Sold old HP notebook and got new Compaq!

Well... I went and done it... sold my aging dv4000 and got me the new Compaq v6000!

Yes I know that HP makes a better one as a rule than the Compaq, but I could NOT resist the finish and looks outside/inside of the compaq. Absolutely gorgeous. Here are the specs:

Compaq Presario V6000Z
AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core TL-56
2GB 533MHz DDR Memory
120GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
LightScribe Super Multi 8X DVD+/-RW w/Double Layer
15.4” WXGA+ BrightView Widescreen
NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150
12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery

So, how many of you have this Compaq?

 

the compaq brand isnt as bad as everyone thinks, it is good for what you pay for and the specs sound good to me

 

piece of junk ... lol

good specs

 

no they are not.... in fact some lines are better than the pavillion

 

Most of the Compaqs are copies of the Pavilion line...they just look a little different. Now, the HP-Compaq notebooks are truly marvels to behold...

HP just made a poor decision to keep using a name brand that was known for low-quality...

 

I WAS going to buy another HP as I like the black finish on that too.
Then I fell in love with the Compaq grey/black finish and got virtually the same specs as the HP one for $100 less... couldn't turn that down1

I think both the HP and Compaq have the nicest looking notebooks out there today.

 

Compaq Evo, IMO, used to be equivalent to IBM Thinkpad. They are built to last too.
Compaq Presario...yeah they suck to no end.

I am using a HP Pavillion DV2000T, and boy, do I hate HP... My next laptop, Lenovo Thinkpad or Apple Macbook Pro.

 

Just curious why you hate your dv2000t?

 

Proves you don't know much about computers... better jump to MAC.

 

I had a Compaq.. all piano black but died just over a couple of months. HP replaced it with a Pavillion.. hasn't hiccuped at all. I thought Compaq's reputation improved after HP took over but I guess leopards can't change their spots! Compaqs were just slightly above Packard Bell in reliability before HP. I did hear that Compaq's main components aren't the same as HP's such as the motherboard and screens.

 

Actually, they are virtually identical. A quick search on HP Parts of both a dv6000z and v6000z come up with identical part number listings for the screens and most of the system boards. They share many parts, but the Pavilion line has more scalable options in the end.

 

I have the V6211AU (Turion 64 x2 TL-50, 512MB 667 DDR2 RAM,120 GB HDD,VISTA HB). Let me know if u feel the heat around the HD BAY and the Left palm rest and touchpad coz that's one issue that has been bothering me ever since I've purchased the notebook.

 

Just warm, not hot.

 

Well, you make way too much assumptions about me. I own more laptops than what I have listed. HP is not built to last. Period. And speaking of how much you know about computer. It is Mac, not MAC.

I waited for over 3 months since the introduction of Windows Vista to get a sound card driver from HP. HP is such a slimy bastard for pushing responsibility to people and blaming everything on Microsoft. At the end, here came HP Support on this forum for damage control by finally releasing a driver.
That for one, is good enough reason for me to leave HP.

Aside from that, I am not particiular impressed with the built quality of DV2000T. One side of the laptop is burning hot, while the other side is mild warm. Not to mention the metal cover around the speaker portion tends to not stay with the plastic chasis (I have to push it down, making it stay).

The built-in camera is really crappy. You might as well shell money and buy a better quality one from Logitech.

The sound card (Waikiki chipset), now that I finally have Vista driver support has really bad microphone reception. I simply shelled out more money and purchased a USB headset. Literally, what is the point of having a built-in mic if it is functionless?

It looks pretty though, I can tell you that. Nice shiny black finishing, with imprints. Other than that, it is just not that great.

 

There are more that like HP and Compaq that don't. It looks like you belong in the MAC camp... so go hang out there.

As for me, I've probably owned at least 25 notebooks since my first 1985 Tandy 600. But, I've never owned a MAC and never will.

My original and first notebook in 1985, a Tandy 600 which I still have.

 

Nice! Wish I still had some of my '80s gizmos for nostalgia.......

 

Why do you keep saying MAC when it should be Mac? Are you slow or something? It is useless to talk to you.

Apple MacBook Pro has similar built quality as Lenovo Thinkpad. In terms of customer satisfaction, Lenovo ranks number 1, Apple ranks number 2. and HP is much distant 3rd. Whatever you want to say, stop being a troll and please read what I actually wrote.

