Ordered a Presario 2800T with a P4-m 1.4GHz on June 25th. It said there was a delay on the SXGA+ screens so my laptop wouldnt be delivered untill July 19th, however it shipped Friday, June 28th and was upgraded to priority overnight delivery so it was actually delivered on Monday, July 1st. Not only that, but they also upgraded the P4-m 1.4 to a P4-m 1.6 for free.

Purchased a P2-266 quite some time ago. Upgraded my Compaq until I had enough upgrades to build a seperate PC. Reassembled the Compaq. Located all but one driver needed to get it running just like new. The driver I was missing: the DVD driver that enable the onboard DVD decoder. Called Compaq:  
 
50$ for the driver/software, no way they would offer it for free. Spent ~$1200 on their product, and they want to charge me for freakin' drivers! Never will I buy another Compaq, nor suggest to anyone to do so. That PC is still running, but the DVD player is useless because without that driver, it will not use the decoder, only software, which the PC does not have enough power to do so effectively.  

This review was modified by its author, DangerSeeker, on 6/2/02 10:33 PM.

Got my monitor one month after I ordered it.

I recently ordered a Presario 8000z with an Athalon 2000+ processor through Circuit City. (The main advantage of going through a retailer is being able to custom order the machine, and finance it for a year, interest free. Just be very specific what you want - the sales people are often very unhelpful and misinformed.) So far, I've been very impressed: the computer arrived when promised, and seems to have no problems. I use it primarily for Photoshop and video editing. In terms of price and performance, the Compaq was very competitive. Gateway, Dell, Micron, etc. charged 2-3 hundred dollars more for a similar computer. The downside: supposedly one of the worst customer service departments in the industry. My previous experience with Compaq's service has been limited - My last machine, purchased four years ago, worked perfectly right out of the box. Hence, my willingness to take another chance.

I purchased a Presario 7478 refurb unit, and initially was very happy with it. Then, I started having a bizarre problem where my internet connection would "freeze" (no matter what browser I was using) and data would just quit moving. Everything else would work properly, just nothing involving the internet. Only a complete reboot would cure it. However, whenever this happened, the computer would hang during shut down, and I'd have to unplug it to get it to turn off (holding the power button wouldn't work). Tech support insisted that I needed to do a complete system restore, and also insisted that there was no way for me to just reinstall windows. During the restore process, the machine kept hanging. Another two hour call to tech support got nowhere, as he insisted I was doing something wrong. Uh huh. I took the CD out of the drive and noticed that there were bubbles and totally clear spots in the reflective layer. Gee, no wonder it didn't work! Another call to tech support (at 6PM on a friday night), and I learned that I'd have to call the sales department to get a new set shipped to me, but they're closed on weekends. Oh joy. Monday I call Sales, and spend 30 minutes arguing with a rep about whether I should have to pay for Restore disks that are defective, which need to be used to restore a machine that is under warranty. She finally agrees not to charge me for them, but unfortunately, they're temporarily out of stock! I had to wait a total of almost 2 weeks to get the computer restored. Which, incidently did NOT solve the problem. Tech support then insisted it was a browser problem, even though it did it with ANY program that connected to the net; Netscape, IE, WinMX, Realplayer, etc. Then they said it was my ISP, or my modem. Switched ISPs, and it still happened. Then I got cable modem, which meant a new isp, AND a completely different modem. Still happened. By then I was so disgusted I just bought a new computer from someone other than compaq. BTW, I did many searches and looked at many help sites, and discovered that this problem seems to be fairly common with Compaqs, and the user is ALWAYS told that it's their ISP or modem. Not one of them ever said they got the problem solved.

Let me start off saying that I don't particuarly like any of the name brand systems. I do have to clear some things up.  
 
-BillF, this is for you.  
 
"7/25/01 4:21 PM  
When I purchased my computer they charged sales tax even though they were out of state."  
 
It doesn't matter if they are in a different state, the law requires them to charge local sales tax to you if they have a reseller in your state.  
 
"At a later date I downloaded an update for my dvd player. This download crashed the dvd player and caused it to no longer work."  
 
I'll let you in on a secret... That update would have to be supplied by the manufacturer of the drive and really has nothing to do with Compaq. It is on you to make sure that updates are compatible with your computer. Unless somebody from Compaq specifially told you to install that update it's your own fault.  
 
