Home > Consumer Reviews > Compaq Presario 2570us Laptop (2.40-GHz Pentium 4, 512 MB RAM, 40 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Drive)

It's a decent notebook. The processor is adequate as is the hard drive. I had a little trouble setting up the wireless network, but I got it working. Love XP pro and the built in firewire. Terrible, terrible battery life. I got about 1hr and 40min w/wifi on and about 2hr without. The speakers were pretty weak, but not inaudible.

The presario 2570 is a pretty good performer for its modest price. This machine has everything you need to be on top of the technology curve. The wireless "G" link has a decent range. The one weakness I found is the sound card is weak. Some of the older models had better quality and stronger volume control. Love the fact it came with XP pro installed. Overall on a 1-10 i give it a 9.

I've had a few Laptops in my time, and some have been dogs. However this one isn't one of them. True the computer is slightly heavier than others, however it has a very solid feel, and everything is intergrated nicely, and works together well. I'm not sure why the other reviewer said his shuts down, but mine has worked reliably for months, and has never had that problem. As for the battery life, it is average as far as that goes. My previous laptop was a VPR Matrix from Best Buy, and the battery went from 2.5 hours to 10 minutes in the span of a year.
The shining part of the machine in my eyes is the wireless connectivity. With this Compaq I've connected effortlessly, and with stronger signal than with other machines I've tried with before. Especially valuable if your a road warrior and stay at hotels which feature WiFi.

Bottom line, I like it, and it is reliable.

This is my first laptop. I bought if from CompUSA because I needed it to backup my desktop. Two weeks later I find that CompUSA gave a $50 mail in rebate, with a free printer, Circuit City sells it $100 cheaper with another $100 mail-in rebate and so forth. Gripe, gripe, gripe. Lesson learned, if it's brand new on the market, wait til the price goes down, even if you really need it.

The laptop itself is pretty nice. Large screen, comes with Windows XP professional, allows multiple users and has a decent CD-R/DVD drive. It's a little bit heavy at 7 lbs. but it's powerful enough to do whatever tasks needed. Battery life is about 2 1/2 hours and the speakers are decent. It's not top of the line but it is very reliable.

Generally, the most of my computer use comes from downloading music, movies, and burning them onto cd's. this computer does everything well EXCEPT that. The Roxio Easy CD package that comes included in this notebook is poor, at best. I have been able to burn 1 cd in 11 tries. The error messages come up no matter what file type. i Transferred files from a pc, where i used NERO to burn a cd of those files, and attempted to use ROXIO to burn the same files onto a cd, and found error messages kept popping up.

Speakers are pretty good, processor and hard drive are adequate, along with the monitor.

other weakness: doesnt include windows xp cd. however, you can retrieve it from company if necessary.

4 out of 5