 

I'm not the slow one... you are! Go back to the MAC site.

 

My experience:

1. HP's service is better than lenovo's. HP has 21 day no questions asked return policy. Lenovo may charge you a %15 restocking fee. HP has price protection policy, Lenovo has price swindling scheme.

2. It is true that Thinkpad's chassis is strong, but T43p I temporarily owned emitted noises like a trackor.

3. Dv2000t is hot? Yes, aesthically. Temperature-wise, it is very cool.

4. Both thinkpad and macbook are pricy, unless you have some EPP discount.

5. MacOS is good. But now with Beryl installed on my Debian, I have much more splendid visual effects than MacOS's. There is no reason for me to go for MacOS.

That's my two cents to this flame war.

 

Flame war??? We have a MAC guy in here bashing HP & Compaq!

 

two more cents:

Ipod's sound quality is inferior than the mp3 player I own now (Jetaudio).

 

Who started the bashing? Oh thats right you did with this:

Anyway, there is nothing wrong with the poster wanting to upgrade to a modern computer from Windows.

I've owned 3 notebooks in the last year. The first was an HP dv5030us. It died after less than a year of very light use and multiple repairs. It took HP multiple repairs to finally repair it. They finally replaced it after multiple BBB complaints and the fact that I knew consumer protection laws here in CA very well and knew I was legally entitled to a replacement.

They replaced it with a dv6345us.

In that time I bought a white MacBook with DVD writer. I swapped the drive out for a 160GB drive. I spent 2 months with OS X and have Windows Vista Home Premium installed as well.

The build quality of the Mac is 10x better. It doesn't feel "bendy" at all. It's perfectly sturdy. It feels strong in my hand, not like cheap plastic made to be unnecessarily thick like the dv6000.

The screen is better on the Mac. It's at least twice as bright, the colors are twice as vibrant. It doesn't look dull and washed out like the dv6000. And its at least 10x sharper than the HP screens. Thanks to OS X and the way it renders fonts, text is absolutely beautiful to look at. Text even looks good in Windows on this screen, though nowhere near as good as it does in OS X.

Battery life is 2-3 hours better than the dv6000 depending on the situation.

Now hardware specs. The dv6345us comes with a Core 2 Duo T5300, running at 1.73GHz with 2MB of L2 cache. The MacBook has a Core 2 Duo T7200 running at 2GHz with 4MB of L2 cache. Both have an Intel GMA950. For a notebook that only cost $200 more than the dv6345 would at retail, the MacBook simply blows it away in performance. When it comes to MPEG-2 encoding, the MacBook has been more than tWICE as fast as the HP using the SAME software under Windows and OS X. Games are simply unplayable on the dv6345us, while UT2k4 runs BETTER on my MacBook with a GMA950 than it did on my dv5030us with an Xpress 200M that had dedicated memory!

Boot times are also vastly different. OS X boots in roughly 22 seconds. Vista on the Mac is done in around 45 seconds. Vista Home Premium, a CLEAN install, on the HP takes more than 2 minutes. No spyware, no viruses, nothing. Just the base drivers and HP's own software.

Now for your comment that started this whole discussion.

I can't help but laugh hysterically when people say "you don't know computers, better get a Mac!" Why? Because Macs are far more advanced than Windows. They just don't have the problems, and they are far more user friendly. OS X gets out of the way. It only lets you know its there when something isn't working right. Needless to say, I have not had a single crash in OS X. Program or system crash. OS X is based off Unix, so not only is it more stable and secure than Windows could ever dream of being, but it lets those who want to tinker with the OS do more to it than they ever could with Windows. You can even do more to customize the UI than you can in Vista!

It's pure ignorance when people say "those who don't know computers get Macs". No, those of us who DO know computers get Macs. Why? Because we're tired of Windows. We want a computer to operate like a computer in the year 2007 should. That means NO viruses, no having to deal with security issues, no unstable operating system, no driver hassles, none of that nonsense.

You know whats funny? I've had my dv6345us crash several times already. All by trying to watch a DVD. Vista was brought to its knees and crashed completely all by me pressing the "next chapter" button on the remote control.

