It doesn't usually take much to identify the type of person that's suited for a netbook and the type of person that's suited for a budget laptop, but unfortunately not all of them can self select -- we're pretty sure a lot of folks who picked the former option would be pretty pleased to trade up for this here Compaq CQ61 right about now, the followup to the well-received
Walmart-destroying CQ60. Compaq is becoming HP's "value" brand in the US, and we'd say the CQ61 is a pretty nice way to flex those wallet-friendly credentials for a wider audience than the Walmart set. It's built on a 2GHz AMD Sempron M100 processor, ATI Radeon HD 4200 graphics, 2GB of RAM and Windows 7 Home Premium, with a WXGA 15.6-inch screen, 160GB HDD and DVD burner to boot. HP was a bit cagey on what sort of battery life to expect out of the included 6-cell (our guess is not much), and of course the laptop won't be winning any beauty pageants, but it's a pretty nice score for the truly cash-strapped student or anyone else who needs a full-fledged laptop on the cheap without all the netbook compromises. Still too rich for your blood? Compaq's CQ4010 slim desktop weighs in with relatively similar specs and a $319 pricetag.
posted Oct 13th 2009 12:45AM
uh, Sempr0n isn't all that "real"
Agreed, and it gets extremely hot (I guess they covered themselves by calling them "notebooks" now). But still, it's nice to see a super low cost laptop like this out there. I can see tons of college kids picking these up (and then probably dropping them)
This Sempron is a new model - Dual core in 45nm. The 45nm process doesn't generate too much heat. Could call it "real".
you know if they stick an Intel cpu inside it would be $500 easy, so for the price point this makes everything so real i might get it! you cant get any more real than this :)
This one is not a dual core (M300 and higher) but has virtualization packed in. While that wont help much, the CQ60 I grabbed a few months back is doing just fine. Im actually thinking of throwing XP on it for better response but it handles the browsing and all the kids' gaming needs (try NFS HP on a netbook ;D ).
The M100 is clocked 100MHz less but should be adequate under 7 as opposed to Vista.
Im not so sure of the bargain here as the CQ60 came w/ 3GB RAM and 2.1GHz Sempron at $298. Seems you're getting less this time around.
Sempron is more real than Atom, and probably the Celeron that my GF has in her Compaq. Which does just fine with HD video. Can even play CS:S minimally. $300.
Screw that ill stick with my netbook :)
Yeah, it's not rocket science. The fuss was the size
I trust my atom over a sempron, any day
Ditto. My old 14.1" ThinkPad was as big as I'd ever want, especially since most larger screen consumer laptops still have the same resolution (i.e. my 12" HP had the same resolution as my girlfriend's 15" HP).
Never mind the fact that you get what you pay for. I'd bet you dollars to donuts that about 15 months after anyone buys one of these things, their Southbridge chips will fry or blow their solders (a la early xbox chips), and they'll be left with a 15.6" brick. Either that or their system board will fail to recognize the wifi card after a while. HP units made the last couple of years all seem to succumb to one, the other, or both.
Yeah I will stick with my Mini 311. Its more powerful. That Sempron is about as capable as an Atom and the graphics are crappier as is the screen quality. I also prefer the size of the mini to that thing.
Yeah I love my netbook, the size and battery life are awesome.
Is Compaq? Is not interested.
I have one of these. Or at least the last model from a few months ago. Was $399. Gotta say I'm very happy with it. At first I bought a Sony for like $900 on sale. Serious buyers remorse and didn't really like it (slow response and the screen would be totally to blue and reset each time after I would restart).
The battery life is crap on these, but it's very responsive and quick. It's a hellov a deal. I think you need to try it before knocking it. I really can't believe it cost so little. I've been totally happy with it.
I wish you good fortune with it, but....
BACKUP
EXTERNALLY
&
OFTEN
starting NOW.
(personal experience with hp HD's going *poof*)
HP doesn't make hard drives, they buy from a variety of manufacturers. the DV series has a history of all the internal parts going poof because they overheat, but other than that a HP hard drive should be no more likely to fail than any other.
all hard drives go poof eventually, everybody should be backing up regularly if they don't want to lose data.
