Turion-based HP Compaq Presario V2000 reviewed by PC Mag
By Marc Perton 
posted Jun 16th 2005 7:30AM
posted Jun 16th 2005 7:30AM
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Turion-based laptops are turning up now that the
chip has been around for a while, and PC Magazine has a look at one of the faster ones, the 2 GHz HP Compaq Presario
V2000. The reviewer gave the laptop good ratings for performance, weight (5.4 pounds), and standard specs, which
include 512MB RAM, an 80GB HDD, a DVD±RW drive and a 6-in-1 flash card reader. However, battery life was a mere 2 hours
29 minutes, especially disappointing given that the whole point of AMD's Turion is to provide an alternative to Intel's
Pentium M. However, HP makes available a $25 extended battery that boosts battery life to over 5 hours, long enough to
enjoy a couple of DVDs on a long flight.
Looks like a powerbook.
"Looks like a powerbook."
New around here? I thought we just took for granted that Apple has patented both the colors white and silver, and that anyone who uses those colors must be copying Apple.
I have a Compaq laptop from 2 years ago that looks just like this (only bigger, and without a Pentium M or Turion). So this is not even a new design; kinda late to be saying they're copying Apple.
I love my laptop and would not hesitate to buy another HP (Compaq laptops are really just HP laptops in a different color case). They didn't used to be very good but they have improved a lot over the past few years. For the price I paid (under $1,000) I couldn't have asked for anything more from my laptop. It's just a pleasure to use.
I wouldn't buy this one, though, only because of the battery life. 2 hours and 29 minutes is about what I get from my *Pentium 4* in my laptop. That's really bad in this day and age. I'd go Pentium M over AMD, if that's the best they can do.
Looks more like an ibook, as i was scrolling through.. it flashed by and I thought.. what the hell? Thats an iBook! wait.. Compaq?
That does look like a iBook for sure. Specs sound a lot like a powerbook.
Soo...where the heck can I get this thing? It is *not* on the HP website. Did I miss something? or is this one of those "say it has this processor, but if you try to buy a v2000 it will have to come with a different processor?"
Pentium M pwns the world still...Intel breaths a sigh of relief. News at 11.
Pentium M pwns the world still...Intel breaths a sigh of relief. News at 11.
Not very impressive. So, this is AMD's response to the Intel Centrino? Really??!
No wonder Apple have chosen Intel chips.
Not very impressive. So, this is AMD's response to the Intel Centrino? Really??!
And HP have chosen that platform in their labtops. This is probably is another mis-step on HP side similar to acquring Compaq. No wonder Apple have chosen Intel chips.
I just bought one of these. It's junk. Really. The ones they're releasing to the public (not even available for purchase from their "customizable" web site) have the stripped-down version of the Turion chip (512KB instead of 1Meg cache) and use the worlds slowest fsb, clocked at 200mhz. Somehow, the battery consumption is unacceptable - even with a chip that puts out 25-35 watts (more like a continuous 35 watts when plugged in) this sucker gets hot enough to burn my lap. Typical usage limits the usable time to about 3 hours with the wifi off. The construction is so flimsy that I feel the side of the laptop is falling off when I pick it up, as the plastic creaks delicately under my fingers. picking up the laptop with both hands from the sides, I realized that I was actually holding the laptop by the dvd-rom drive door because of the way it sits on the side of the unit. The (sluggish) 3d accelerator relies on shared system memory, so the mediocre 512 megs of achingly slow 2100 style memory is robbed from Windows, slowing everything to a crawl. Neither the operating system nor the scant bundled applications make any use of that much touted 64 bit processesor. The only charitable thing I can say about this laptop is that the "Brightview" or whatever it's called glossy screen is easy on the eyes in virtually any lighting situation. This is an option, and for 25 bucks, its the best deal going for this stinker of a laptop. In short, buy a centrino. One made by Compaq's better half, HP. Or a Dell.
One other thing - if you look for a v2000 online, you won't find it. try v2311us or letters to that effect.
wow, you guys.
for 25 bucks you can get a extended battery that will push up the life to over 5 hours.
it comes with a turion ML-37 (2.0GHz/1MB L2 Cache) which is not crappy at all. PC World has given it a 4 1/2 out of 5 twice and its been there best buy 2 times, for 2 months. its also there best buy for widescreen laptops. the screens amazing and its CHEAP as hell..an almost maxed out one running only 1,150 or so. i love it and i love mine. there is no better deal for the money, or even close. it also has ATi mobolity grafics not integrated as an option.
just wanted to defend my ladys honor.
-drew
Where do you find the extended battery for $25?
Yes, where is this $25 battery? Just bought last night, lasted 3 hours on first charge after discharge. With WiFi enabled and HD and DVD going (copying files over). Great notebook.
Just bought mine too. This is my first notebook and was not sure what I wanted. I got mine at Bestbuy. The geeks there said this is the best for the money and they swore by the AMD Turion64. Mine seems slow, but I don't know if that is just typical for a notebook.
I paid too much. I went in yesterday to get a usb cable and saw that it is already listed $100 cheaper than a week ago, and they are offering $180 in rebates. I only got $30 in rebates. I paid $930 and if I had waited a week I week I would have paid $700. They will give me the difference in the list price, but not the rebates.
