HP Compaq Presario 1200 Review

Good Points
A real work horse, dependable.

Bad Points
Hard Drive errors, no Nic.

General Comments
I've owned my Compaq since early 2001, it's actually my very first computer I've ever owned.



I put it through the paces, especially when it became a company computer. The abuse this poor thing went through was unreal and it kept going just as strong as ever, however this wasn't meant to last.



In January of '05 I downloaded the new Java and it killed the HD, it was so bad I couldn't F-Disk the thing. Now other people had similar problems as I did so maybe it wasn't the computers fault. I recently brought it back to life using Linux and enjoying it again. Generally the Hard Drive is slow to boot whether it has 98, ME, XP Pro, or Linux. You have to hire a specialist or own your own special tools to replace the HD or motherboard in this computer; it'll take up to a 5 gig drive but without the tools that avoid breaking those little plastic hooks it's not smart to go ahead and try doing it yourself and the Specialists overcharge to do the work so that is a drawback unless a 3.2 GB HD won't hinder your use for the computer.



Also this Laptop has no Ethernet port, you have to either buy a card for it or get a USB to ethernet adapter to connect to broadband of any kind. This is a problem but not a big one also the monitor isn't doing as well as it use to, it's dim now, darker than it was before but no dead pixels but I figure it's been 5 years since it was created and it was hardly ever turned off and suffered the wear and tears of onsite abuse so I'm not too surprised.



Overall I am very glad I bought this machine, it more than paid for itself years ago and It's actually the most dependable Windows machine. I've owned and now with Linux it's probably last at full speed another 2-3 years without another major problem.