August 10, 2010 - 11:10 am
so far the hardware is wonderful…perfect keyboard.. i love the LED lights for the media player buttons. the mouse is also on point. The tower itself is great. I have not had a chance to burn a dvd yet but so far everything is running fine. I had no issues with upgrading from xp to windows 7. Thumbs up on the product
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August 10th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
They don’t score many points for style, but Western Digital’s Elements external hard drives are economically priced, and have so far been very reliable performers for me. Very good deals can be had, as Amazon frequently puts the Elements series drives on sale. I bought a 1.5TB drive in November 2009 for $100, and a 2TB drive for $110 in July 2010. Given the cost of comparable external hard drives by other manufacturers at the given times, these prices are hard to beat.
Just connect the drive with the included cables, and it is available for use. It would be nice if the drive had an On/Off switch, and the white LED indicator light located on the back of the unit, isn’t very visible, but those are about the only issues with the product. Heat generation is not significant, as under continuous use, the drive is only slightly warm.
Transfer speed via USB is about 10MB per second, so depending on the size of the drive, it could take up to a couple of days to fill up the drive.
I had some bad experiences with WD products in the past, but have so far been very pleased with the Elements drives. If you buy from Amazon and have a problem with a brand new drive, replacement is usually quick and very easy. If the rectangular footprint isn’t an issue, then these drives are highly recommended, especially when on sale. Typically you get a better deal, on the higher capacity drives, so think big.
August 11th, 2010 at 12:36 am
After running disk utility and formatting the WD for OSX it took little over 2.5 hours to move 230 GB of iTunes media, along with the iTunes program so I could free up my hard drive. Opens fast, no issues.
August 11th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
I’ve been using the product for a month or so. It works fine. It is very quiet, you’ll never know whether its running or not. The only disappointment is the 2 TB is actually 1.81 TB
August 12th, 2010 at 12:32 am
This external hard drive is very easy to hook up. For an inexperienced user, it may not be the type to buy unless…you have some type of backup software all ready installed on your computer. I was a little unsure how the unit backed up information so I called customer support. They were pleasant and walked me through the process of how to transfer files to the external hard drive but he said you had to transfer everything manually (ie..drag and drop files) unless you had some type of backup software. At first I thought I’d have to manually transfer all my important files but them I figured out how to backup my system with the security software I have installed. (Norton 360) So…if you purchase this be prepared to manually transfer files or purchase some type of backup software if you want to backup your whole system. I have not had any problems with the unit and it operates very quietly.
August 12th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
I needed a computer for my office that runs old dos programs. I have tried using windows 7, but nothing is compatible with this program after XP. I purchased this computer as it is just about the only computer sold now with Windows XP pre-installed. I am extremely impressed with how this computer performs. It works as well as any tower PC with similar specs. Also the wow factor of everyone asking where my computer is. Noone believes that a computer fits into that small box. Since buying this computer, I purchased a second one for my roommate to use at his office. He loves it too. I am actually talking about using this as an everyday work computer and it performs great. The one thing that I do strongly recommend is that you buy another 1gb memory chip. You can buy one for like $20 and it will make a huge difference. Anyone can install it very easily too. If you are confused then go to one of the dozens of youtube videos where other people upgrade their machines.
August 13th, 2010 at 12:32 am
Tiny footprint, HDMI out, low power consumption, low price. This is a neat little unit. I’ve got a brace of little kvetches:
1) After using it about a month, I came across the backup utility. Run that it says, “It’s very important to run this before you use your computer!” Well, now you tell me. Thanks for putting it in the startup folder! The reason for that is that they don’t include any OS media. You’re getting a bare-bones system. I don’t know what you’d do with that backup anyway, as there’s no drive on her anywhere. I haven’t figured out if the MB will support a bootable mem stick, but it looks like you can boot off ethernet? I dunno how to do that, but I’m intrigued.
2) You can upgrade the membory, but there’s no good way to open her. After some time online, the best instruction I got was basically “jam a butterknife in there and don’t mess up the case.” Well, I was able to do 1/2 of that.
All told the price:performance is very good.