For $700 it is worth it, but not for almost $1000. Maybe I am just bitter because I had bad timing.
I personly got this laptop and love it. I got the lowend model and witha little boost in ram (up to 1.5 gigs) its great! I run both half life 2 and World or Warcraft on it smoothly under windows XP (Home) also on a second partion i have Gentoo linux and it runs faster on here than i have ever seen it run, including on servers. THis laptop is great and cheap.
-Max
Hey Max,
Would you post some info about gentoo on the V2000 on
http://www.gentoo-wiki.com
I'm planning to buy one, and use as a solid gentoo box. It would be nice to know what kinda problems did you run on and how did you solve it, as well what is working what is not.
Tnx.
-Dmitri
I just bought one of these and I noticed that the area where you rest your wrists to type gets hot and so does the square pad that you use to direct the pointer. Is it just mine or are others getting this also?
I have the V2311us also -- the low-end model that was on sale for $700 after rebates a while back. For the money, it's a good deal; certainly a lot faster than the 700MHz Dell I had before.
I have SuSE Linux 9.3 installed, as well as the XP Home that the system came with. The graphics and Ethernet work out of the box, and the video is great once you install the ATI Linux driver from ati.com. I haven't been able to get the wireless to work on Linux yet.
One of the first things I did was go into the BIOS settings and reduce the memory allocated to the shared graphics to 32MB, instead of the default 128MB; I don't use this machine for 3D games, so I'd rather let my software have the extra memory. When the budget permits, I'll buy a 1GB DIMM and upgrade to 1.25GB; once I do that, I shouldn't have to worry about giving 128MB to the graphics.
My wrist rest gets warm, but not hot.
One design flaw; since the cooling fan is on the bottom, the machine won't properly cool if you put it on a soft surface. Something to keep in mind if you use the laptop in bed.
The $25 battery that people were talking about isn't an EXTRA battery. If you do a built-to-order on the HP web site, you can upgrade from the 6 cell battery to the 12 cell battery for $25. Buying the 12 cell battery all by itself costs $180 from HP direct, or $150 from CompUSA. (Look for HP batteries; they won't say Compaq on them.)
- L2 Cache should be 1MB, not 512K as specified. Even the label on the notebook from Compaq does say 512K, but CPU_Z 1.30 detects 1024K, and I think AMD has only one version of ML-30 (1MB L2 Cache)
- somebody mention PC2100 on the RAM? Mine is ML-30 version, came with PC2700 sticks.
- I reduced the heat from CPU by using RMClock setting it to run 4x @ .0925V and 8x @ 1.100V, no problem in stability so far. Also, with RMClock running and normal use (surfing the web, writing codes ...), the included 6-cell batteries indicates 52% after 1 hour.
- The keyboard portion above the CPU is not hot as much as where the HDD is located, which is on the left of the mousepad where I rest my left hand there to type. The CPU heat is not a problem with RMClock and the fan, but there is no way to stop the HDD from heating up my palm. However, if you don't have PCMCIA card installed at all time, just remove that slot filler. The PCMCIA slot is right above the HDD and the plastic filler just transfer the heat up to your wrist efficiently. Removing the plastic filler, leaving an air gap will reduce the heat from HDD significantly.
- Both 2 RAM slot ares occuppied, so be prepared to use the removed 256MB(s) somewhere else if you want to install more RAM. My other laptop has 768 (512 + 256) so I switched them as this notebook will be my main use.
- DVD writer support all formats except -DL
- The installed Synaptics touchpad driver doesn't work with Firefox. When scrolling in Firefox, it tries to put the mouse cursor on the scrollbar but somehow endup showing the cursor in its own little scrollbar. The installed version is 7.11, just uninstall it and any version from 7.10 is OK (I can only find 7.5)
- Touchpad sometimes acts weirdly, the mouse cursor jump up and down the screen and click anywhere. I notice my notebook's lower right corner doesn't touch the tabletop, so I had a look and the screw right there was loose. After I tighten it back, it sit solid on 4 feet, and no problem with touchpad anymore. I guess the notebook has been twisted a little bit with that loose screw so the touch pad was affected.
- the keyboard is a little loose at the lower right corner (when you press the right arrow, the whole corner is presed down). I lifted up the keyoard, found a hollow hole right there, so I just stick 2 layers of electric tape in, solid keyboard now. It's the design, I think it's the same for all of this model.
Comparing to its pros, those are just minor problems you can find on most notebook. Everything else is wonderful: light weight, small size for 14" screen, the lid open smoothly, AC adapter is small and light weight, HD brightview screen, fan works effectively.
- The closely direct competitor is HP Pavilion dv1420us (Pentium M 1.6GHz). I guessed heat may not be as a big problem for the Pentium M. But after trying on my friend's dv1420us, I can't feel the difference in the heat generated by both CPU. As I mentioned, the portion that is heating your wrist is the HDD, which is located at the same spot on both.
I'm sastified with this notebook. I had a R3000z before (Athlon-M 2800+). This one is smaller, lighter, and run Winning Eleven 8 a little bit smoother (just a little bit, the R3000z have 32MB dedicated memory on nVidia GPU).
"he closely direct competitor is HP Pavilion dv1420us"
It's not a competitor, its the same company.