Customer Reviews

HP Compaq Presario CQ60-615DX 15.6" 2GB 250GB Laptop

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Being a computer technician for the last 15 years, I am very picky when it comes to buying computers, especially laptops and even more special, laptops with Celeron CPUs. This is my very first Celeron laptop and I have to tell you that I am surprised and amazed at the performance of this particular Celeron. Todays Celeron CPUs are NOT the Celeron CPUs of 10 years ago. These new Celeron 900 are based on Core 2 Duo CPUs. They are exactly the same except for 2 things: They have 25% less Cache than their Core 2 Duo counterpart and they are single core, but that doesn't mean it's slow by any means. This laptop came with 2GB of RAM (I upgraded it to the full 4GB), a 15.6" HD LCD Screen, a 250GB Hard Drive running at 7200 RPM - yes you are reading right - 7200 RPM! - Most laptops out there have a 5400 RPM HD, including the more expensive models, so this is a real bonus. It comes with B, G, and N Wireless, Intel 4500 Graphics, 2 USB Ports and a DVD Writer.

The performance of this laptop is quite good. Very fast booting up. Windows open smoothly. Tasks are handled quite well, even with 2GB of RAM. The 4GB of RAM makes things even better. The Celeron 900 2.2 GHz CPU inside packs quite a punch. Take a look at this benchmark:

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It is by no means a weak processor. Overall this is a great laptop for $329.00 (BestBuy). Much better than a Netbook for sure (since that is what I was going to buy in the first place). Netbooks have no CD or DVD units, only 1GB of RAM, Slow Atom CPUs and 8 to 10 inch screens and cost over $350.00 (a good one). This laptop simply beats the netbooks in price, power and features. You will not be able to do serious video editing or play online games like Unreal Tournament 3, Crysis or things like that because of the limited video card, but hey let's get real, who uses a laptop to play games anyways? That's what desktops are for. If you are going to be mobile (traveling), going to school or simply work at the office then this is the perfect machine for you. If you are into web surfing, email and Microsoft Office and on a budget then look no further. For the price, you are getting a quality built machine with everything you need to do. All that and a little more. The components inside (motherboard and chipset) are all made by Intel.

I highly recommend it.

This computer is great if your looking for an extremely cheap, full-sized laptop. I had my doubts about the Celeron processor but they were unfounded. The processor opens and closes programs quickly, boots up fast and runs multiple applications at once with no problems or lag. I find 2gb of ram to be the sweet spot when it comes to ram. Unless I'm doing any sort of rendering I'll never max out my ram even with all of my programs open. It is nice to know I can upgrade to 4gb of ram if need be, however. All in all, I could not be happier with the performance of this computer.

Performance aside there are some things about the laptop that I dislike. The most annoying thing to me is the lack of dedicated volume control buttons. I need to press the "fn" key along with "+", "-" or "*" to control volume up, volume down and mute. The computer also comes loaded with pre-installed programs so be prepared to spend some time uninstalling them. Personally, I also wish the resolution of the display was higher. 1366x768 is ok but I think 1440x900 is perfect for a computer this size. The plastics of the computer are nothing to write home about either. Generally, the finish of the computer feels as you would expect for the price... cheap.

There are obviously going to be some drawbacks for a computer this inexpensive. Even with everything I dislike about this computer I still think its a great value and would recommend it to anyone shopping for a laptop on a budget. Being the least expensive full-sized notebook I could find, I would go as far ad to say the power and features of this computer are remarkable.

I've always been picky when it comes to computers. This is my second computer to have a Celeron processor. The first one was crap. Nothing but crap. It overheated all the time and was very slow. I decided to buy this computer after a few of my friends told me that it was better than the previous generation of Celerons. They're right. This computer is capable of out-performing some of the higher-end processors - even with a single-core processor.

The computer itself is very good. I would recommend this to anyone that wants a good, fast, cheap laptop.

