Compaq Presario 700US PC Notebook

Pros: Light weight, decent battery life, sharp clear picture on monitor.
Cons: Bottom of computer can get a little hot.

Personal Testimonial:
This is the first notebook I have ever owned. I purchased it a year ago. Being my first notebook, it took some getting used to the smaller than normal keyboard and "all in one" concept. I really have grown to love it...

Pros: EXCELLENT VALUE, PLENTY OF FEATURES, POWERFUL, RELIABLE
Cons: CHOPPY DVD PICTURE, WEIGHT, LOW BATTERY LIFE, BOTTOM GETS HOT DURING USE

ABOUT A YEAR AGO, I WAS FED UP WITH MY 5 YEAR OLD DELL 233MHZ DESKTOP. ALTHOUGH IT WAS A FAITHFUL, RELIABLE SERVANT IT WAS NO LONGER POWERFUL ENOUGH TO RUN TODAY'S SOFTWARE. SO FRETTING ABOUT THE MONEY I WAS GOING TO HAVE TO SPEND I WENT LOOKING. ONLY...

Pros: Fast, convenient, portable, multi functional, small, battery life, price
Cons: No Serial Ports

I recently purchased the Compaq Presario 710US model from Circuit City. Having had not so great luck with a previous compaq laptop, I was somewhat leery. This laptop made me change my mind, though.

The first thing that caught my eye was the...

Pros: Style, Performance, Big Screen, Good Sound, Good Battery, Easy-to-Use
Cons: Only one port for Mouse/Keyboard

Overview

My Presario 705CA came with a 900Mhz AMD Duron Processor, 256MB RAM, 20GB Hard Drive, 8x CD/DVD drive, JBL speaker system and a 14.1 Screen. The Windows XP Operating System (Home Edition) worked so well (see Windows XP...

Pros: Good looking, lightweight laptop for under 1000! What a deal!
Cons: No CDRW, low battery life, small keyboard. All can be worked around.

This little laptop is a rare find at under 1000.00. You get a good deal of power and it's quite light weighing in at only 6.39 lbs. The price I paid was after 2 rebates, one from Compaq, the other from Circuit City.

Out of the box it was...

Pros: Takes up little space. Large Hard Drive
Cons: Low Battery Life, DVD is choppy

Tired of the big monitor and large tower that take up all the space on your desk? I was, and I went out and bought a laptop. I bought the compaq 700US and it is the best thing I could have done PC wise. No more clunky, unsightful messes on my desk. I...

Pros: Good Speakers, Looks Pretty
Cons: Overheats, Can't play DVD Movies, No builtin wireless, Floppy Monitor Hinges

We bought the Presario 700 new for my wife. Unless you can pick up one of these for $100 or so, I would not recommend this particular model. As google searches will show, this laptop has some serious issues with overheating, and with breaking hinges ...

Pros: Price
Cons: Performance, quality

Our Compaq Presario 700US laptop seemed like a great bargain when we get it, but less than one year later it's falling apart. Mouse keys have stopped working, the battery won't hold a charge, and the PCMCIA card slot is broken. All this should be...

Pros: Great little notebook for on the go.
Cons: Low bat. life. Can't swap out DVD easily.

Have you ever wanted a notebook? Well now is the time. For under $1000 you can be one of the few, the proud, the mobile! Great little notebook for a great little price. If you want more, pay more, but this is a good notebook to start with.
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Pros: Relatively inexpensive price.
Cons: Poor product quality. Pathetic customer service.

I purchased my Presario 700 just under a year ago. The first six months provided relatively trouble-free use. Since then, I have sent it in for warranty service twice, and am preparing to send it in a third time. The following problems have cropped up(I have included the number of times for which I've returned the computer for each problem in parentheses):

-computer loses power at random times (three times)
-computer loses power when steady use makes it warm (once)
-keyboard BIOS errors on startup (twice)
-touchpad BIOS erros on startup (twice)
-poor battery life (once)
-VERY noisy cooling fan (once)
-cracks in outer casing (twice)
-crack in casing around display (once)

The HP/Compaq service department has collectively distinguished themselves in the following ways:

-poorly trained
-poor listening skills
-inflexible, and bound by procedures that are often counter-productive
-unwilling to do anything to recognize the fact that I have spent more time fighting with them or attempting to fix my computer than I have spent using in the past four months.

In summary, avoid Compaq and HP products the same way you would avoid eating tainted meat.

Pros: Hmmm..
Cons: Poor quality. Pcmcia pins bend and break way too easily!

Our rarely used Compaq Presario 700 is now useless. After putting a pcmcia device into the port, 3 pins have bent. The only way to fix the problem is to buy a new motherboard - $600 to $800. Apparently the newer ones have stronger pins (maybe), but that does us no good. We only bought the notebook for a certain use requiring the pcmcia port. Compaq won't do a thing!

Pros: uhhhhhhhhhhh
Cons: freezing hinges, cracking cover, low battery life, general unreliable system performace

Compaq Presario 700 has now COMPLETELY cracked at the hinges and we get NO help from tech support!!!! COMPLETELY BLOWN OFF. apparently a problem all over the place we find out now. You can buy the hinges on ebay for $60 for a set... YIPES! The you need to repair the cracks and pay for hinge installation. Of course there is also the low battery life, and unreliable system performance..... whew!

WON'T EVER BUY ANOTHER HP OR COMPAQ PRODUCT!!!!

Pros: Looks good, nice keyboard and exterior design (though faulty), good performance
Cons: Battery life and motherboard??, gets extremely hot, loud noise from fans, cracks in the cover

I bought the Presario 700 in August 2002. For two and a half years I never had any problems with it, other than it got really hot at times. In December 2004 the old battery died, and when I replaced it with a brand new one, it died too, which makes me think there was some problem with hardware, not the battery, or motherboard as some HP people told me. It's been over 6 months, and I can only use it as a desktop computer now since the battery is not working. The computer also freezes a lot and I have to reboot it lots of times every day, most of them when I watch streaming media or something like that. Overall, it's been a good computer, but kind of failed me recently....
Also, as is the case with most Presarios -- I think -- the case is cracked now (I didn't drop it or anything), just poor design. Cracked at the bottom of the screen (on the other side) and right in the middle of cover....