Rating: 
Summary: Technical support is really bad...
Review: The price of this laptop is pretty close to a comparable desktop with a CRT. It is cheaper than buying a desktop computer with an LCD display. Comparing computers at list price, this is a good value. HP (Compaq's parent company) will have a similar setup for around the same price, and so will eMachines (but they only have one model). The HP and Compaq's will generally be a better deal than Toshiba, IBM or any of the mail orders (Dell, Gateway, etc.) But, computers have so many rebates now a days, that you have to do a lot of leg work to determine what is the best deal. This model is $150 more than Compaq's entry level model 2190. It is probably worth the extra $150 (just for the increased memory). But, sometimes you can find some crazy number of rebates on the 2190, that the price difference between the 2190 and 2195 is very significant. This laptop has all the basics for almost any kind of job. The only downside is that the USB ports are 1.1 instead of the faster 2.0. I don't know how much new stuff is coming with 2.0. It can be a big deal if you try to run anything off your USB ports that requires speed, such as a external DVD burner, or video camera. But, this laptop has the firewire port for direct connection to video. This laptop is heavy and bulky. It is over 7 pounds (but so are most other entry level laptops). It is thicker than most. It wouldn't be a great laptop for someone who travels on planes. But, it is adequate for someone who has a small desk (like in a kid's bedroom) or wants to roam around the house or watch movies during a long car trip. Battery life will be long enough to watch a full DVD. Newer, more expensive laptops will have longer battery life. This laptop has an integrated 802.11g compatible wireless network card. The defaults for the wireless network are set up so that you loose connection once the signal gets weak. After some painful interaction with Compaq's technical support, I was able to change the wireless settings so the system now works much better with a weak signal. However, I still cannot get the laptop to make the initial connection is weak. When I start up the laptop, I have to walk closer to the transmitter to make the connection and then I can walk away. I had a nasty experience with Compaq technical support. I called on a Sunday (that might be a mistake). After going through the menus, I was put on hold for at least 15 minutes. Once I got a technicial, he said that he doesn't handle this type of laptop and he transferred me to someone who does. After waiting on hold for another 30 mintues, the next technician told me that he also doesn't handle these laptops. He tried to transfer me, but I go cut off. I called 2 more times, again getting the wrong technicians and getting cut off. I finally got the correct technician. He said there was nothing he could do about about my problem. After 10 minutes, he got his supervisor, who also said there was nothing they could do. So, I sent in an email to the Compaq support line. They promise a response within an hour. It took about 3 hours (but that was OK) and I got a list of suggestions of what to do. That fixed by problems. At the end of the email, Compaq wrote, if you have any more questions, please reply back to this email. I did have a few more questions. Compaq's response was to call their technical line. I replied that there was no way I was going to call the technical line again and that I wanted my email forwarded on to someone who understood the systems. It has been 3 days and I haven't heard back yet.
Rating: 
Summary: Space saving replacement for a desktop
Review: The price of this laptop is pretty close to a comparable desktop with a CRT. It is cheaper than buying a desktop computer with an LCD display. Comparing computers at list price, this is a good value. HP (Compaq's parent company) will have a similar setup for around the same price, and so will eMachines (but they only have one model). The HP and Compaq's will generally be a better deal than Toshiba, IBM or any of the mail orders (Dell, Gateway, etc.) But, computers have so many rebates now a days, that you have to do a lot of leg work to determine what is the best deal. This model is $150 more than Compaq's entry level model 2190. It is probably worth the extra $150 (just for the increased memory). But, sometimes you can find some crazy number of rebates on the 2190, that the price difference between the 2190 and 2195 is very significant. This laptop has all the basics for almost any kind of job. The only downside is that the USB ports are 1.1 instead of the faster 2.0. I don't know how much new stuff is coming with 2.0. It can be a big deal if you try to run anything off your USB ports that requires speed, such as a external DVD burner, or video camera. But, this laptop has the firewire port for direct connection to video. This laptop is heavy and bulky. It is over 7 pounds (but so are most other entry level laptops). It is thicker than most. It wouldn't be a great laptop for someone who travels on planes. But, it is adequate for someone who has a small desk (like in a kid's bedroom) or wants to roam around the house or watch movies during a long car trip. Battery life will be long enough to watch a full DVD. Newer, more expensive laptops will have longer battery life. This laptop has an integrated 802.11g compatible wireless network card. The defaults for the wireless network are set up so that you loose connection once the signal gets weak. After some painful interaction with Compaq's technical support, I was able to change the wireless settings so the system now works much better with a weak signal. However, I still cannot get the laptop to make the initial connection is weak. When I start up the laptop, I have to walk closer to the transmitter to make the connection and then I can walk away. I had a nasty experience with Compaq technical support. I called on a Sunday (that might be a mistake). After going through the menus, I was put on hold for at least 15 minutes. Once I got a technicial, he said that he doesn't handle this type of laptop and he transferred me to someone who does. After waiting on hold for another 30 mintues, the next technician told me that he also doesn't handle these laptops. He tried to transfer me, but I go cut off. I called 2 more times, again getting the wrong technicians and getting cut off. I finally got the correct technician. He said there was nothing he could do about about my problem. After 10 minutes, he got his supervisor, who also said there was nothing they could do. So, I sent in an email to the Compaq support line. They promise a response within an hour. It took about 3 hours (but that was OK) and I got a list of suggestions of what to do. That fixed by problems. At the end of the email, Compaq wrote, if you have any more questions, please reply back to this email. I did have a few more questions. Compaq's response was to call their technical line. I replied that there was no way I was going to call the technical line again and that I wanted my email forwarded on to someone who understood the systems. It has been 3 days and I haven't heard back yet.
