Office 2007 Key HP Compaq Presario CQ62 Review - C

Trend Micro 32-Bit Editors'
Rating

The Compaq Presario CQ62 attributes a delicate texture within the lid that makes it satisfying to glimpse at and maintain.

Port choice within the CQ62 is extremely simple. VGA, LAN, and two USB ports, in addition to headphone and mic jacks, are to the left.

The keyboard is roomy and, even though not pitch best, pretty comfy.

On the correct, you'll find a modem and a single from the three USB ports. You really do not get a memory card reader or an HDMI connector.
HP Compaq Presario CQ62 ten Remarkably very low price tag; large display; passable functionality for your income; fairly attractive design and style No memory-card slot, Webcam, or HDMI port; stiff mouse buttons; narrow LCD viewing angle; minimal availability In the event you need an extremely affordable laptop computer, the CQ62 isn't a negative bet. It is missing some attributes,Office 2007 Standard Key, but it delivers decent all round overall performance thinking about it expenses under $400.
Price (at time of critique): $398 (mfr. est., as tested)
Crucial Specs Processor: two.1GHz AMD Athlon II Dual-Core P320
Memory: 3GB RAM
Storage: 250GB hard drive
Optical Generate: DVD±RW
Screen: fifteen.six inches (1,366x768 native resolution)
Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon High definition 4250 (1GB)
Pounds: five.five pounds
Dimensions (HWD): one.4x9.7x14.seven inches
Operating Method: Windows 7 House Top quality (64-bit)
HP Compaq Presario CQ62 Assessment Reviewed by: Jamie Bsales
Assessment Date: June 2010
If you have been thinking about a $400 netbook exclusively because it’s an inexpensive method to nab a useful laptop, Hewlett-Packard, in combination with Wal-Mart, includes a powerful choice: a "real" laptop computer. The Compaq Presario CQ62 is a full-size 15.6-inch laptop computer with an AMD dual-core processor, available at a beyond-bargain value of just $398 (starting this Sunday, June 13, 2010). That’s lower than you’d pay for a refurbished notebook with lesser specs from those deal-a-day sites (or about what you’d pay for a netbook with a fraction of the functionality). The catch: It is missing some features now common even on budget laptops, and it’s available only at Wal-Mart whilst supplies last.


Usually, budget machines are bland and brick-like. But with its textured imprint finish, the matte-black Presario CQ62 features a somewhat stylish look. And at 5.five kilos and measuring just one.4 inches thick, it is notably compact given the reduced price and big screen. The left and appropriate sides in the gently rounded chassis house an optical push, three USB ports, a VGA connector, LAN and modem ports, and headphone and mic jacks. That’s it: no flash-memory-card slot,Office 2007 Key, no HDMI connector,Buy Office Professional 2010, no ExpressCard slot, no eSATA port. Also deleted to hit the under-$400 price tag mark are a Webcam and a fingerprint reader. Some of those items you may be able to live without, especially if the Presario CQ62 would be a secondary machine for you or your household. But we would have preferred to see a card reader and a Webcam make the final cut. On the plus side, the optical drive is a full-featured 8x DVD burner with LightScribe disc-labeling abilities, and the Presario CQ62 also includes a 250GB seven,200rpm challenging push and 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi wireless networking.


The Presario CQ62’s 15.6-inch display is bright, and colors in images and video really pop. (The LCD's glossy finish helps.) The resolution is 1,366x768, which helps make for extremely readable text on Web sites and the like, although more pixels would let you make better use from the expansive real estate for multitasking. The panel’s viewing-angle sweet spot is also somewhat constrained: Move too far off-center, and you’ll notice a brightness shift. Within the other hand, the built-in Altec Lansing speakers deliver plenty of volume and good enough sound quality for Web audio and even movies. But as with all budget machines, sound quality for music playback is a bit strident and lacking bass.
We were pleasantly surprised by the keyboard on the Presario CQ62. Many low-cost machines’ keyboards exhibit flex, but the unit on this machine features a solid feel. The flat-top keys have a good amount of up-down travel, and the widely spaced keys are cozy to type on. We’re happy to see that HP has inverted the purpose with the Function ("F") keys, essentially giving you 12 hotkeys for actions such as volume, mute, display screen brightness, next-track/last-track, and so on. Should you want to access a function, you press a Function essential combo.