"After many tries with support (just to get a response) they told me to run a restore program but failed to mention that it reformats your harddrive without warning you."  
 
Did you actually PAY for an extended warranty? No, I didn't think so. If you had then you can complain about having to wait in line to talk to people, but since you didn't you really have no reason to whine about them not having as many support reps as they should. Reps don't work for free, do you? Restore, by definition, means "To bring back to an original condition". I really doubt your data was on there when you bought it. I recommend a Websters dictionary.  
 
"Without a working dvd/cd I couldn't even start to rebuild my files and drivers but their spam on the desk top sure survived."  
 
Oh, so it was a hardware problem then. That means the update you downloaded really wasn't the problem and the drive probably wasn't working before. So, instead of saying that the drive was broken you decided to blame the problem on an update. I would bet that's why the support rep told you to restore the system. Now, if you would have told the rep the truth you would probably have a shiny brand new drive in your system and your data would be intact. A life lesson for you.  
 
"Compaq updates equals virus. The only difference between the compaq update and a computer virus, that I see, is at least the person who wrote the virus was competent."  
 
You already pointed out that the drive still didn't work AFTER you restored the system so it was a hardware issue. You obviously don't know what a virus is so I'll let you look that up in your new dictionary.  
 
"Go to another company. There are better, cheaper and more reliable companies out there."  
 
Better: Of course, but more expensive too. A custom machine is the best.  
Cheaper: Not much, emachines, gateway and the like, but they are really horrible.  
More reliable: Actually, Compaq does a decent job for an OEM. They are using ASUS boards and decent parts. More than I can say for all the other OEMs (Don't get trapped by the dell myth)  
 
-delgarx, one quick thing for you.  
 
How about you install MacOS on it. It doesn't support it, the manufacturer never said it supported it and you will have to buy new hardware to make it work. Also, when it doesn't work then blame the manufacturer since the machine should be compatible and come with the drivers for any operating system made. The manual specifically says that the restore data is on a partition of the hard drive and warns that changing partition information voids the warranty (no, Compaq is only one of MANY manufacturers that do the same thing). BTW, I did a quick google search for "Rockwell HCF" and the first link took me to a download site for a compatible driver for your modem.  
 
-ranjit, this is for you  
 
"6/26/01 3:29 AM  
i purchased a Compaq Presario 1200 notebook a few months back. the first thing i noticed was that this piece of hardware had no manual reset button. and this machine is junk!"  
 
Um, very few do. It's an ATX power supply. That means you press and hold the power button until it turns off. That's the standard for laptops.  
 
"it hangs every 3-4 hours!"  
 
Amazing, it's called a memory leak in windows ME and if you bothered to actually go to the windows update site you could have had that fixed the day you bought the machine.  
 
"no wonder compaq has provided a recovery cd along with the machine."  
 
Please don't tell me you actually RESTORED the system whenever it locked. That would just be too funny.  
 
"i do not know whether 'windows me' is to be blamed or compaq. the worst problem that i am facing currently is an auto boot. here i am browsing one of my favourite pages and poof! the comp just reboots itself!"  
 
20 seconds on the Compaq website took me to a microsoft site that recommended downloading the same windows update I talked about above.  
 
This was meant as a lesson to all and not personal attacks.

Good laptop - incredibly terrible customer service. I ordered this thing in December. No one told me it was on back order. The scheduled ship date was 2 weeks from order - no problem, right? As 2 weeks came and went and it still hadn't shipped, I called Compaq where they informed me that it was on back order but that it would be shipped in another week for sure. This process continued, every week, despite my ranting and raving to managers of managers, for over 8 weeks... each time extending the ship date only 1 more week. No one really cared, no one offered to credit anything. I really wanted this laptop for my boss because it was the lightest and smallest available so I stuck it out and finally got it. It's a great laptop but I'll never ever order from Compaq again. As a standard, we order everything from Dell and we always get incredible customer service.

For some reasons the folks at Compaq have less interest in impressing customers with their professionalism and quality service. Does the merger have any thing to do with this?

i bought a 19 inch monitor and i am very pleased

I bought a new computer from Compaq. It was the best price that I could find on the net for the specific machine type I wanted. There customer service could be better to work with. Their technical assistance could have more knowledge (seemed to be high school kids with no expeirence I was talking to). But bottom line is I have my computer and it is working okay.