Compaq Presario cq62-209wm

Today I'm going to review the Compaq Presario cq62-209wm. The specs for this laptop are as follows:

Screen: 15.6"
Resolution 1366x768
Ram: 3GB DDR3 (1x2gb & 1x1gb both cas 9)
Hard Drive: 250gb 7200rpm sata 3gb/s
Video: Ati Radeon 4250
Processor: AMD Athlon X2 P320 @ 2.1ghz
Chipset: AMD Vision (M880)
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium X64
DVD Burner


This is not a bad machine at all. I picked this machine up from Walmart a couple of months ago for $398. For the price the specs could not be beat. At the time all other options with the same internal hardware were at least $450 to $500. The price did come with some drawbacks though.

The low price of this machine meant a few conveniences were removed. There is no built-in webcam and no built-in card reader. I can live without these options. I've already purchased external replacements, though I do admit that I rarely use them because it's not convenient to dig out the webcam and strap it to the screen all the time.

Lacking features aside, I only have 2 real gripes with the design of this machine and the other models around it (i.e. 219wm, 220US, etc). My first and biggest problem is the track pad.

As you can see, the touchpad is flush with the rest of the bezel and has the same texture.  This means I often find my finger slips out of the touchpad area without intending to.  This causes me to drag and drop files to places I didn't intend if I'm not careful.  Another problem, though not as big of a deal, the left and right buttons are both on one bar.

My second gripe is that the keyboard, and the rest of the casing for that matter, is flimsy and cheap.  Not a big deal, but the keyboard on my previous machine, an ASUS 1000HE netbook, was 100x better feeling.  Another minor gripe:  you have to hold the fn key down to press insert.

Conclusion:  Great laptop for the price, the speed and power are certainly no problem for the price range.  If you can afford it, though, i'd suggest jumping up to the $700 range and getting something with more quality and more power.  You can get a higher quality design for $500, but I don't believe the performance is worth it at that price.

Also, you'll notice I linked the cq62-220us model above.  This is the nearest model I can find on amazon.  Even if you can't find this specific model number, this review should still be helpful for any model with the same case design.