Yet in OS X I had Windows XP going in Parallels, iTunes playing music videos, browsing websites, and chatting in IMs and the system didn't even blink at me.

I haven't even had to deal with any kind of driver nightmares either. I have two HP printers, one all-in-one and one photo printer, and they work in OS X simply by me connecting them. In Windows XP they required 1GB of drivers and software EACH. You know whats better? I can connect all kinds of devices and never once have I seen a driver screen or "new hardware found". It all simply works about 1 second after connecting it. In Windows Vista I still have to worry about drivers and still have to sit through wizards when connecting little things like flash drives.

After saying all that, I still can't help but laugh. I mean, Mac OS X is still YEARS beyond Windows Vista. Vista is barely up to OS 10.2 from several years ago. A lot of the features that were ripped out of OS X, like Flip3D and the stupid Gadgets, are pathetic attempts at trying to copy Apple. This October, Leopard will put OS X at least 3 generations ahead of Windows Vista.

Mac OS X is everything an OS should be in the year 2007.

 

Got proof of that?

Because all the audiophiles at respected audiophile sites, like Head-Fi and HA, use iPods. Why? They have the best sound quality, best DACs, and still have the highest output when it comes to headphone amplification power.

 

I listened and compared. Ipods are just fashionable to use. Its sound quality is not the best. I didn't visit those audiophile sites, but I am sure that not everybody there think ipod is good. I use a jetaudio mp3 player (U3) and it sounds better ipod shuffle that I tried in the Apple shop.

 

In my previous posts, I acknowledged that MacOS is good. But visual effects wise, beryl on Linux is far better than those on MacOS.

MacOS is the arch enemy of windows and Linux will eventually surpass MacOS.

 

So you've never visited those sites, but you're sure "not everybody" thinks the iPod is good? You're funny.

Go there and see for yourself. The iPod is loved for it's high output (60mw+60mw@16Ohms, or in the case of the headphones I use, 15mw+15mw@64Ohms, which is higher than the base output of most other MP3 players at 16Ohms), it's line-out capabilities, its 24-bit Wolfson DACs, Lossless + gapless playback, iTunes, the UI, the build quality.. Not to mention the overall capabilities.

The 30GB and 80GB iPods can be used not only as music jukeboxes, but video jukeboxes too. You can setup the iPod to output DVD quality video over S-Video. Lets say you have a movie. You can watch a little bit of it on your computer then sync it to your iPod. Drop it in the dock hooked up to your TV and watch another hour of it there. Then say you watch another 20 minutes of it during the day (keeping in mind that the iPod picks up where you left off regardless of what other music, games, audiobooks, movies, etc. you have played during the day). Then you get home in the evening, sync your iPod again and finish up the movie at your computer and it will pick up where you left off on your iPod.

Anyway, back to the sound quality. What were your source files? What headphones did you use? What songs? ITs funny that you mention the iPod shuffle, because the iPod shuffle, especially first gen, is highly regarded amongst audiophiles for its flat and natural response. You do know that music is supposed to be FLAT and not have pumped up boomy and unnatural bass, right? If a song naturally has a lot of bass, then thats how it is supposed to sound. Other MP3 players, especially those from Creative and Sony, color the sound. iPods, on the other hand, do not.

Beryl? And what effects are you talking about? The wobbly windows? Thats distracting and gets old fast. Or the burning windows when you close them? Yeah, distracting. Window should just close not burn up. The 3D box switching between virtual desktops? Spaces in OS 10.5 is 10x more efficient and useful. Mac OS X is not about visual effects, but about user friendliness. Something even Ubuntu is desperately lacking.

Oh and no matter how neat the burning windows and giant 3D cubes are, it doesn't help that Gnome, KDE, and all other Linux window managers are BUTT UGLY and reek of Windows 95/3.11.

Maybe someday when the command line is a thing of the past. When getting MP3 and DVD playback in Ubuntu/debian doesn't involve going to command-line. Or even minor system configuration, which requires going to the command line. Even installing new hardware drivers requires command-line work. Then theres also the hardware support issue. On my HP dv5030us, hardware acceleration was basically out of the question unless I found very specific (and very old) ATI drivers and spent more time than I should in the command-line setting them up. Broadcom wireless card? Forget it.