I would probably give this a higher rating, if the battery life was a bit longer. But at 2 hrs and 15 minutes, that is sufficient enough for me to get through a class without my battery dying on me. Other times, I can plug it in and not risk the laptop turning off. It is nice to have wifi, though when I used it sometimes it was sporadic (this could just be an issue with my university's wifi). I was not thrilled to see Windows 7 64 bit, but most programs run just fine. The only downside is a lack of 16-bit program support. I absolutely love the integrated touchpad (not just a separate piece of plastic) and the speakers are decent. Sometimes flash based online applications can make the processor jump to 100% but I don't use a lot of those (only once in a while) so that won't be a major problem. The laptop can smudge easily so be careful and don't touch it with sweaty palms. The on/off for the touchpad is great, so I can wipe it off or watch a movie without accidentally interrupting the mouse. The wifi on/off is also nice, though I haven't seen a change in battery consumption (yet). I would recommend this laptop to all college students (like myself) with a limited budget who just need a computer to take to classes or something. Yes, it is somewhat of a "bare bones" laptop (no HDMI, TV input, etc) but no bells or whistles needed for this college student, and by the way, the "CQ" Compaq logo on the lid looks pretty boss, too.

I bought this computer almost a year and a half ago. Since then, I've had to get the battery and the cooling fan replaced. I will not lie, it is a good computer for a price of 329.99 but I would not pay more than 350.00 dlls for it, also HP support (since they now own Compaq) was great and helped me with the issues mentioned before.

I am however sad to say that it will struggle with some video applications, the battery life will drop dramatically in performance within 8 months and the lid will start to become very flimsy after six months of daily opening and closing.

With the applications, I had issues with Quick-time and the video plug ins for IE, Firefox and Safari. I could not get it to work that well with Hulu but I think the blame should fall equally on their side and HP.

With the battery, I had it replaced after 6 months of use because it would not last more than 30 minutes in the last month of use (only web surfing, no video or applications). HP sent me a replacement rather quickly and issue solved for the next 8 months, now the battery is good for only an hour and twenty minutes on easy use.

With the Lid and the cooling fan. The lid will become flimsy rather quickly but it is not a big issue, I can live with that. The cooling fan however, is a big issue. They had to replace it because it stopped working one day and it would not turn on, I used an application called "HDD health" that gave the temperature for both the Hard Drive and the system, the HD was 66 Celsius and the system was 82 Celsius. The replacement did not helped that much it measures around 65 dB to 88dB of noise and the temperature will be sometimes 62 Celsius and the system will not drop from 75 Celsius.

I would recommend to purchase this computer for very low processing applications and not for day to day used. It is not a traveler's companion as it starts to fell very heavy when carrying it around airports and college campuses. Also, I recommend buying the extended warranty and hopefully it still includes the battery replacement. Thank you.

As the family tech support person I have to say that his computer required almost none of my time to setup so that my wife could use it. My wife actually turned it on and connected to our network without my help and only had to ask me a couple of questions before realizing that everything was already working.

She is happy with it, which makes me happy with it.

On February 16 of this year I purchased a Compaq CQ60-615DX laptop. Almost 4 and a half months later I regret nothing.

At some point during my college career - either my Sophmore or Junior year, which means 2000 or 2001 - I purchased my first laptop, a Dell. I used it for a number of years, but one day it just wouldn't start back up. Ever since then I've purchased HP desktop computers, and while I've helped others purchase laptops, and have thought about buying one, the price for the machine I wanted to build just wasn't in line with what I wanted to pay. So instead I'd purchase a nicely built desktop, for a fraction of the price.

After goofing around with some other portable PC options, and debating whether to buy an iPod Touch, I finally settled on picking up this laptop. I trust HP to put together well-built, and dependable machines; three desktops of varying ages, still all working today. I wasn't sure about their Compaq line, but at the beginning of this month, based on this laptop, I picked up a low-cost Compaq desktop, and would do it again in the future. And a co-worker purchased this same computer a few months earlier, and when asked, said he still found it to be a good buy (and this is actually what pushed me over the edge).

