Compaq Presario R3160US Notebook PC (1.6 GHz Athlon 64 3200+, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, 802.11g, DVD+R/RW Combo)

Rating:
Summary: Bulky, Heavy and the hard drive really really sucks
Review: I got this machine at work so I could work on 64-bit related data. I have been using it for almost 6 months now and I have to say that if I would never buy it. This is a desktop replacement, and as such, weighs a lot. I do travel a lot and this machine was not meant for that purpose. Forget about using it on a plane if you are not going in economy. The power consumption is simply ridiculous; I have yet to find a power adapter that will work with this thing on the place. The power adapter is a brick which just adds more weight to the whole ordeal.

Now the hard drive...oh boy. I did a clean install of Windows since I thought my old installation was the problem - but no, I was wrong. I don't know why this HD is so slow. If I am working on Word with a 100 MB document and it does the auto-saving thing, my computer is pretty much useless for two minutes, mega-frustrating. If I am writing something over the network to this laptop, rest assured that I wont be able to do anything else. My Powerbook G3 is like 4 years older than this machine, has the same hard drive and never stalls as bad as this guy.

On the positive side, it plays Ut2k4 fairly well. If I am hosting a LAN game, it takes around 3 minutes to load the next map, which is way too much. The display is nice, the keyboard is nice and the trackpad works as expected.

I have not found a place where I could get more RAM and finding replacement parts for this puppy is a mayor pain.

Would I recommend it? No, there are way better 64-bit alternatives out there.