Want to play MP3s or DVDs in Ubuntu/Debian? Off to the command-line! Want to play MP3s or DVDs LEGALLY in either OS? Not yet.

Linux is fine as a hobbyist OS. But it's still many generations behind OS X and even Windows XP when it comes to being ready for primetime desktop use.

 

If MAC is so good, why are you here bothering us???
Go back to the MAC site and leave us alone!

 

Ok. You got me here. You know more about hi-fi than I do.

Come on, because MacOS can't do it so you conveniently label beryl's visual effects as distracting. It is very cool and in fact increases usability.

Yes, in a sense, MacOS is user friendly. But you have to admit that visual effects wise, MacOS is lagged behind beryl.

Not to mention that ugliness is subjective, I assume you do know that gnome and KDE are only two of dozens windows manager under Linux. WM's like wmii are heavily keyboard operative and it is a joy to use.

If I place my KDE+Beryl beside your Macbook and let you look, you will see what I am talking about.

huh? Command line to play mp3? (You mean mp3 playing deamon?) Try use amarok instead. You have the freedom to choose command line and gui to play mp3 and DVD. It is very flexible.

Once you learned command line, you will love it. And after you configured everything alright, all you need to backup those config files and re-use them for years to come.

ATI and Broadcom. You are hapless in encountering these two hard nuts.

Legally? I don't care. Don't tell me that all your multimedia files are legal.

Linux is at its adolescent age but very ebullient and bouncy. Once it gets mature, it will beat the pants out of MS and Mac.

 

Stop spreading FUD then Thats the only reason I posted. You were posting lies and ignorantly bashing something you have obviously no experience with, as well as bashing a poster. I posted the truth.

Not really. Moving a window and having it stick to its former spot and stretch out to a new one is just flat out distracting and useless. Same with the burning windows. When I hit "X" I want it to CLOSE, not burn up and make me wait for it to burn away.

Not to mention it ruins battery life in Linux, since theres practically no power management features. I can have wifi on with screen at half brightness and all of OS X's "Eye Candy" and I can still pull off nearly 4 hours of battery life. Show me a notebook that can do that with Beryl with all of the "Eye candy" enabled.

Not really. Because, again, Linux window managers are butt ugly. An ugly Windows 95-esque window burning up or being wobbly is still an ugly Windows 95 window.

Whats more is that the transparency effects are very generic. Very 2001-hacked-in-nVidia-drivers-for-Windows-XP-like. Theres no variation between the colors, no blur. It really makes it useless and hard to read when theres more than one window on screen.

The wobbly windows and fire effects are more of a "oooh look what Linux can do!" cry for attention than a real attempt at improving the UI and making it user-friendly.

Of course I know that. But all of the window managers are very poor ripoffs of Windows 95 or OS X.

Wmii? I'm sorry, its 2007 not 1983

Been there, done that, wasn't impressed. I'll take a user-friendly OS that is both pretty and actually works, as opposed to an OS that is only pretty in the same way unattractive people are pretty with beer goggles on

Oh and I forgot to say this earlier. Both OS X "Aqua" and Windows Vista "Aero" are prettier than Beryl. They may not have wobbly or burning windows, but they're professional, clean, and MODERN. They don't reek of Windows 95 amateur artwork like every Linux windows manager.

In Ubuntu at least, it was the last distro I tried after trying Mandrake when it was still "Mandrake", you have to enable MP3 playback via command-line. Same for DVD playback.

I'm sorry, but like the rest of the world, I left the command-line behind when I upgraded from DOS + Windows 3.11 to Windows 95. This is 2007, not 1994, not 1983. The command line is a thing of the past and NO modern operating system should EVER REQUIRE you to use the command line.

Its amazing how both of those pieces of hardware simply "just worked" in Windows XP and Vista, but not Linux... And the distros that supposedly supported Broadcom out of the box didn't even boot!

Just because Linux doesn't give you legal ways to acquire media.....................

Yeah. First it has to stop being butt ugly with window managers that are horrible ripoffs of OS X and Windows 95. Come up with something original. Get rid of the novelty UI effects. Real people don't want wobbly windows or windows that burn up. They're distracting, useless, and take away from the overall user experience.

Then the required use of the command-line needs to be GONE.

