Experiences with HP, Compaq?

[Martin Cracauer]

Chris BeHanna wrote on Tue, Dec 23, 2003 at 04:50:30PM -0500: 
> On Tuesday 23 December 2003 13:42, D. Michael McFarland wrote:
> > Hello All,
> >
> > Occasionally I drool over the laptops in places like Best Buy,
> > thinking, "If I had just one more computer, I wouldn't have to wrestle
> > VMware...," etc., etc.  Lately, the prices and specs have improved to
> > where I may finally be willing to put my money where my mouth is.  It
> > looks like about US$1150 (less rebates if I'm quick about it) would
> > get me either a Compaq Presario 2195US or an HP ze4560us, so I'm here
> > to ask if anyone can support my pipe dream by affirming FreeBSD runs
> > reasonably well on either of these machines.

I looked at some rebated HP/Compaq models at BestBuy yesterday.  The
cheap celeron models I was looking at had no firewire and only USB
1.1.  You want to make sure those you are looking at have 2.0.

> > The specs for the two notebooks are nearly identical: AMD Athlon XP-M
> > 2500+, 512 MB RAM, 40 GB HD, ATI Mobility graphics, USB, FireWire,
> > CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive.  I don't expect the built-in wireless (11g) will
> > ever work, but I'd like to know 100Base-T does.  "16-bit Sound
> > Blaster Pro-compatible audio" could be anything, I suppose.
> 
>     For about that same price, Best Buy has an eMachines laptop w/17"
> widescreen (1280x768) LCD, the same Athlon-M, and the same ATI video
> chip.

I looked at that part yesterday.  For $800 (if you manage to get the
mail-in-rebates) you can get that thing with a Celeron 2.4 GHz and the
Intel 852 GM graphics, or as you say a more expensive model with an
Athlon and ATI graphics.

I think I would have bought the Celeron version if they had it
in-store which they didn't and I cannot mailorder it because it will
not arrive in time to use the mail-in-rebate (one of the most awful
aspects of current U.S. corporate practice from a German standpoint,
BTW). 

Anyway, I had a closer look and the whole thing feels so flimsy and
cheap mechanically-wise that I am pretty much put off it.  I might
have a second look these days but I really wouldn't like to buy a
notebook with a keyboard that breaks.

But hey, it's widescreen and a 2.4 GHz Celeron for $800.  Mumble.

>     I have no idea if FreeBSD will run on it.

Should be fine, at least on the Intel part, including graphics.  I
don't know what chipset the AMD version uses.

Martin
-- 
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Martin Cracauer <cracauer at cons.org>   http://www.cons.org/cracauer/
 No warranty.    This email is probably produced by one of my cats 
 stepping on the keys. No, I don't have an infinite number of cats.