Customer Reviews

Compaq Presario R4025US 15.4" Laptop (AMD Athlon 64 processor 3200+, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Drive)

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

 

 

To start off I am very pleased with this computer. It has many pros and only a few cons. First off The design is a very modern in design. The screen is HD. (however, in comparison with the Sony versions it is in my opinion inferior.) The Hard drive is large enough to hold a lot of Data. The battery lasts for about one hour and forty five minutes. It has a Slot that fits pretty much any kind of flash card that you might have. I have a Sony SD flash card and it works just fine with that. The video card is dedicated so it does not draw from the systems memory. I have tried many games for example Madden 2005 and the newest rainbow six and they run very smooth. I think that this computer is a replacement desktop. Meaning that if you plan on taking it every where you go it might become somewhat of a burden. All and all I love it and I got every thing out of a computer for a very good price.

Maybe you're new to laptops, so here are a few facts.
Sadly enough almost all laptops are tailored for Windows, that means that if you install anything but windows, well you'll have a poor performance.
Also very important, the hard drive that is included with the computer is a 4200rpm HD which is QUITE slow for any standard.
When the OS is paging or accessing the HD this speed is critical.
I don't know about your computer but mine had 512mb of memory, and let's say the full 2Gb could really boost performance.
I am a software engineer and I have found this laptop as a decent desktop replacement.
If you use it with windowsXP 64, a fast HD and 1GB or more you'll see what I am talking about.

I bought my laptop in August of 2004 and it is now March of 2006. I actually bought the R3000 but I hope this review can help others buying laptops (...). I have no idea if HP changed the computer structurally but HP did upgrade the hard drive memory and other smaller features. Buying a laptop was difficult and it is not a task I am looking forward to doing again. It is impossible to balance price and performance along with all the other features in the lower price range that determine weight and battery power. If a buyer wanted the higher end laptop, then there would be less compromise. But then the buyer would probably not be looking at a Presario. After about six months, my touchpad stopped working and my experience with customer service was hellish trying to convince them that the touchpad was in fact a hardware problem. I finally did send the laptop in after numerous hours berating the Indian taskforce. But I have never had a pleasant experience with laptop customer service when it is difficult to prove a hardware problem rather than a software problem. Also, after about a year and a half, my dvd burner stopped burning. I hope HP fixed the DVD setup because its placement is very vulnerable to wear and tear. It was not fun either convincing the service team that my burner did not burner. But, honestly, take the customer service consideration out of the picture because customer service SUCKS at all computer companies. Get the 3 year warranty if you plan on keeping this laptop for more than year. Seriously. Do not mess around. (...). The laptop is very heavy and buy the better battery because the lowerpriced battery can barely sustain the computer for an hour. In fact, if you plan on taking long plane trips and want to use the laptop, this is not the laptop for you although I believe some planes have power outlets now. Do not buy the windows office program. RIPOFF. Get the open source version or scam it from a friend. Basically, if you need perfection in a laptop, invest more money into your laptop. If you can tolerate a good heavy computer with flaws, this is not a bad purchase. But honestly, at this price range, mediocrity is what you will get. Don't expect miracles.

I have bought this computer 4 mounts ago . I am a computer engineer and as my work needs , I loaded a lot of programming tools like IBM Websphere , oracle 9i DB and extra games on it . By the help of 1GByte memory , enough hard drive and , thanks to AMD , Athlon 3200+ CPU , the computer successfully handle all the hard works . And it also good at gaming .

Its sound quality is also a plus .
But the computers screen has poor performance. You have to adjust and find the right angle to see the screen perfect .
Also , DVDDrive can not work at DMA mode , it means that , when it reads anything from DVD Drive , other task gets secondary and you cant even listen mp3 from your harddrive well!

So , I think that , its very usefull for programmers and performance needed works . But Its poor at multimedia thinks .

I loaded 64-bit linux fedora os on this.
It is too slow in booting.
Basically i found that it sucks in many ways.
1) It is too heavy, and
2) It is damn slow