.

I purchased this one for my finacee for her birthday, and I have used it more than she has. The performance scores for "Vista Experience" are finally where they should be for an entry level machine - 4.5 or higher on everything except graphics. This makes for one fast machine!

The DVD burner is nice as well as the Altec Lansing speakers. I don't mind the Athlon X2 CPU, because it seems to pack more power than my Turion X2 at work!

Very smooth and desirable note! : )

I am new to laptop's and I wanted to get a basic cheap laptop that would perform simple internet surfing and school work. I bought the Compaq F572US from Home Depot for $629 plus $180 in rebates so the total price was $449.99 + taxes. This computer has the Premium Vista system, 1GB memory, CD/DVD burner w/lightscribe, 60 harddrive, Windows Media Center, and much more. This thing has more than I wanted but, I'm glad i got it. I thing that I don't like about it is how hot it gets underneath the mouse pad it get's very warm after an 1 hour of use, not sure if all laptops are like this but, I def. need to buy a cooling pad for it since I put it on my lap to use. The cooling fan is extra quiet you can't even tell it is running, the cd/dvd player on the other hand you can hear when it's loading. There is alot of bundle software crap that def. can be erased if you want to free up more hard drive space. I bought a Linksys G wireless router to work with this laptop and so far it is working excellent - highly recommeded combo! Overall this laptop is well worth the money spent, I am happy and I'm hoping I will be able to enjoy it for many years to come.


UPDATE: 08/31/08

Computer worked in the morning when I used it and then when I returned later that day it did not. I pushed the power button it lit up for a second and then shut itself off, the unit won't even power up anymore! I did see where HP has posted a notice about problems with the BIOS in certain serial numbers of these model computers and they might if your eligable will repair the item once mailed into them. I am very upset and aggravated that after 1 1/2 years it would not even power on! I had an e-machines that lasted almost 4 years before the motherboard went bad on it. This laptop runs very hot when on longer than 1 hour where it literally will burn your lap or hand if laid against the back side. This has been the worst purchase I have ever made. I bought a new laptop from DELL with a 3 year warranty because I am not making the same mistake twice. I hope I am more successful with this new laptop than with a HP/COMPAQ product.

1st, battery life is about 2+ hours at the max which is average. It's missing an express card slot but has 3 2.0 usb slots. No bluetooth but wifi g. The cover doesn't "latch" shut and there are is no s/d card reader. What makes this laptop very good is the price / features, processor and o/s. This is my 2nd Vista premium computer and now that I have worked out the kinks ( reducing the page file to 650 mb, turning off unnecessary services and using tweak vi(tm) to tune it up) it's actually fairly quick. The downside is tons of trial ware (ms office 2007, symantic, & the intrusive HP Help Center) but these are rectified by simply uninstalling. The set up is VERY long with vista because MS will have to upload in excess of 20 critical updates right after you boot up the 1st time. But Vista is elegant, and uses ram MUCH better than xp. Also vista Side bar Gadgets are cool as well. If you can get this under $500 you have a decent bargain, but more than that I would compare very hard with other models. If I got this under $400 I would give it 5, 6 or 7 stars but at $449 with no tax or shipping this is a 4.5 star deal out of 5. HP / Compaq products have always been very good to me so I expect quality and long life.

I picked up this laptop at Tigerdirect after Thanksgiving for my beloved mother in law. They had it for $399 without rebates - how nice is that. It's a refurbished laptop that supposedly comes with a 90 day warranty, but upon inspection - the receipt as well as the manual say this unit has a 1 year warranty through HP. Nice surprise! The laptop was flawless upon arrival, without any scratches on the case or screen.

This is my second compaq laptop and 5th computer overall. I do a lot of tweaking, and this unit definitely needs a bit to make it a star performer. Many don't realize Vista takes 512mb of ram just to operate. So with a gig of memory, half the brains are already accounted for. You can get around this by eliminating a bunch of start up programs, as well as completely deleting several others.