August 13th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
great little PC – DO NOT expect great performance. Super for the TV hookup and light usage – perhaps seniors????
August 14th, 2010 at 1:01 am
We purchased this computer for our daughter-in-law. She was looking for a low-profile system that was easy to set up and use. This computer is just that. It is easy to set up. Windows XP works the way you expect it too. She likes the fact that it is a low energy computer, that can be left on all the time.
The disappointing side- when you add the price of a disc drive and a monitor to this computer, you might just as well have purchased any other desktop. There is no savings in buying this. The keyboard is cramped, as well.
That said- it’s a good computer that is suprisingly fast.
I would like to see either the price come down, or a monitor added to the package.
August 14th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Only comes with DDR2 ram, I really disapprove of false advertising and wish I had saved my money. I thought I had found a good deal, but I guess not. I will be doing my shopping elsewhere from now on, I have never had any trouble with Amazon before but I do not have much money and to see it ruin my plans for a 4gb of DDR3 ram and low profile video game card for a low end gaming setup has cut me so short of money it will be another year before I can save up enough to buy another computer. Overall it is a great computer though, very nice looking on inside, I even tried installing my DDR3 ram I bought and it would not fit in the board. If you don’t care about DDR3 your golden.
August 15th, 2010 at 1:01 am
Well I just received this computer about two days ago, but despite this, I think I can make a pretty good assessment about its pros and cons thus far. I’ll begin by saying that from an aesthetic viewpoint, this computer looks very nice. The case itself is matte, but the front bezel itself is a nice, glossy finish that really does look nice, all things considered. It has two USB 2.0 ports on the front as well as jacks for both headphones and a microphone, so no need to reach around to the back of the unit if you don’t feel like it. Oh yes, just so you’re not as confused as I was at first, the power button is technically located on what would be your right hand side if the computer’s front is facing you, situated near the top of the case. The button is illuminated by a somewhat irritating bright blue LED, a lighting choice that seems to have become popular in the computer market these days, so it’s kind of a take it or leave it thing depending on how you feel about such. The only ridiculous part of the external design is, in my opinion, the terribly designed bay for the DVD reader. A plastic flap obscures the drive itself, and to open it, one presses a silver button directly underneath this flap. Now this is all fine and dandy until you try to use it: would a nuclear power plant have a computer monitoring the reactor that is rendered inoperable after turning it on? The same issue takes place here–the plastic flap actually flips over the button itself after opening, making it a totally unnecessary fiasco to press the button again to let the drive read a placed disc. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that after a few uses the flap becomes a little stiff; it will show some difficulty closing after the drive door recedes. This is not anything severe, but you will probably have to push it closed manually. There’s one more big issue that came up, actually: NO CASE FAN. I’m surprised this evaded my notice for so long. This computer should run pretty cool, and a case fan can run anywhere from $5-20, but the fact that they didn’t include this is actually really underhanded if this is HP’s idea of “cutting costs.” Still, it hasn’t blown up on me yet, and a fan is shipping in the mail. 1/2 point off.
The hardware itself is decent; nothing mindblowing in this box to be sure. Two gigs’ worth of DDR3 memory should give this computer some decent punch, but why not upgrade to four and max out its potential?***NOTE*** Apparently Amazon was wrong about the memory type. Another reviewer found it to be DDR2 memory instead of DDR3, so plan accordingly before purchasing!***NOTE*** The PSU is 250 watts, I believe. This should be enough to power everything on board adequately, but in case you were intending to add a second hard drive or add a graphics card, upgrading the power supply may be wise. In any case, it only comes with two power couplings for SATA-type devices, both of which are already in use by the hard drive and DVD drive. It does have some older MOLEX-type adaptors, however, and the motherboard hosts one IDE slot. I do have to mention that the power supply is kind of a pain in the rear to remove, though. The box also hosts one PCI slot, two PCI-e and one PCI-e16, I think. I’ll verify this later. Graphics are integrated–not what you would want for gaming, but I find they’re adequate enough to play PoxNora online with minimal hiccups, so it can carry you through in many cases. Processor is an AMD Sempron, which is a lower level unit, although it’s definitely strong enough to run Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit without any issue. I’m having the hardest time finding out what’s the biggest processor the motherboard will take, however; even the HP website and several manuals I’ve read thus far seem not to be willing to divulge this useful bit of knowledge. Overall, though, I think I can recommend this one as a purchase, especially for this ridiculously low price.
