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5.0 out of 5 stars
Great for the price, July 20, 2010
This review is from: Compaq Presario A945US 17-inch Laptop (1.86 GHz Pentium Dual Core Mobile T2390 Processor, 3 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, DVD Drive, Vista Premium) (Personal Computers)
Note: It has USB ports on the right and the left, where I plug in my mouse receiver, being right-handed. Problem with mouse pad interference from typing is UNIVERSAL. I was happy to see the off switch for it (my old Toshiba didn't have one) since I prefer a wireless USB mouse most of time. Keyboard and screen are great. Performance is as you would expect for the price -- the weakest area is 3D graphics. Not bad overall. If you need high performance in graphics, get a laptop with a separate graphics chip and memory. I've run professional 2D graphics creation programs on this laptop without too much pain. Ordinary apps -- great. This is my first Vista computer. Vista sacrifices usability/performance for security. I have several XP computers, and am used to, and happy with XP. I've found that Vista is not as bad as I feared. The main slow-up I've observed is when plugging in flash drives. Wireless works great. Conclusion: this is a great choice for the price if you don't need a high performance laptop.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Lousy Design, January 16, 2010
This review is from: Compaq Presario A945US 17-inch Laptop (1.86 GHz Pentium Dual Core Mobile T2390 Processor, 3 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, DVD Drive, Vista Premium) (Personal Computers)
I bought the Compaq A945US notebook because it was a good price for a 17" screen laptop, and I thought it would be easier to use on the road with a bigger screen for computer work.
It performs OK but it is a Vista machine, wish I could get an upgrade to Windows 7 for cheap. However, I like that it is dual processor.
But what an idiotic design. The USB ports are on the right side near the front. If you are right handed, anything you plug in will get in the way of using a mouse. Even the mouse cord gets in its own way there! It is just nuts. There are only 2 USB ports, definitely could use a couple more on each side to the rear.
There is no physical knob to control audio volume - has to be done by software. So forget trying to be quiet while booting up on an airplane or hospital room or library or wherever. The media audio is also incredibly weak - at max volume I could barely hear a DVD I was playing (even though the windows boot-up jingle is sufficiently annoyingly loud).
The screen has a kind of washed out look and not the best for viewing photos, movies etc. Fine for basic office work though.
The clamshell design is awkward to pry open, you feel like you'll drop it or knock it off a table doing it.
The touch pad, in default configuration, is sensitive and sometimes does things while you are typing, or clicks on something while you meant to be moving the cursor. Fortunately it has a small button switch for turning it off. Maybe you can adjust it better, but I find it a hassle.
Wireless works fine.
The power cord is three pronged -- thanks a lot. Another gotcha when you're in a hurry and stuck with a two hole outlet or extension cord.
It's just not a friendly design. But if you could upgrade to Windows 7, it makes a decent work horse. I'm finding that the 17" screen mainly adds width, not height, so you generally don't see more lines of a document, for example.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Love it, but a small problem..., December 15, 2008
This review is from: Compaq Presario A945US 17-inch Laptop (1.86 GHz Pentium Dual Core Mobile T2390 Processor, 3 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, DVD Drive, Vista Premium) (Personal Computers)
I purchased this laptop a few months ago (I only wish its OS was XP, not Vista) and had some small issues with Vista. The timing on this is almost ironic, as yesterday the hard drive failed!
I called HP/Compaq tech support and explained, in detail, everthing that I was doing and steps I took to make sure it was in fact a disk failure. They were fantastic and sending a replacement which should arrive in 3 days along with a set of new DVDs of the OS, etc. at "NO" cost to me. However, I do have to return the failed drive to them within 2 weeks of receiving the new one (my signature determines the receipt date). Most manufacturers require you send the defective product first and will then send a replacement. There was just one thing and understandable, they asked for a credit card number in the event I did not return the defective one. Once again, at no cost to me, as they are including a pre-paid shipping label!
I would definitely recommend HP/Compaq to others. My Dell desktop, top of the line, is a nightmare and never again would I buy from them. Even Microsoft, unbelievably, were much more helpful with a system crash when Vista auto-upgraded to SP1 which the unconcerned Dell & more helpful MS techs were unable to resolve. I was, with a bit of research, able to get it up and running again in several months (mainly because I didn't have the time to devote to it) I am writing this on it now, which was the impetus for purchasing the Compaq laptop. Give me an HP product anytime over Dell and several others anytime.
Huge thumbs up for HP/Compaq tech support!!!
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