Then we need real application support. I'm sorry but the "alternatives" like amarok, GIMP, k3b, etc. are all pathetic when compared to iTunes, Photoshop, Toast/Nero, etc. Ironically, the best open source software is made for Windows and OS X.

then theres the hardware compatibility issues. I don't care what EXCUSES are made about "lack of drivers from the manufacturers". hardware needs to WORK. End of discussion, no excuses.

Finally, Linux has about 10 years of SERIOUS development, no novelty (Beryl) before it can get to where OS X and Windows are today. And by then OS X will be generations ahead of where it is today and Windows should finally be what we could call "modern"

 

What part of "Go back to the MAC site and leave us alone" do you NOT understand???

What a JERK!

 

SauronMOS:

Before you thoroughly know something, it is so easy to dismiss it as trivial or imcompetent or 'butt ugly'. You may know MacOS very well and you are obviously a fan of it, but don't let your fervent blind your mind. The world is infinitesimal to be judgemental.

You keep saying that Linux GUI is a mimicking Win95 (!) but it simply is not true. The design of Xwindows-Server+Windows Managers is very advanced. Gui interface and the underlying structure should be separated and it is your own choice to assemble them the way you want.

Operating windows purely using keyboard is very efficient. You've never tried wmii, so you have no idea what I am talking about. Besides, it is presumptuous to equalize command line under DOS/Windows to Linux shells.

Agreed that Desktop wise (not the server side), Linux still has a long way to go, even though it is making progress everyday. I personally hate the font management under Linux and it is way to complicated. However, I do not agree that beryl's visual effects are merely distractions. Do you happen to know that you can close the windows under beryl with the 'majic lamp' effect, exactly the way under MacOS? Why suddenly it is distracting under Linux instead of under Mac?

I have witness tremendous progress Linux made in all these years and it is still growing so fast. Like an adolescent, it is energetic, liberal, extravert, futuristic and young! Thinking about corpulent Vista and self-righteous MacOS, I have every confidence that Linux can outgrow them.

 

You're calling me a jerk when you were the one who started this whole situation by ignorantly bashing another poster?

I have been anything but a "jerk". All I've done is proven you wrong and posted the truth.

I have every right to be here as you do, considering I have the very unfortunate pleasure of owning an HP system along with a modern system (my Mac).

Don't ignorantly bash other posters for wanting to upgrade to a modern system instead of staying in the 90s with Windows and there won't be any more problems.

Considering I used Linux many times for many months before I upgraded to OS X, I have every right to judge the OS.

KDE is a direct rip-off of Windows 95. It still reeks of Windows 98 and many of the icons, dialog boxes, graphics, etc. are very amateurish, unprofessional, and look like a programmer playing with an early version of GIMP made them.

GNOME is sort of like a retarded child of pre-OS X Mac OS's and Windows 95. Again, the dialog boxes, graphics, icons, text, are all ugly. They're big, out of proportion (don't get me started on the UGLY orange of Ubuntu), and they look like a programmer, not artist, made them all. Its almost as if the artists for KDE, Gnome, and the rest all learned on Mario Paint and never moved on to anything more advanced.

Again, this is 2007. Command-line should be a thing of the past. Even Windows which is still stuck in the 90s, has moved away from the command line. Command line has place in modern operating systems. At least, it should be an option for the most hardcore advanced users. The average user should NOT be FORCED to use it to enable simple things that OS X and Windows do out of the box.

The Beryl effect is distracting because it has a lot of unnecessary "Waves" and "wobbles". It takes too long to minimize the window. In OS X (you can change the effect to an extremely fast minimize) the window shrinks and gets out of your way almost instantly. With Beryl it wobbles and waves and shrinks away. Again, distracting and it takes far too long for what it should be. With OS X, but the time my finger is done going the clicking motion the window is already minimized. With Beryl it continues to wobble and wave away for some time afterwards.

More useless and distracting "eye candy" that honestly doesn't look good at all.

Like all other elements of Linux window managers, ALL Beryl effects look like they're made by the programmers to amuse the programmers, not by artists with increasing the user-friendliness of the UI in mind.

Thats the problem with Linux, even Ubuntu (which is "Linux for human beings"). Everything is made and designed for the programmers and hobbyists, not end users.