***EDIT*** They (Amazon) just lowered this PC’s price to under $300 for a few days. It has since went back up to the default price, sadly. I’m not sure if that means I bought a lemon, but this is a definite must buy if you need decent computing power and the latest Windows OS at a price so low it could be called criminal. Just remember that Windows7 Home Premium does have some compatibility problems with older programs…to remedy this, you will need to change to either Professional or Ultimate.
August 15th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Im using this computer as my main desktop, and im very happy with it , it handles everything ive use it for,it does come with a fairly small power supply so if you want to upgrade the video card its posibble that you have to upgrade the PSU.Its small compared to a regular size case but not as small, however there ir a smaller form factor from compaq for desktops. Would buy again for sure if i had to.
Its also very very silent i have it next to the monitor on top of my desktop and id almost imposible to hear it.Beware it only comes with one PCI slot.
August 16th, 2010 at 12:46 am
When my old desktop died on me and I found it would cost me more to fix it than to buy a new one, I decided to shop for a new one. Money was an issue and since I was not looking for a fancy gaming computer, which requires more speed and a large capacity hard drive, I figured an internet browsing everyday home computer would do. In my search, I first stumbled on the cq5320f then on this model. Trying to decide which of the two to get, the cq5320f’s price went up considerably… in a matter of days (literally); it went from $318 to $520! Therefore, I had to settle for cq5300f instead and have not regretted it one single day! Do not let the simplicity of this model fool you. It comes with enough speed and hard drive space for everyday usage and then some. Another thing I love about this PC is, it runs very quiet. In the past, I would swear by XP but since I tried the new Windows 7, I am totally hooked. For the exception of one of my programs (Nero 6), I am able to use all of my old XP programs and games. If in doubt, you can always go to the Microsoft website and check for Windows 7 compatibility issues. Bottom line is, if you are looking for a good affordable computer, I would not wait. This model is becoming popular and has already gone up in price in the last week. I’ve had mine for nearly a month now and have no problems and no regrets.
August 16th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
This is my second Compaq in two years (other is a laptop), and I’m very pleased with it. I get them from an office supply store when they go on sale.
Yes, the processor is about two years or so behind the latest and greatest, and it lacks a graphics card (a $60 fix, if you feel like adding one), and it doesn’t have a memory card reader (USB memory card readers are literally 5 bucks, or you can use the cable to your camera). It lacks Blu-Ray and wireless and Bluetooth.
However the things it does have are Windows 7, a 500 GB hard drive, it’s quiet, and has 3 GB memory. It’s also much faster than what I was using. The specs aren’t too far off of even the best computers, and at this price if its a dog you give it away in two or three years and don’t feel bad.
I haven’t tried any games yet. If I were still really into gaming I would have bought something a step or two up. I think this only takes 4 GB memory and the processor is probably the other bottleneck. I’m pretty sure it will play some of the older games I like.
Another thing: before buying these Compaqs I was wary of AMD processors. Since then, not at all. AMD gives you more processor per dollar, and I’ve run into zero compatability or reliability issues.
The case design is pretty too. The keyboard and mouse are nice, and feel reasonably solid, but seem to be made for smaller hands than mine.
One last thing: if you want recovery discs you have to make them yourself. I’m not sure if every manufacturer does this, but I was a bit put off by it. You need to have two or three recordable DVDs (I used DVD-R). You don’t absolutely need to make the discs, because the hard drive has some recovery stuff on it that’s pretty robust, but I think it’s safer to make them.
August 17th, 2010 at 1:07 am
For the price (I bought mine for under $320), this computer is a great deal. Very fast, very quiet.
August 17th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
the computer was too nuch expensive, In staples store higher memory with monitor the same price to the one I purchse.