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From: Rosalie B. (no email)
Date: Sun Sep 09 2001 - 08:20:32 EDT
On Sat, 8 Sep 2001 10:02:13 -0700, you wrote:
>you're not silly enough to buy Compaqs are you? I spend a lot of time
>> comparing specs for purchasing purposes, never yet seen a notebook that
>> doesn't have a serial port in the specs. Now if you're buying sub-notes
>> (really rally small notebooks) then they don't have serial ports
>
>I have 2 medium high end compaq laptops and wouldn't get compaq again.
>I only paid about $1200 for them when they were selling for over $2K.
I bought a used Compaq while my Toshiba was in the shop. (They need loaners
for computers :-(. I guess that's an idea whose time has not come.) It is
an old one (LTE 5150) and doesn't have a USB port, and they told me there
was a 60 day guarantee, and then someone else at the shop said they never
offer a guarantee on laptops. Because...
Within 60 days the screen degenerated until I could only read a small
portion of it, and the battery would never hold a charge like my Toshiba
would, AND it refuses to talk to my Garmin no matter what I do as far as
installing and deinstalling modems, ports etc. Compaq was unwilling to
help as it was, of course, out of warranty.
I had the screen and battery replaced, and then had the battery replaced
again - now the battery, even when it says it is fully charged won't go
more than about 5 minutes - I've given up on it. And the screen shows
signs of going again.
The only good thing about it is that I can get it to run via an adaptor on
12v without a separate inverter, while the Toshiba has NO available power
cord for 12v.
So the Toshiba will talk to the Garmin (and does have a USB port), but
won't run on 12v and the Compaq will run on 12v (and does not have a USB
port) but will NOT talk to Garmin.
BTW, I got a trackball that was a USB trackball, but it came with a serial
adaptor. Maybe Defender just bought such a mouse and sent you an adaptor
they had lying around. Seems like a heads up maneuver if that's what they
did.
>They have been fairly good, but the DVD players never operaed smoothly and
>the PC came loaded with compaqs system which is over burdened from the
>start. (this is the main problem with compaqs.)
>They are fine once you disable 4/5ths of the system!
>Another note for those buying laptops, the speed of the processor is rather
>inconsequential, all laptops are limited by their tiny low powered hard
>drives.
>This being the case, if I were going to get another laptop, I would buy a
>good used one with at least a 350mhz. processor (about $500) and put a newer
>large hard drive in it. This would result in a laptop that would be as good
>as any for under $900. I think a better boating solution is to build a
>desktop in a water proof case and use a flat screen LCD display with it.
>
>M.Mech (pounding away at a compaq 1687, 380MHZ AMD K26 laptop)
grandma Rosalie
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