Theres no doubt that Linux has come a long way. But overall, it's barely where Windows 95 was 12 years ago, with the exception of security and stability. But in terms of overall usability, even Windows 95 didn't require you to go to the command line to play DVDs, MP3s, etc.

But honestly, you know how long I've been hearing that Linux will "outgrow" Windows and OS X? Ever since KDE was released. Has it happened? No. Will it happen? Unlikely. Why? One major reason is funding. Why would any talented artist or software engineer take a low, or unpaid, job working for a company that makes a Linux distro when they could go to MS or Apple or Adobe or one of a hundred other companies and make a good salary? Theres also the attitude that Linux users have. Linux users are the most self-righteous, holier than thou, "I'm better than you" jerks out there. If you use Ubuntu, most of the Linux community will basically point and laugh at you for using "n00buntu". When you mention that the command line should be a thing of the past, most of them will scoff and say "just learn it" or "everyone should use it".

Next theres the fact that most Linux users cannot even provide a compelling argument as to why people should switch to Linux when they still run Windows on their system regularly.

Which brings me to application support. The holier than thou Linux community expects EVERYTHING to be open source. Now, if you're Adobe and your companies life depends on Photoshop, why are you going to be okay with releasing an OSS version of your software so somebody can basically rip it off? I know they could do a "closed source" version of Photoshop, but the current Linux community basically shuns anything closed source. And imagine the support headache for Adobe. They'd have to release a million different versions of Photoshop to run on all of the different Linux "flavors" (very stupid term) then have to deal with the support issues for each individual OS. On top of that, you'd have people who are used to Windows and OS X dealing with the nightmare that is setting up a Linux distro on your hardware.

Linux is a great server OS. And I'd recommend it fully for a business trying to save money that only needs very BASIC office software. But when it comes to the desktop, there are too many things holding it back. The community, the users who are holier than thou, are holding it back more than anything. Linux will be where OS X is today... .maybe in 10 years. But thanks to actual funding, hardware support, software support, and a great community to back both OSes, Windows and OS X will be well ahead of Linux by then.

 

MAC is not more modern and I wouldn't own one if someone paid me.
So quit bashing HP and go back the MAC hole you crawled out of...

If you like MAC so much, hang out at MAC site!!! DUH!!!

 

I respectfully disagree. I find running commands in terminal much faster and more efficient. As long as I know what I'm doing when typing commands, I would prefer not to use the mouse to navigate through menus and click buttons to do something. It takes too much time.

Sometimes there comes a point where an operating systems user-friendliness can hamper efficiency. That's the reason the CLI is still an essential part of Linux- because the community has found it to be a useful, efficient tool- even in 2007.

 

Again, I posted in this thread because of the FUD You were posting. On top of that, I am an unfortunate HP owner and free to post in this forum.

Macs are more modern. Want me to give you a list of reasons? Or you can simply head over to http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/ and watch the demonstration videos make Windows Vista look like Windows 3.1 with a better GUI

But you see, most people are using their systems to organize their life, work with documents/office work, edit and store digital photos, their music collection, make home movies, etc.

In the way the majority of users use their systems, a command line is completely out of place.

Using the command line for other things is a matter of personal preference.

It should NOT be a requirement to do something as simple as enable DVD playback (which should be enabled out of the box) or have to compile a piece of software to go through even more command line work to install something like wireless card drivers.

People can use it all they want as an option. But it should never be a requirement to get something working.

 

Your wrong... wrong... wrong
Go back to the MAC forum where you belong.

 

Didn't read this whole thread but you can't compare the Compaq Presarios or the HP Pavilion's to the Thinkpad's, Macbooks, Dell Latitudes, etc. For that you need to consider the HP Business Class notebookes (nc8430 or the new 8510p). Major build quality differences between them. I have an NC8430 and think the build quality is equal to the T61's we also use. Both of these are better than the Dell business class and similar to the 15.4" Macbook pro's

 

Lenevos are basically business computers. If you want to compare then you have to do it with HP business class laptops which costs more than the Pavillions.

Macs are a totally different breed of computer/OS system. Why are Mac people always boasting their OS and degrade Windows users? But then again why is Apple using the Windows interface with their laptops? Is it because they can sell their machines to more people since it can run "Windows" now? It's all a marketing ploy. Macs are okay but don't have to shove it down our throats! Blah blah blah.