They do get hot. But I don't think it's a problem. The problem is that they put the vent in the worst place ever. It's on the front left under the screen. So when you set it on your lap or set it on anything not a hard surface it gets blocked. If you don't know this or pay attention every time then you'll end up blocking the vent and burning it up. And well, most people wont know this. I can't for the life of me figure out why they didn't do it different. I really hope the new model fixed that. Then it would be perfect. Such a simple thing that can cause so much trouble.
notatoad: I had the same experience with my 3 year old Compaq Presario v6120us laptop (wow, I still remember the model). I knew of HP's warranty extension on those things because I fix people's computers who suddenly stopped booting and wireless disappearing. One day, my laptop wouldn't show anything on the screen. I decided to not even touch that laptop or any other HP/Compaq laptops and told my friends/family to avoid HPs unless they like sending their laptops in for repairs or buying a new computer every couple of years.
Sign me up for the same problems. Girlfriend's compaq went through two system boards, both of which eventually failed to detect the wifi card and one of which died completely shortly after (still waiting for the present board to die). Mine just went straight to random blank screen. Apparently it's a southbridge failure caused by over-heating (see my post above), so V1001, heat is definitely an issue.
Lesson learned: you get what you pay for.
the HDs in in HPs; therefore, HP HDs.
/:-/
@adelossa,
very similar situation to what I experienced this summer. friend's HP DV was "slow". Tried to remove crapware, which turned into all-night investigation. Made the mistake of trying to use HP's RestorWiz.
HUGE mistake....everything GONE (including a novel that was being written).
If you go on the HP support site, you'll see well-documented evidence of the problem of hard drive errors and RestoreWiz back up failing. The company that wrote it finally supplied a "fix". Some were able to restore their info. I was not.
So, it's not just a hardware issue.
I've tried telling people about the vent; don't know if it ever gets through.
i have to say i am so glad that the netbook market is making a big hit in the laptop arena, because of this i got the acer 4810TZ for $449 and for what you get i think its amazing . to bad it took all this time and a whole new market to force notebook makers drop there price oh and the crash of the market :)
Call me crazy, but the whole point of people wanting a netbook is to have something with a small screen 9-12" and that is extremely light and portable 2-3 lbs. I will gladly pay twice what this costs to have the features of a netbook.
"I will gladly pay twice what this costs to have the features of a netbook."
You're crazy.
At twice the price, Sony has a netbook for you.
What I'm wondering is why a comparable Macbook Pro would cost $3000?
What I'm wondering is where you found a comparable macbook pro? And, last time I checked, those badboys start at $1199 ($1099 for students). Where'd you get $3000 from?
Best reputation? Really?
Netbooks are not the cheapest systems out there. They are the SMALLEST ones. That is the whole reason for them!
I have a gaming 17" laptop. I also have a 10.1" netbook. My 17" laptop is rather heavy for taking out to a customers house when I do a service call. (It is also rather large) But my netbook is perfect for taking out and about with me.
so what it like being a geek squad or comcast service rep and
living in your moms basement?
I would not know. I am always cleaning up after they F**K up.
And for the record, I live on my own, and I work for myself.
Owned.
Ed Hardy clothing looks like shit.
That "Netbook fuss" is cheaper and more mobile. Laptops are Netbooks are for different uses and markets.
As a regular user of both I am glad Netbooks are around as there are times when Laptops are too big and bulky for casual mobile use.
not too shabby... prolly has better specs than my vaio that i got last year for $420, not really sure how to gauge AMD processors to intel to be honest haha...
Average Joe doesn't buy a netbook because it's cheap. He's buying his computer from the store, and he walked past the $349/$379/$399 bargain-basement full-size craptop. He was aware of both. He chose the netbook because it is more portable than the craptop-du-jour and has three times the battery life.
More portable and 3 times the battery life at a premium price, ridiculously small screen, reduced internal specs, harder to upgrade parts, and a smaller, sometimes harder to use keyboard. COUNT ME IN!
I love it when people are just totally against options and exaggerate the truth to voice their opinion and something that has absolutely no negative effect on them as consumers.
me, I chose a netbook because it's easier to carry with me when I am travelling by airplane on a job; I simply put the netbook in my regular bag rather than carrying two bags
OTOH, for my gf I'd recommend a budget laptop, as she usually computes from home anyway
$400 gets you a top of the line tiny netbook.
OR
$400 gets you a crappy "bowling shoe" full size laptop.
Choose wisely.
HINT: they aren't competing against each other... so what's the argument???
No, I have a similar laptop, and it is crappy. The LCD is the worst part, colors are washed out, black is light gray, and the viewing angle is tiny. the worst part is that it has scanlines. how the hell do you get SCANLINES on an LCD???
Even if it's a little more powerful than a netbook, you have to deal with very low quality parts in the rest of the design, bad heat dispersion, and a 90 min battery life.
