A basic notebook with media ability

Send to a friend Print

Help more people find out about this story

Del.icio.us
StumbleUpon

Jenneth Orantia02 March 2008, 7:00 PM

One of the first things that grabs you about the Compaq Presario C710TU is its bargain-basement pricetag.


At $849, it’s the second-most affordable notebook in our recent roundup, and it distinguishes itself from the cheaper (yet similarly-specced) Acer by having longer battery life (20 minutes longer, at one hour, 50 minutes) and a slightly better PCMark05 score of 2,023.

However, in day-to-day use, the Presario certainly felt the more sluggish of the two notebooks, with most tasks taking longer than average to complete. As expected for a notebook in this price bracket, its specs are modest, including a 1.7GHz Intel Celeron M processor and 512MB of RAM. Paired with the resource-hungry Windows Vista Home Basic, it’s no surprise to see the Presario struggle — a performance that would most likely be improved by throwing more RAM into it.

The Presario is also frill-free on the appearance front, with a nondescript dark-grey colour scheme and the simple Compaq logo on the lid.

It’s not bad for multimedia, though — DVD playback is smooth, and the glossy 15.4in wide-screen display is bright and vibrant, albeit with poor vertical and horizontal viewing angles.
 



Post your thoughts about the pros and cons of this product

Pros

Cons

Post your comment



Product Search

search
anonymous user Anonymous user

Conclusion

Upsides

  • Affordable

Downsides

  • Sluggish
  • Unattractive
APC rating

6/10

Price: 6/10
Usability: 6/10
Performance: 6/10
Reader rating
Waiting for 3 readers to vote before showing the overall score
Your rating
Lowest Highest

Full specifications

For Compaq Presario C710TU


Graphics
Screen Size: 15.4 in
Graphics Chip: Intel GMAX3100
Resolution (pixels): 1280x800 px
Dimensions
Depth: 257 mm
Width: 357 mm
Weight: 2.9 kg
Height: 41 mm
Connectivity
Bluetooth: No
USB Ports: 3
Ethernet Speeds: 10/100
Wireless Networking: 802.11b/g
Mobile Broadband: None
Speed
Processor Speed: 1.7 GHz
RAM: 0.5 GB
Processor: Intel Celeron
Storage
Optical Drive Media Playback: CD-RW/DVD-RW
Card Slot: Multi-format - 5 card types
Hard drive capacity: 80 GB
Battery
Actual Battery Life: 1.8 hr
Claimed Battery Life: 3 hr
Battery Type: Lithium Ion rechargeable
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Basic 32 bit
Warranty
Warranty Length: 12 months
Price (this configuration, at time of review): $849

This month in the new look APC!