Home > Consumer Reviews > Compaq Presario 5300US Desktop (1.1-GHz Celeron, 256 MB RAM, 20 GB hard drive)

I bought this PC in November 2001, and this one just worked efficiently and normally 12 months beyond the warranty.
since then the harddrive failed to boot and i lost tons of valuable data.
i also replaced the pd card because the software broke and not available from the manufacturer anymore. the floppy drive broke later.
right now the power switch failed so that i have let power the computer on in case i will not turn on.

what a saving pc i have. great price great computer.

I bought this computer in January of 2002. I have had so many problems with it. Every time I would call up compaq I would wait 2-6 hours just to talk to a support specialist then they would transfer me and again i would wait an additional 1-6 hours. I don't have the patience to wait and if you don't have 10 hours a month to wait on hold with compaq don't buy a compaq.

it still suffers from some typical Compaq flaws. This is a handy all around household unit with some gaming features that make it more playable than the 5400. Certainly, the price isn't bad either. However, it does not include a monitor, which you'll need to buy separately. The machine's limitations for gamers lie in its limited, mothboard-bound graphics capabilities (a result of the low power NVidia card) and its mediocre ESS sound. There is an aqequate sized hard drive and a pretty good 12X CD burner, so MP3 collectors will not suffer too much. Anyway, like I said, it's a good, basic machine and if that's your interest, you'll be happy with the unit. I should point out that expanding these Compaqs (a lot like their HP bretheren) is a daunting task; things are tight in the case and adding cards and drives is a challenge, so you better like the machine the way you get it, and not the way you envision it upgraded. Lastly, Compaq's reliability has been acceptable, though its service has been less so.

I own a lesser of the line of Compaq (I have a 950 mhz). I have tried Windows XP though. I find that Compaq is a very high quality product. It is up with Dell, above Hewlett Packard. I highly suggest that you do no purchase a Hewlett Packard because of many reasons (see my review on it). I like the audio, keyboard, and all the small things about a Compaq. CD-RW write drives are a must for the future. Windows XP is wonderful for multiple users. It has a sign in screen. You can personalize your sign in with things such as your own wallpaper, sounds, pointing arrow, etc. I also prefer Windows above Apple. Apple is only good if you are looking for the most simplicity.

I've bought 3 Compaq Presarios in the past few years. Their machines, in general, offer great value for the money. However, they are not terribly well-built or well-designed. It can be a frustrating task to add hard drive or CD drive to the system yourself. On some models, I practically had to dismantle all the drive bays before I can fit a new drive in. This can be a blessing though: my house was burglarized once and the computer literate burglar decided to steal all the add-on cards in my Compaq instead of taking the whole machine which was too heavy. He got the cards all right, but couldn't figure out how to remove the hard drives and left my 2 drives with valuable data behind. I should be grateful to the Compaq hardware designers. :-)