Compaq Presario 722US Notebook (1.1-GHz Duron, 256 MB RAM, 20 GB hard drive)

Product Description

The Compaq Presario 700 Series notebook makes a great gift for the college-bound teen or anyone needing an affordable portable PC. Capable of handling the most demanding applications with AMD processors, the Presario 700 Series is optimized for affordability for the home or small office.

Amazon.com Product Description

Targeting the demanding home and home office computer user who can't quite afford the absolute latest and greatest in state-of-the-art portable computing, the Compaq Presario 722US notebook is a good tradeoff between price and performance.

At 10.6 by 12.4 by 1.64 inches and 6.39 pounds, the 722US is a bit larger than today's most recent examples of micro-miniaturization, yet substantially more compact than many other comparably priced units. Outfitted with a cost-effective 1.1 GHz AMD Duron processor (64 KB of Level 2 cache), 256 MB of SDRAM (expandable to 384 MB), and a Via ProSavage KN133 video card with 32 MB of video memory, it will efficiently run most common notebook applications and even some 3-D games. Hard-core gamers and anyone who plans to work extensively with complex 3-D graphics may wish to look beyond this model to the Presario 725US notebook or Presario 6024US desktop.

Sporting a sleek design and a futuristic two-tone, black-on-silver color scheme, the Presario 722US is as stylish as it is functional. To handle your valuable files and programs, Compaq has equipped the unit with a 20 GB hard drive and a 3.5-inch floppy disk drive. A combination DVD/CD-RW drive allows you to back up large amounts of data, burn and play music CDs, and watch DVD movies. A 14.1-inch, active-matrix viewing screen capable of 1,024 x 768 resolution and a three-way JBL speaker system with enhanced bass response help bring all your multimedia applications to life.

The 722US keyboard is equipped with numerous one-touch multimedia, Internet, and e-mail buttons, and a scroll wheel and touch pad for convenient navigation. The unit features numerous ports and connections, including two USB jacks for plug-and-play peripherals such as joysticks and digital cameras, a single parallel port for printers, a 10/100 Mbps Ethernet network connection, an all-purpose PC Card slot, a PS2 jack for an external mouse or keyboard, a VGA video out for external monitors, an S-video TV-out, and speaker and microphone ports. A 56K modem delivers low-speed Internet and e-mail connectivity. To help get you started, Compaq has preinstalled a number of useful software products, including Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows XP, Microsoft Works 6.0, and Microsoft Money 2001.

Customer Reviews:

Zero problems, excellent machine.......2002-07-06

I'm a network administrator, and I'm picky about computers. I've supported many laptops in the field, especially Toshiba, Compaq, Dell, IBM and Fujitsu. I give the Presario a 4 star rating for a number of reasons:
*Excellent Price/Value ratio
*enough horsepower to play the 3d games I like (I'm not super high end, but it plays good stuff.)
*Combo CDRW/DVD drive plays flawlessly, no skipping.
*Well-behaved. No hiccups starting, stopping or otherwise.
*Form Factor: not too big, not too small. Keyboard feels good, easy to type on. Screen image quality is excellent.
*Excellent customer support- with any company the help is only as good as the person who picks up the phone. I'd have to say Compaq is on about 80% of the time, which is good.
The sound system is excellent. Uses SoundMAX with Sensaura, very good full sound compared to most I've heard.
*I am going to use this as a replacement for my desktop computer so I can go wireless 100% of the time. That says alot about how much I like this unit.

Here are a couple of features I would have liked to see on this model that it doesn't have out of the box:
*Larger hard drive- 20GB is big, but my 60GB desktop PC's drive is full already!
*Better heat dissipation- the bottom gets pretty hot. Bearable on a bare leg, but barely! (no pun intended)
*2nd PCMCIA Slot. looks like they had room for 2 slots, but you can only use one card at a time. Pity.

I'd recommend this unit to about anyone. I purchased mine as a return/openbox, and frankly I can't figure out why someone would have returned it! No problems here.

