Compaq laptops

[chrbb]

Just sourcing 2 laptops for staff and have come across

 

Compaq 615 Athlon X2 dual core ql66 , 3gb, windows 7 pro downgrade to Xp pro

3 year pick up and collect warrenty.

 

Anyone bought one of these recently or any compaq stuff? Any good?

[gl3nnym]

I have always liked HP Compaq but not used anything recently I'm afraid.

EDIT: Just seen how completely useless this post is, sorry. I have always thought their build quality to be good.

[chrbb]

@gl3nnym thanks!

 

I'm just wondering how durable Compaq laptops are, we have HP 6730s which seem quite sturdy but they are used by children whereas these are for staff, who are an entirely different kettle of fish!

[irsprint84]

I liked the 610s but I m a Asus man now Hp are meh

[omitech]

What price are you getting them in at?

Not too keen on athlon processors to be honest.

[chrbb]

They're currently on special offer at Misco with cash back and free 3 year warrenty. End of line, but look to be quite adequate for primary school teacher use. Bit concerned about the AMD processor though as we've only had Pentium up to now.

[mounters]

We've got staff here using 6735s (the 615 is the revision of this model) which are AMD and have no problems and the 610's which are intel, again with no problems. Build quality is fine on both of these. The onoly slightly annoying thing is tha the 610s do not have a HDD activity light on them, which can sometimes lead to a bit of guess work if you are trying to troubleshoot something.

[gl3nnym]

Does a Primary teacher really need the processing power though? Surely the applications they use cannot be that CPU intensive? An Athlon X2 should be more than adequate for them. A secondary school teacher on the other hand...

 

Our teachers are in the habit of having 5 power points, 5 words documents, outlook, 5 internet explorer pages, sims and smart notebook open by 8am. Each of their lessons ready to go! Then they complain why their laptops are slow and I complain that we don't have the money to buy better ones and blah blah blah. Same story. Sorry, il be quiet.

[Achandler]

We're got tons of HP Compaq 615s, 6720s, 6735s. Of them all only the 6735s are any good, then the 615s are 2nd worse, our 6720s fall apart, we had one teacher break 1 within 2 hours of receiving it, we recently bought more expensive, and I hate to say this Toshiba laptops (not a fan I once worked fixing them, but lets face it every laptop is the same). They came with £50 off and their silly if it breaks within a year and it isn't user error we'll give you your money back offer. Knowing the mysterious ways laptops just "stop" working and then sending them off cos we can't work out why either, I thought it was a risk worth taking. If one goes faulty on our batch of 10, money returned would make the laptops cost about £360 each, not to bad I dont think fo what we got.

[jcollings]

We've got a stack of those laptops from Misco and they are excellent value. They are one of the few models we've given to staff where they've actually told us how much they like them. The price coupled with the excellent service we get from Misco would certainly make me buy more. No issues at all with the processor by the way.

[Little-Miss]

Sorry to hijack chrbb.

 

I'm interested to know too. I'm in the same position as chrbb. Here we have a lot of Toshiba's but after my little episode with them earlier in the year i was wondering if there is another decent brand out there. The ICT Coordinator isnt keen on HP because of bad experiences years ago but i think they've got their act together since then.

[witch]

We are buying IBM/Lenovo T60s from John Graham at ICT Direct. They aren't new, but come with a good warranty - they are fast, cheap and robust and I will bet that they will last longer than most new ones.

I have one at home as well and I love it!

The teachers who have them are very pleased - and given the cheapness, and the great support from the lovely John, so am I!

ICT Direct - laptop, notebooks, HP Mini-Note for ICT

[3s-gtech]

We have a newish Compaq with the Turion processor - it's quite plasticky but it's lasting well and the processing power is more than up to the job - it also avoids Intel onboard graphics (though the newest Intel mobile chipsets aren't that bad graphically). Been a good budget buy.

[chrbb]

@littlemiss - Isn't it a nightmare choosing what to get, every brand gets bad press from somewhere, some of teacher's treat their machine with care others well ......... and then I get moaned when it goes wrong. Think I'm going for the compaq 615 it's got a free 3 year warranty which I'm going to see if I can add accidental damage coverage to.

[chrbb]

Just a quick question, bought these laptops with a free pick up and return warrenty. Registered it today and it reads as though it only covers the cpu. The care pack's value is £80 can't find any info on HP's site. Anyone know whether it covers the whole laptop?