I've seen a few people asking about Compaqs here lately and I haven't
found a review of this model anywhere on the net, so just thought I'd
give some thoughts/impressions after my first couple hours using
mine...

My specs: P4-M 2.4, 256MB RAM (plan to upgrade myself, cheaper that
way), CDRW/DVD combo drive, 40GB hard drive, 54G wireless, 15.4" WXGA
(1280x800) screen.

First, this is a completely different design from the 2X00 series
notebooks - the case is all new. I don't know *how* new but I've
found articles mentioning a late 2003/early 2004 release for this
series so I believe it's brand new. The outer casing is black, with a
silver inner casing and bright white low-profile keyboard (the
keyboard is similar to an Apple iBook, but physically larger).
Cosmetically, it's a beautiful design - really slick and modern
looking, but also tasteful. Not overly curvy, which is a pet peeve of
mine in some laptop designs. One minor cosmetic issue that cheapens
the look somewhat is the letter decals on the keys, which have very
obvious outlines. Not a big deal, though.

Functionally, the case lid clasps down firmly, and the latch is a
shiny metal. The screen hinges are quite stiff. The plastic itself
*feels* thick, though I don't know how thick it is - it is certainly
sturdier feeling than my wife's Dell Inspiron 1100. It feels on par
with my old IBM i1552. There are digital controls built into the case
for volume and mute (thoughtfully, volume up is convex and volume down
is concave, while mute is flat) and wireless on/off. All case-mounted
controls and inputs have their function icons repeated on top of the
inner case, so you can easily see where a control is while you're
using the machine.

The keyboard feel is nice - still not quite as springy as a new
Thinkpad but better than most laptop keyboards I've used, and better
at this point than my old Thinkpad (the keys on which have worn out
with use). Not mushy. Short throw and good springiness. Not the
best I've used, but very good. Better than the last Compaq model I
tried in a store too (2100 series).

The screen is clear, not overly bright, and to my naked eye seems
color balanced fairly well - though I would need to do some real tests
to confirm this. I have no complaints with using it during my regular
usage so far, though. No dead or stuck pixels. Nice contrast (black
is pretty black) and the default brightness is perfect for me - I'm
sure you can alter this anyway. There is a small area of vignetting
in the bottom right corner, but nothing to get excited about. I'm
happy with the screen.

First thing I did was uninstall all the junk Compaq loads onto these
things. To be fair, they're not as bad as some companies I've seen,
but there were still various startup utilities as well as various
programs installed that I knew I'd never use. After removal, bootup
time is now as fast as I would expect on a PC with these specs.

Second thing I did was install a game - Max Payne 2. This is a new
game that requires DirectX 8 and has all sorts of advanced 3D
features. It ran quite well, even at 1280x800! Not smooth as glass,
but better than I expected, with options set to medium. Credit the
Radeon 9000 chip - though if you want even better performance, go a
model up and get the "dedicated graphics" model, as my PC is sharing
main system memory with the video chip. I didn't buy my system for
gaming, though, but it's nice to see that it's capable of it.

Haven't yet tried the DVD playback, and haven't really spent a *lot*
of time with the system yet (so not sure of heat or any other
potential problems - it did get a bit hot when playing MP2, but I
expected that). So don't consider this a final verdict. So far,
though, I'm very happy with this purchase for only a little over
$1,100. It does seem like a decent quality laptop with a lot of good
features and performance for the price.

Hopefully it'll keep itself together and you won't be hearing any of
the familiar Compaq horror stories from me in the future.

// Jeff Williams
// basscadet75@yahoo.com

I have a Compaq notebook on order. I came upon this news group after I
ordered it. Reading all the bad quotes (the best was one saying "God have
mercy on my soul") about HP/Compaq I got myself so worked up I just about
canceled my order. Then I got to thinking. IT CANT BE THAT BAD. I called a
close friend that works for Staples, and has for years, and a cousin at
Office Depot in a different ciy and asked addvise. They told me how many
Compaq's they sell a month and how many complaints they hear. Just as I
thought, they get very few complaints and both said most of them are
something the customer has messed up and needs help correcting. I knew a
product that big cant be that bad and still dominate most office and
electronics stores shelves. I think a lot of the personal reviews are due
to product preference. I searched all the pc mags and every search engine
to read reviews on them. The only thing I came across was a few that say
long waits when calling the company. And boy could I tell you a story about
my experience in that area with Dell and my last desktop unit. To make a
long story short it finally resulted in me giving up and sending a written
letter to Dell and three months later I got a reply. Three months!!!