I recommend deleting the trial version of Office - it's a huge file and will take some time. Simply copy a version of Office from your home pc on a keychain drive and load it to this laptop. There's no reason to buy Office when you already have it on another pc. Microsoft allows you to share their software up to 2x. Delete the 60 day trial of Norton, Windows Defender, and turn off the HP Total Care advisor. You can download spyware/antivirus programming for free online (Spybot and Adaware work well and don't constantly download updates - they ask you to do that). As far as the gadgets, they do take up a bit of processing power, but running the date and clock shouldn't slow you down too much, and it's nice to have those items on the desktop. Also delete the internet setup programs on the desktop

The specs on the pc are well above average for a $400 - $500 laptop. Vista premium, 1 gig of memory, 80gig hard drive, Athlon dual core processor, WXGA 15.4" screen, GeForce 6150 graphics card, 3 USB slots, and the list goes on.

To say this isn't a screaming deal would be denying yourself a great laptop for a great price. You will have a very hard time finding any laptop for $399, let alone one with these specs. Any laptop at any price is going to need some tweaks to operate efficiently with the drain Vista imposes on memory.

I give this 5/5 stars due to the surprise 1 year warranty, Vista Premium, and the $399 price tag. It would be 4/5 if the price was $599 or higher.

Well, to make a short review of this laptop i bought some days ago, i will say the computer is great, the design is pretty cool, and it includes vista premium which is nice... the HDD is enough, the screen resolution is outstanding as well... the processor is really good...

Everything is good except the memory... i comes with 1Gb memory, but for Windows Vista that is not enough.. i had to buy some more memory for $80 bucks... so with this computer is FULLY recommended to have 2Gb memory at least...

Thats the only flaw i found in this laptop, but c'mon.. the price is great, it comes with plenty of stuff... if u got $60-$80 to buy more memory, this laptop becomes an incredible device.

So go for it, and get this laptop

I bought this laptop about 18 months ago, and was pretty pleased with it, especially after I upgraded the memory. Unfortunately, just before the laptop's first anniversary with me the WiFi suddenly stopped working. Shortly after that, I began to have trouble getting it to boot. I was just barely within the warranty period, so I shipped it back to HP for service. They were very quick in getting the unit back to me, with a new motherboard installed.

Within 4 or 5 months however, the display developed a permanent green vertical line about an inch in from the right edge of the screen. Then one of the USB ports stopped working. Then the other two ports died.

It's still usable, as long as you don't need to connect any USB devices, and don't mind the flawed display, but if I had it to do over again, I'd buy something else!

Bought this sytem from Circuit City a couple of years ago for about $440, including an upgraded to a gig of ram. It came with Vista Basic, but at that time Vista was not listed as a supported OS for this notebook, and I had chronic blue screens of death for about six months, but constant Vista patches were being supplied by Microsoft/HP, and the patches finally made the system rock solid (this may have been why the system was so cheap initially).

System ran fine, but hot, for the next 18 months or so, then a few weeks ago the Wifi died, called HP support, and they said that there was a motherboard issue that caused certain symptoms, one of which I had, and that they had extended the 1 year warranty for those symptoms. They replaced my motherboard, added a thermal plate, and fixed my screen, which had developed 3 subtle 1" vertical lines in the middle, all for free and with overnight shipping included. Now my system is whisper quiet, the fan hardly ever comes on, and the system runs ice cold.

I am not sure who was responsible for shipping an unsuitable OS initially (CC or HP), but cudos to HP for eventually getting the OS right and for standing by their products when the motherboard began to show some serious issues out of warranty. I will buy HP again.

This laptop came to me with a corrupted install of Windows vista, so I got my copy of XP for it and installed it and got all the drivers from http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7G4Q5BJM(you have to enter the three digit alphanumeric code, and it's free). It FAST but hot ant the battery only lasts about two hours. Only thig thats bad is no card reader, pc card slot, and only b/g wireless. [...].

As advertised. Windows Vista Home premium has niced functionalities but one must get used to it and that may take a while. Resolution of the monitor is very good. Weight is a little too much. The bad thing is the power outlet is on the right side as opposed to the back (like most IBMs)

Bottom oine: a solid basic laptop computer, good for beginners