My Compaq 3240CA review

Ok, this is to help others who are looking at getting a notebook. I used this site to the extreme, i think i ended up reading almost every single post in the entire Compaq section, at least anything to do with the 3000 series. Anyways so this is my way of returning what the community has done for me and i shall post my review.

here it goes:

First off I have recently purchased the Compaq 3240CA from Futureshop, and i will give you the specs first.

15.4" HD widescreen
512 Mb PC2700 DDR RAM
54g Wireless
60gb Hard Drive
5 in 1 Memory Card Reader
DVD + R/RW burner
Athlon 64 3200 + Processor
Geforce 440 Go 64Mb Dedicated vid card.

Anyways, on to my review. I have owned this laptop for approximately 2 weeks and I am just in Love with it, overall, i feel that it was a good purchase and I will give you reasons. I was looking for a laptop that has a very easy to use keyboard, that has wide enough and sensitive enough keys that they can handle fast typing. I was also looking for something that will play computer games, mind you I was hoping to play the faster more graphically enhanced games out there, Doom 3, Half-life 2, etc. I also tend to play a lot of strategy games too, for example the new ones that came out. Dawn of War, and Rome total war. I was looking for something that is durable and will be "somewhat" reliable, i needed this because i am out working on the rigs and up north for the majority of my winter. So i do need something to keep me occupied.

What i really enjoy about this laptop is the size, it is not extremely heavy, but it does have a very durable feel to it, typing on it is a breeze and the screen is a great size allowing me to do a a lot, working on two different word projects, working on Excel is great! The keys are very responsive, and when i push a key down i do actually get the letter typed that i wanted. Some notebooks i tried i really had to push the keys down to get any such response. Hooking up wireless internet to this laptop was an absolute breeze, it detected my home network right away and let me connect to it very easily. The speed of the notebook is great, i have been using it to type many notes up, using programs such as Office 2003 and that program starts right up with no real lag, it doesn't start up instantaneously but that is because of the virus scanner etc. But opening up other folders and such i notice no lag and the system does respond well, i am able to have many programs running and not really feel that hold down the system at all.

On to my next item on reasons why the laptop is great. The gaming(yeah, this is not a gaming notebook like some of the $2000+ US notebooks outthere) But when you are on a tight budget like i was, I feel that this notebook is great. I did mention above about HL2, Doom 3, Farcry etc. I have played all those games on here, except HL2, which i will test on here on tues and update my review when the test is done. Anyways they are playable. I can play Doom 3 without any lag and it is very playable. I can't of course play it at max resolution and max effects but it IS PLAYABLE. I am also able to play farcry at a decent resolution (1024 x 768) with no noticable lag whatsoever. (i did take some screen shots so if you would like to see them email me at (mailto: [email protected]) and I will send them to you. On to the strategy games, Dawn of War, plays great..again no real lag, can play at a high resolution with most details cranked up. All the older strategy games, play great. Basically, a great notebook for gaming for the price.

The sound quality is nothing spectacular, is what you would expect from a notebook with speakers on the front, of course the sound is much better when you are wearing headphones, as that way you can hear everything and do not get the outside sounds drowning out your notebook.

So i have covered the great things about this notebook, but as always and with anything there are the downfalls too. So here they are:

The fan is loud, and it does get somewhat annoying especially playing games and you are not using your headphones. The laptop does get warm, but that is to be expected of Athlon chip based notebooks or Athlons in general as they do run hotter. I am not a huge fan of the mouse pad, it does work well, but can be overly sensitive at times, and that is its downfall there. Also if it did have a double click feature(like the toshibas) where you tap the mouse pad itself that would be nice. The only other quirk that I do have with it is the pre-installed "junk" that come with all notebooks(HP and Compaq are particularily bad for this) So my fix, I wiped the Hard Drive, and reinstalled my own copy of Windows XP Pro, and then created my own restore CD's using Norton ghost. The downfall in doing this is the amount of time it takes, it took me close to 5 hours to wipe the HD, reinstall Windows, update to SP2, install all necessary drivers(which XP pro WILL NOT DO so u do need to use the Driver Recovery CD's) and burn my own Recovery Cd's. The final 2 things that i do not like about this notebook even though they are very minor, are the following. The DVD burner is only +R, not a multiburner, and the HD is slow only runs at i believe 4200 Rpms. though they are increasing that but that probably won't be mainstream for another 6 months or so. Oh the battery life does not run super long, but i mainly have it plugged into the wall anyways.

Anyways to close off my "review" i would just like to say for the price(1799.95 CDN, with the 3 Year extended Warranty) <--I worked at FS so i never did pay the full price for the warrant makes it a much better deal, but one should always get the warranty, as computers can be very finicky. I think that this notebook is great, it plays games much better than i expected it too(All the Salespeople i talked to at Best buy, Futureshop, Compusmart said that Doom 3 Farcry WILL NOT RUN AT ALL) The keys are as responsive as i needed. and the Screen is great to watch movies on when i am bored. I would recommend this notebook to anyone on a tightish budget looking for something that is all around great. The faults of the notebook are extremely minor compared to the Pros of it. Anyways I hope that i did not bore you to death and I hope that you take this into consideration on making your next purchase. thank you.

Sincerely,
Justin


---->Summary of Points<-------

Good Points
- Nice screen Size
- Plays games well including some recent FPS games decently(doom 3, Farcry)
- Very solidly built
- Keys very responsive
- not overly heavy
- Processor handles many programs open very well
- DVD's played very well
- Great built in features for the price

Downer points:
- fan sometimes a little annoying(not super loud, but there)
- Only a DVD + R/+RW burner
- mouse very sensitive
- Slow HD(4200Rpms)
- Weak battery life(approximately 1.5-2hours max)
- preinstalled Junk software