"Jeff Williams" <basscadet75@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7a2c8267.0402041315.12c727bf@posting.google.c om...

"Dave" <dave@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:1023i3sr8s01r1c@corp.supernews.com...
I think most of the complaints that do exist were probably the result of
overheating - either due to case design flaws, heat-sink design flaws or
just the use of desktop CPU's (they still offer these as options - stay
away!). Someone posted a long thread on the HP support site about
spontaneous shutdowns a little while ago; I doubt it was user error, I think
it probably really is a problem, and that HP just should not offer desktop
CPU's.

Also, HP may dominate store shelves but remember most laptops are not bought
in stores. I don't really think it's indicative. HP's laptop market share
is *among* the leaders, I think, but it's nowhere near Dell, as just one
example. IBM doesn't sell in stores either. And there *are* a lot of
products on store shelves that really do just suck.

I will say that I emailed HP/Compaq prior to my order shipping and have
*still* not received a response (going on a week now) despite their pledge
to answer in 24-48 hours. So I have no doubt that some of the support
issues are valid, if you do need support.

But the more I use this laptop the more impressed I am. I'm still knocking
on wood that nothing goes wrong but it's so far exceeding all my
expectations. I ran SiSoft Sandra on it tonight to benchmark the
performance and it appears to have a 5400RPM drive standard (though it's
faster than all the 5400RPM drives I benchmarked against - slower than 7200,
tho), the RAM benchmarked faster than 800mhz RDRAM (and PC4000 DDR) and the
2.4ghz P4-M CPU benchmarked faster than a 2.66Mhz *desktop* P4. I don't
know what chipset they're using in this thing (apparently an ATI chipset,
though Sandra can't identify it), but it's working miracles, whatever it is.

Tried the DVD playback tonight; flawless.

I have basically no complaints, and have had lots of pleasant surprises so
far. If I had to nitpick... the screen has this weird "grainy" look the
closer and the more I look at it. It's like it's dirty, but it's not. I'll
get used to it pretty quickly, though. Also, scratch my comments on color
accuracy from earlier - the screen is quite blue out of the box, but the
color can be adjusted in the graphics drivers (wish I could find an actual
color temperature setting for the screen, but most laptops don't have one).
It's very heavy - this much I knew going in (one reason why it was cheap),
but I didn't realize how freakin' big it is. I thought my ThinkPad was
big - this is the biggest true laptop with a sub-17" screen that I have ever
used. It's quite massive. Not a huge problem as I mainly will use it at
home, but I will probably need a special bag if I do want to carry it
around - it won't fit in my old (and standard-sized) laptop bag. Just a
word of caution to anyone considering a 15.4" model - they may all be like
this. Makes me wonder how *anyone* can really use a 17" laptop. And I'm
6'4, 200 pounds!

Generally though, very, very happy with my purchase so far. Just hope I
don't ever have to deal with support.

To sum up -

Good: Cosmetic design appeal, quality feel, nice keyboard, decent screen w/
no dead/stuck pixels, and most of all performance.

Bad: Nothing horrible, but slight screen "graininess", large size and heft,
no response from HP to my one email query.

// Jeff Williams
// basscadet75@yahoo.com

How's the battery life so far? Does it come with room for a second battery?


"Jeff Williams" <basscadet75@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:grlUb.11212$GO6.623@newsread3.news.atl.earthl ink.net...

"NhoYuo" <NhoYuo@nhoyou.com> wrote in message news:<0ZidnX63FarHYbvdRVn-hw@comcast.com>...
No room for a second battery, no. I got the 8 cell battery, which so
far is giving me around 3 hours of normal use. This is pretty much
what I expected - it's a cheap laptop and it's got a pretty big
screen, so I wasn't thinking I'd get 5-6 hours of battery life. I
also use wireless all the time, which eats batteries for lunch.