>> "You may be used to Mac pricing I'm sure"
Mac pricing? I'm using a Quad-Core Windows machine that I built myself. I don't even have a laptop. Good job playing the "Mac-Hater" card... Way to categorically assume.
Yes... you can sometimes get a "really good" laptop for $400. But you can also get a far "better" laptop for more than $400. That's my point. The $400 full-sized laptop has traditionally been a "Black Friday" sales item... as most decent laptops cost more. I guess $400 is the *new* entry point for full-sized laptops? Clearly Compaq had to do *something* to make this laptop so inexpensive. Should all laptops cost $400? No... because HP-Compaq wants to sell better laptops for more profit... and some people want to pay more for a better laptop.
Personally, I'd buy the "best" netbook before I bought this "bargain" full-sized laptop. But, I want a netbook for size and portability... not for cost-savings. If I was in the market for a full-sized laptop... this would not be it.
People say netbooks are the race to the bottom. I disagree. Netbooks have do their purpose.
A $400 full-sized laptop is truly the race to the bottom. It guess it's nice if you absolutely cannot afford anything over $400 and you want a full-sized laptop... but I wonder what will happen to other laptops over $400...
I dont recommend a AMD based laptop.My almost $800 2 year old Turion X2 HP laptop is as slow as shit.......one of my worst comp choices ever.
Their desktop processors are good value for money though.
Well, I hear their new notebook platform is supposed to be somewhere around Core 2 Duo levels. So I wouldn't say don't buy one. Just don't buy one yet at.
Of course if you wait even longer you can have an even more powerful set-up in early 2010.
From Intel that is.
Are you sure that's not because HP puts so much crap on their laptop? The first I do is a clean install of Windows. I've never seen any computer manufacturer put so much junk on their computers. And why the hell do I have to install 300MB worth of software to use my HP printer on windows when on Windows whereas on Linux it's pretty much plug it and go??? HP: Bloating your machines since 1975...
The numeric keypad is a big plus.
I got a 15" Pentium D laptop from HP last thanksgiving for $350 instead of getting a net book. ?Not a day has gone by that I don't regret that. It's huge and the battery life sucks.
The problem is, netbooks are so underpowered they just aren't very useful to me. I couldn't even play standard def Hulu movies without frequent stuttering over wifi. My wife's older dell with a intel core2duo 1.6 gig plays them fine...
netbooks are only good for typing and browsing a few webpages, though I like to open dozens of tabs so it would probably die on me...
I returned my netbook a week after I bought it....I guess you have to sacrifice performance for battery life
I used to have a Macbook (it was good, had it for school), sold it for almost 70% of what I spent for it. I then picked up a Dell Studio XPS 435MT (nice machine) and an Acer Aspire One. I for one don't do lots of computer on the go, so the Netbook was a solid choice for me. With my Acer, I've been able to stream full screen Netflix and Hulu for awhile without alot of stutters. I dunno, maybe I just lucked out.
I just picked up one of those CQ models for a friend who was on a budget, sporting a dual core mobile Athlon running Vista. It's quite speedy. For 15.6 the screen res. is a bit lame, as is the battery, for the price, you can't beat this thing. Netbooks suck dick. (And you need portability then cheap CULVs exist.)
None of the CULVs are 10" or below.
I got me an Acer Extensa 4420 (14.1 inch) Laptop last year at Best Buy for $399. It came with 2GB Ram, 1.9 GHz AMD Athlon TK-57 dual core processor, 160GB HDD, ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 (256MB Dedicated), and Vista Home Premium (x86) (YAWN, hated Vista, Switched to Windows 7 Professional RTM). For the price it doesn't seem like this Compaq is any better than what I got a year ago. I like my Acer, it has been great other than Vista. and my battery life on average is about 1 hour and 45 minutes.
i bought a $400 Toshiba laptop last year, its not the sexiest machine but damn if its not a solid and reliable laptop, i have no complaints....
You are totally right about great deals on the PC side of the fence. For $399.99, I got an HP G60-458DX from Best Buy.
Here are just a few of the amazing specs on it:
Intel Pentium Dual Core 4200 2.0 Ghz processor
4 GB RAM
250 GB Hard Drive
Intel GMA 4500 Integrated Graphics
Webcam and Microphone
HDMI output
SD card reader
DVD+-RW with lightscribe disc labeling
High Def 15.6 inch widescreen with 16:9 aspect ratio
Windows Vista Home Premium 64 Bit with Free Windows 7 64 Bit Upgrade
I bought this in late July after seeing it in a Sunday ad. Sold out the next day and I haven't seen them advertised or online since.
Where Can I find the Compaq CQ61?