Rating: 
Summary: Very attractive laptop
Review: This was my first purchase of a laptop (...). Everything on this computer was pretty nice... dvd player, cd burner, VERY fast compared to my Pentium3 desktop (but I suppose everything is fast compared to that nowadays). The wireless connection was a little bit tricky to figure out how to enable, but after reading Compaq's integrated help menu, it worked like a charm and is pretty much hands-off when it comes to picking up a signal. The laptop itself is very user-friendly, with minimal assistance needed from my computer savvy friends (I needed to have some help setting up the tap function on the pad--it's GREAT having the mousepad right at the gentle touch of a finger). The only downsides that I've found, so far, were these: First off, this doesn't come with a floppy drive, which sucks since I can't bring my 3.5" diskettes home from work to catch up, but I solved that by purchasing a thumb drive. My thumb drive is a USB 2.0, so the USB 1.1 just wasn't going to cut it for me, and I had to upgrade using the PCMCIA slot for a USB 2.0 port. Another issue was that this came equipped with 512MB RAM (with a shared 64MB video card--I'd have preferred dedicated), but instead of one 512MB chip, it was actually 2 256MB chips (and only 2 chip slots). So, needless to say, that irked me. Finally, the left click button on the laptop's pad was starting to get difficult to utilize after just 3 1/2 months of use (hopefully the tap pad won't have that lifespan before it starts faltering--and oh, by the way, make sure to restart your computer if the cursor doesn't want to drag with the pad anymore, another glitch I found to be annoying after playing a few dvd's and/or games without restarting to refresh the virtual memory cache) Overall though, (...) this was a great purchase and I'm satisfied with its performance since I bought it 6 months ago.
Rating:
Summary: Very attractive laptop
Review: This was my first purchase of a laptop (...). Everything on this computer was pretty nice... dvd player, cd burner, VERY fast compared to my Pentium3 desktop (but I suppose everything is fast compared to that nowadays). The wireless connection was a little bit tricky to figure out how to enable, but after reading Compaq's integrated help menu, it worked like a charm and is pretty much hands-off when it comes to picking up a signal. The laptop itself is very user-friendly, with minimal assistance needed from my computer savvy friends (I needed to have some help setting up the tap function on the pad--it's GREAT having the mousepad right at the gentle touch of a finger). The only downsides that I've found, so far, were these: First off, this doesn't come with a floppy drive, which sucks since I can't bring my 3.5" diskettes home from work to catch up, but I solved that by purchasing a thumb drive. My thumb drive is a USB 2.0, so the USB 1.1 just wasn't going to cut it for me, and I had to upgrade using the PCMCIA slot for a USB 2.0 port. Another issue was that this came equipped with 512MB RAM (with a shared 64MB video card--I'd have preferred dedicated), but instead of one 512MB chip, it was actually 2 256MB chips (and only 2 chip slots). So, needless to say, that irked me. Finally, the left click button on the laptop's pad was starting to get difficult to utilize after just 3 1/2 months of use (hopefully the tap pad won't have that lifespan before it starts faltering--and oh, by the way, make sure to restart your computer if the cursor doesn't want to drag with the pad anymore, another glitch I found to be annoying after playing a few dvd's and/or games without restarting to refresh the virtual memory cache) Overall though, (...) this was a great purchase and I'm satisfied with its performance since I bought it 6 months ago.
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