Less ideal is the Presario CQ62’s touch pad. We like the clean search in the hidden-pad design, where the touch pad isn't isolated from the surrounding palm rest, but the textured pattern (carried over from the lid) imparts too much friction on your fingers, making mousing significantly less smooth. And the single-bar mouse button (you depress it on 1 end or the other for left and right clicks) is too narrow and stiff.
As expected, the Presario CQ62 doesn’t have cutting-edge overall performance components. But the 2.1GHz AMD Athlon II Dual-Core P320 processor and 3GB of fast DDR3 memory deliver pretty good productivity overall performance for a $400 laptop. The machine scored 3,152 on our PCMark Vantage benchmark test, which measures general method performance. That’s lower than the $650 Gateway NV5933u we tested recently (it scored 4,493), but it's not alarmingly far off the 3,800 score that is average for your mainstream class. It also manages to beat out similar budget mainstream notebooks from a year ago, which scored as reduced as 1,829. Plus,Microsoft Office 2007 Product Key, this laptop computer uses the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Residence Top quality, and it held its own to the 64-bit version of PCMark Vantage, too, with a score of 3,459, just a hair below the $849 Asus UL50Vf’s score of 3,563. That's nice for the price tag.


The cracks in overall performance start to show a little more, however, when it comes to multimedia-intensive work. The machine needed 8 minutes and 16 seconds to encode a video on our Windows Media Encoder test, which is more than 3 minutes longer than the Gateway NV5933u took and about 30 seconds longer than the average laptop computer in this class. On our iTunes encoding trial, in which we convert 11 standard MP3 files to AAC format, the Presario CQ62 completed the task in six minutes and 4 seconds, while the Gateway finished in 4:31. (The average showing for this size of method is 4:42.) Finally, on our 32-bit version of the Cinebench ten benchmark test, which taxes all the available cores of a processor,Genuine Windows 7 Professional HP Specs, Reviews, News and, the Presario CQ62 scored 3,927. Here, the gap starts to widen between the Gateway budget entry (five,448) and the class average (4,761). But keep in mind the Gateway laptop fees nearly twice as much, and the class-average value is over $1,100.
We didn’t expect much in the way of gaming abilities (beyond low-impact Web games) from this machine, and unsurprisingly, we were correct. The ATI Mobility Radeon High definition 4250 graphics chip in the Presario CQ62 delivered 1,901 on 3DMark06 at one,024x768 resolution and an unplayable 18 frames per second at that resolution in one of our standard test games, Company of Heroes. In this laptop's defense, very few budget machines deliver impressive efficiency on these tests. With scores like these, you can expect this machine to render images fine and play video, but video editing, 3D gaming, and other graphics-intensive tasks should be reserved for better-equipped laptops.
As for battery life, the Presario CQ62’s six-cell battery lasted 2 hours and 23 minutes on our harsh DVD rundown test (in which we loop a movie from disc until the battery conks out). That's just 3 minutes shy from the average battery runtime for this class of laptop. By comparison, the Gateway NV5933u lasted only 1:36.
The Presario CQ62 delivers a serviceable selection of software for your price tag. In addition to the 64-bit version of Windows seven Residence Top quality, which includes the handy Media Center multimedia environment, you also get CyberLink PowerDVD 9 for movie playback and CyberLink DVD Suite for CD and DVD creation. HP also preloads 60-day trials for Norton Internet Security and Microsoft Office 2007. The company backs the Presario CQ62 with a one-year warranty and 24-hour, seven-day toll-free tech support, which is typical for HP and nearly all manufacturers.
To be sure, the Compaq Presario CQ62 is not best, but this machine is all about the value. If an Atom-processor-powered netbook just isn’t your speed and your computing needs are mostly basic, this is a good choice at the price tag. It offers solid-enough performance for everyday tasks, a nice big display screen, and even a relatively stylish layout. We wish HP worked in a memory-card reader and a Webcam, as photo sharing on Facebook and Skyping with family members is a likely scenario for those in the market for such a budget machine. But if those functions are lost on you (or on whomever you might be considering buying this laptop for as a gift, like Grandpa), you’ll be happy you didn’t have to pay extra for them.
Cost (at time of critique): $398 (mfr. est., as tested)

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Compatibility: Compaq Presario CQ32, CQ42, CQ43, CQ56, CQ62, CQ72, CQ430, CQ630; HP g4, g6, g7, G32,Office 2010 Serial Generator, G42, G56, G62, G72; Pavilion dv3-4000, dm4-1000, dv5-2000, dv5-3000, dv6-3000, dv6-6000, dv7-4000, dv7-6000; HP Envy 17-1000, 17-2000 series