A 12 cell is also available - I didn't go for this because I thought
it would just add to the weight, and as I use this thing mostly at
home I didn't think I'd need it. I would think you'd get 4 or more
hours with the 12 cell unless you're doing anything really
battery-intensive. I will probably eventually buy the 12 cell to use
when I'm on the road for extended periods, and as my 8 cell wears out.
Only other concern I have is whether there's any outward physical
difference in the 12 cell battery (ie. if it's physically larger,
jutting out anywhere) - I would think there couldn't really be, but
I've seen laptops where the big batteries hang out the back. Doesn't
seem like that'd work the way this thing is designed, though.

I'm still really, really pleased with this PC. For a total of $1068
after rebate and one coupon it is everything I could have hoped for.
What really clinches it is all the little design touches that you just
don't expect in a cheap laptop - things like the little button on the
front to turn the wireless on or off, the fact that the hard drive is
so well insulated that it's completely silent, the near-silence of the
dual fans, the feel of the keyboard, the digital volume controls with
a different tactile feel for volume up/volume down, etc. I mean it
has everything I wanted, featurewise, but more than that it just feels
like a lot more thought went into the overall design than I would have
expected for a laptop in this price range. It does not feel like any
corners were cut, which is not something I'm used to seeing lately
from either HP *or* the previously independent Compaq.

I paid almost the same amount for my wife's Dell Inspiron and it is
not nearly as well built or designed.

I am not a big fan of HP as a company but is it possible they've
turned a corner with the quality of their products?

// Jeff Williams
// basscadet75@yahoo.com

Disclaimer: I do not vouch at all for any of HP's older laptop
designs. The R3000T is brand new - HP hadn't even updated their
internal database yet when I called them to find out what type of
memory to buy for an upgrade.

3 hours, sounds good. I just took a look at this thing at CompUSA yesterday
and could not believe the price. It has very decent components, and the
styling is superb. I'll probably go with the 12-cell up front, hope its not
TOO heavy and cumbersome. Also nice to hear that the fans are quiet. Is this
thing too good to be true, or what? Now I just have to decide what type of
screen to get with it, as Ill be watching DVDs on it alot too. Decisions,
decisions... :-)

By the way, did you happen to find out what type of memory it uses for an
upgrade? I poured over the HP/Compaq website, but couldn't find a mention.
I'm going to comb through the forums today, maybe they have an answer there.

Congrats on the new laptop...
-Brian


"Jeff Williams" <basscadet75@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7a2c8267.0402090859.6809fbcf@posting.google.c om...

Just to answer my own question regarding the memory for this laptop, these
and other tech specs can be found at:

http://www.hp-expo.com/productpdfs/dv190a_ie_eng.pdf

Memory Type: DDR PC2700 333Mhz


"NhoYuo" <NhoYuo@nhoyou.com> wrote in message
news:z8Wdnd9wM_E3ZbrdRVn-uw@comcast.com...

"NhoYuo" <NhoYuo@nhoyou.com> wrote in message
news:BtGdnSOZ252UibXdRVn-hg@comcast.com...
Yeah, I did get my upgrade - I figured it was PC2700 but rather than take a
chance on generic PC2700 I went to Kingston's web site and they luckily had
this model in their memory configurator (the only company I found that's
added it to their database yet).

Anyway, couple caveats with the memory; not big deals but just things to
keep in mind. First, it only has one slot; whatever comes pre-installed is
soldered to the motherboard. So the "2GB max" only applies if you get 1GB
to begin with. If you get 256MB like I did, you'll only ever be able to
have 1.2GB - and that's only if you buy a super-expensive 1GB chip.

Also, as I briefly touched on before, there's a "shared" model and a
"dedicated" model for the graphics. The shared model takes system RAM for
the graphics. The amount is adjustable in the BIOS - mine came with 64MB
allocated to graphics, meaning I technically only had 192MB of system RAM
when I got this thing. (It still felt fast!) Something to maybe think
about when you consider how much RAM to go for initially, or whether it's
worth it to spring for the dedicated model (I don't think it is unless you
plan to really use this system for a lot of gaming - though you can play
most games pretty well even on the shared model). I don't regret what I
did, though; I now have a total of 512MB, 480MB of which I'm using for
system RAM, and that's plenty for now. Eventually I will probably buy a
512MB chip (for 768MB total) once the price is low enough that it's
basically an impulse buy.

Anyway, good luck with your purchase - it's really a great system for the
price.

// Jeff Williams
// basscadet75@yahoo.com