I won't speak too much about what the machine contains, since that's well covered in the specs. Instead, I'll tell you how I use it and what I've done to it, with notes as needed for what I've found to be issues.

There's not too much junk installed on the machine, so no issues there; maybe 3 or 4 hours to get those uninstalled, backup discs made, and Windows Updates applied.

While the 2 GB of RAM is okay, since this is a 64-bit machine I purchased 2 2GB sticks (from Crucial) for around $120, with shipping. It's unfortunate that it comes with two 1 GB sticks, but ... I did this 2 and a half months after I purchased the machine, so clearly it's more of a personal choice (I do Web development and wanted to be able to run various systems on VirtualBox).

I've debated following the advice of another reviewer and swapping in a more powerful video card (Windows experience is 3.3 because of it, although Windows 7 starts up and runs fine), but with the Web surfing (handles Flash-heavy sites fine, as well as Netflix streaming) and development (mostly in Visual Studio 2010; have run Windows XP and Windows Server 2008 on VirtualBox) that I do on the machine, I haven't felt the need. (Office 2010 also handles well.)

Wireless (B/G/N) has worked great, although I've had to manually turn it off and back on twice after it lost my signal, which is amazingly simple. (A third time I ended up powercycling my router, so I assume there were larger issues.)

The left mouse button does seem a little unresponsive at times (3 or 4 times), but if nothing else, there's always USB mice, which I've taken to using when I'm at home, which is where this computer gets most of it's use, as I've shut down one of my desktop machines that I always had up and running for surfing and etcetera.

Almost every day I lug the machine to work and pull it out during lunch to work on one thing or another. I purchased an HP EZ141AA Nylon Value Case, and while at first it seemed like it was going to be too small, it actually works really well. I highly recommend this bag, but if want to lug a number of other items within it, you probably want to look for something larger.

Overall, I give this computer 5 of 5 stars and recommend it highly (and have to my sister and another co-worker).

I purchased this to replace a six year old Gateway laptop. Overall, this is a good value for the price. Runs everything I need quite well. My primary complaint is battery life. It's rated at 4 hours, but I've yet to get 2 hours using only for Excel, word processing and internet access. The Gateway battery was much smaller and lighter and gave me an honest 4 hours in the same type of usage.

Also, the supplied AC adapter gets very hot when the unit is charging. Compaq sent a new one under warranty, but it too gets very hot. My Gateway adapter never even got warm to the touch. I'm afraid to leave it plugged in unattended. Once the battery is charged, it seems to be ok, except if burning DVD, then it gets hot again.

It works well, it was cheap and I guess you get what you pay for, but I've already ordered a larger capacity battery.

I purchased this laptop in Jan. 2010, and I've been using it ever since. It has never crashed before, it works efficiently with Windows 7, and it operates very quietly. Since I don't use it for gaming, the graphics card is sufficient for my purposes. The Compaq is solidly built and extremely durable. - would recommend to anyone. HP Compaq Presario CQ60-615DX Notebook - Intel C. 900 2.2GHz / 15.6" HD Display / 2GB DDR2 / 250GB HD / SuperMulti 8X DVD±R/RW / 802.11b/g/n WLAN / Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

My last Compaq lasted just under 2 years. About 3 months ago the screen started to go out. When it finally died, I called HP to see what it would cost to fix it and they told me ~$300. So I found this little ditty at Best Buy for a wonderful price.

PROS: Price, Windows 7, relatively light, quick. The system is very stable and runs smoothly. It's not pretty, but it gets the job done.

CONS: Shiny hood shows finger prints, No HDMI out, No webcam, no card reader. Would have liked to have these features, but for the price, you can't be picky.

If you buy from Best Buy, plunk down the extra change for the 2 year warranty. That way when HP's warranty runs out, you can still get it repaired/replaced when it dies. Yes, it will die, but you'll get at least one more year out of it. With the extended warranty, if it dies before the second year is up, you get it fixed or replaced for free. Then, just plunk down the $$$s for the extended warranty on the replacement.