EXCELLENT- it's a winner! I'm a happy customer.......2002-06-17

I bought this computer about 2 weeks ago with some graduation money. I needed a computer that was portable so I could carry it back and forth on the plane next year between school and home (so that basically ruled out an "old-fashioned" desktop computer), something with more than adequate hard drive space (don't believe those snobs that say 20 MB isn't enough... unless you want to load every single video game ever manufactured onto your computer, 20 MB is more than sufficient for all of the documents, programs, favorite games, pictures, music, etc. that you want on your computer, and more.) The screen is sharp and big enough to comfortably view your favourite DVDs on the DVD/CD-RW drive. My only complaint is that the CD-RW drive could've been a bit faster. The design of the notebook is great- not only does it look sleek and futuristic with the silver and black design, but it's rounded and not quite as bulky and boxy as many other notebooks in its class. It also weighs a bit less than many other notebooks- a helpful feature especially when you need to carry it through the airport. The headphone and microphone jacks are conveniently located on the side, and all of the cable plugs including the USB's, S-video, etc. are neatly arranged in the back. The screen is crisp and sharp (a characteristic that is especially noticeable and appreciated when viewing DVDs or pictures), the color is excellent, and I have yet to have a problem with the system overheating, even after leaving it on for hours at a time. The battery life is decent- I get about an hour and a half out of it. As I said before, the DVD/CD-RW is an enjoyable feature- I think everyone should have a CD-RW drive these days, they're very useful for everything from storing music, presentations, backing up files, etc.; and a DVD-ROM drive is a fun bonus. I think the floppy drive also deserves to be mentioned, because a lot of desktops don't come with them anymore but I'm glad mine has one because it's useful when you're on the run and want to quickly copy a picture or document to give to a friend or transfer to another computer. In all, this is an excellent system- I'm very happy and very satisfied with it. (Trust me- you don't need to waste your money on some notebook just becuase everyone says it's "better" or you'll end up with a lot of unnecessary features and extras... you will be more than happy with this one.) It is a fantastic desktop replacement, especially for a student or home computer user who just wants to have something a little more portable. It runs well (I have yet to have a technical problem) and it's an attractive, efficient machine that does everything I need it and want it to do, and much more.

Reasonable price but crash and overheated easily.......2002-06-04

A month ago, I bought this laptop for my wife as a gift for her daily office use. The price is good. However, the AMD CPU is so poor that it easily be overheated and the laptop sometimes die, even ctl-alt-del does not work. This is the first laptop I bought. I suggest if you want more reliability, choose Intel CPU laptop instead.

Look first - the LCD screen isn't the best.......2002-06-03

I just bought a notebook (went with a Sony) computer and I took a good look around before I bought. I went to Best Buy, Good Guys, Circuit City and so on. The price of this line got me interested but frankly the screen quality wasn't that great. It is an active matrix but it looks more like a dual scan LCD.

I think I know where they cut cost. Otherwise the machine seemed fine. The Duron CPU was my last choice for processors (it is about as slow as they come) but they are cheap and who really needs a lot of CPU horsepower in a note book?

So my advice is NOT to buy this notebook sight unseen. Go down and compare the screens first. I think you will find Sony and HP have much better quality screens. However if you are strapped for cash and don't mind if the color and brightness are a little washed out then you can't beat the price.

Good deal, very good computer........2002-05-16

To start with, it looks great. It's black & silver, sleek & svelte (6.4 lbs), at least compared to my old HP (Omnibook 6000). All the Compaq's stuff is in the right place, with a 3.5" floppy drive & a PCMIA slot on one side, and an acceptable DVD/CD-RW on the other. All the other connections (including 2 USB ports & a network interface port) are on the back, where they should be. In fact, when not connected to its home-based wires, the whole panel hides behind a plastic hinged door, a effective solution.
The processor is the basic AMD Duron. It's quite capable of most daily, non-graphics intense tasks, but not as good as the AMD Athalon or the Intel PIII mobile. Graphics are just okay, but the screen is unusually sharp. The 256K RAM is also okay for everyday stuff, and it can be increased to 384 megs. The 20 Meg hard drive is just adequate. Overall, this is a wonderful though soemwhat basic machine made by a company that looks like it's here to stay.

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