Compaq Presario 2105US Laptop (1.53 GHz Athlon XP 1800+, 512MB RAM, 40GB hard drive)

At 13 by 10.7 by 1.6 inches and a mere 5.7 pounds, the 2105US is easy to carry yet spacious enough to offer an accommodating full-size, 88-key keyboard with embedded numeric keypad and a sizable 14.1-inch XGA TFT display supporting 1,024 x 768 resolution. Compaq has chosen a capable 1.5 GHz Mobile AMD Athlon XP processor to power the unit, and matched it with a generous 512 MB of DDR SDRAM system memory (upgradable to a massive 1,024 MB). It has added a powerful 64 MB ATI Mobility Radeon AGP 4X video processor and a large 40 GB hard drive. Despite its cost-conscious price, the 2105US is ready to handle any typical notebook task and even some 3-D-intensive applications and games.

The system is not short of amenities. With the integrated DVD/CD-RW combo drive (24x/8x/8x CD, 8x DVD), you can back up your data, burn and enjoy audio CDs, and play your favorite movies. Using the internal 10/100 Mbps Ethernet adapter or 56K modem, you can access e-mail, networks, or the Internet at both low and high speeds. Other perks include a 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro-compatible audio chip, two internal stereo speakers, two USB ports for plug-and-play peripherals, parallel and serial ports, headphone-out and microphone-in connections, and an S-Video out. High-speed USB and IEEE FireWire connections are not included.

Compaq has pre-installed a broad range of software, including Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, Norton AntiVirus 2002, Microsoft Works, Quicken Financial Center, and Microsoft Money 2003.

This laptop has 512MB DDR (64MB DDR shared video memory) and a 40GB hard drive, which are practically top of the line. 512MB DDR is going to make XP run very fast. This laptop is actually faster than my desktop PC which has a XP 2000+/256MB DDR.

The 14.1" XGA display is gorgeous. It is crisp and very easy on the eyes, plus it has beautiful colors. It may not be a 15", but being smaller, it will save on your battery life.

Performance is awesome, the CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive is sweet, battery life is great, and everything is awesome! This laptop is great for you road warriors, since it gets around 3 hours (for real) of battery life, runs very cool, and is rather compact and thin. Everything works great!

The Athlon XP-M processor is also going to save you battery life and heat over the Pentium 4-M. AMD has PowerNow! technology, which automatically controls the processor speed in relation to its usage. It can adjust the speed from ~500mhz-1.53ghz. Intel's SpeedStep technology can only operate at two speeds: full-conk and too slow. The XP-M also runs much more cooler than the P4-M. If you notice, the P4-M Presario laptops are much thicker than the XP-M ones. This is due to the P4-M's requirement for extra cooling, which means more heat and more noise.

The graphics are ATi IGP320M, which uses the mobility Radeon 7000. It can use up to 128MB DDR shared memory, but 64MB is standard. The graphics are excellent for DX8/DX8.1 gaming (GeForce2 MX performance level), and run every game I have tried so far. The drivers are awesome, and I have not come across any incompatibilities. I even use this laptop for AutoCAD 2004 and 3D Studio Max R5, which are very intensive design programs, and it breezes through all of the applications.

The exterior of the laptop is also pretty hardy. The plastic seems tough enough for heavy use, and everything is built sturdily. This thing is built like a tank, and it looks very, very cool.

Also, Compaq tech support is excellent, and I have not had any trouble contacting them or finding solutions to problems. They are very knowledgeable and professional in their work. Excellent people I may say!

Compaq made an excellent notebook that balances price, mobility, and performance all in one. If you are considering the Compaq Presario 2100 AMD Athlon XP-M laptop, go for it.


Power House   August 8, 2003
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I've owned this laptop for about four months. It has been great. I hardly ever use my desktop since this is almost as powerful and I can use it anywhere. Great for video & graphic editing etc. Handles multi-tasking extremely well. Should immediately run updates on drivers etc. before using. Highly Recommend!!!


STAY AWAY!!   June 6, 2003
5 out of 7 found this review helpful

I bought this laptop thinking that it would be a great idea for what I needed it for. Bare minimum, basic laptop use. I WAS WRONG. Not only does Compaq's customer service lack SERVICE, but they refuse to admit a MAJOR flaw, or shall I say a few major flaws in this laptop. My cousin and I ordered this same model from amazon.com together, and received them together. Out of the box, we turned it on to notice that the touchpad was not functioning properly. Plugged in a USB mouse and worked fine. The touchpad seemed to make the mouse pointer stop even when you would keep moving your finger across it. Secondly, we both got 2 bum batteries, the laptop did not even recognize them! Third, what good is a laptop if you can't use it for the most basic use of all! TYPING! It didn't seem to be a hardware problem, the keyboard appeared ok and non-sticky, but when I would open a text file and type, "Mary went to the store." I would look up and see "Mryw nt to th tore" Hmm, these same problems on BOTH of our laptops... Compaq had the walnuts to say it was Amazon.com's fault for selling them as refurbs! I highly doubt Amazon.com would falsely advertise as so. So after getting a run around from their customer service, formatting twice, and deleting and reinstalling drivers a number of times, we are both left with the same crap we bought and received, and are now ironically still on hold with their customer service! STAY AWAY FROM THIS. On one last note - they themselves don't even sell this laptop anymore. WONDER WHY!!