Compaq Presario F572US notebook user review

Attention! HP battery recall for F700 series (among many other laptops)

2009-05-15T20:37:00.001-07:00

While this blog is about the F572us laptop, we have also mentioned the F700-series a few times, so some of the regular visitors may own this model. The F700-series of Compaq Pavilion laptops are among the many HP and Compaq models that are affected by a battery recall that was issued on May 14, 2009!HP will send you a new battery and then include mailing material for you to return the recalled

New Compaq F761us, a new Presario F-series model!

2008-04-13T13:38:00.000-07:00

Hello Compaq Presario F-series laptop fans! There is yet another new F-series model introduced by Compaq. The latest one is the F761us, currently offered by Staples (April 13, 2008) for just $450 after a $30 Easy Rebate!The new F761us is similar to the previous models, and it has a 15.4" widescreen display, AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core TK-57 processor, 1gb of RAM, 160gb of hard disk space, a

Meet the Presario F750us, a new F-series notebook

2008-03-06T14:52:00.000-08:00

The Presario F-series family has grown up with yet another laptop. We already talked about the Presario F572 extensively, and there was a very long discussion with 100+ comments on the follow-up, the Presario F730us. Now there is a new member of the F-family, the F750us.Meet the Presario F750usContinuing with the tradition of the F572us and the F730us as affordable bang for the buck, but also

It looks like we have another F-series laptop landing! (The F730us Discussion)

2007-12-15T18:15:00.000-08:00

If you have checked out this week's Sunday paper you may have noticed a new Compaq Presario F-series notebook advertised at very tempting prices. It is the Presario F730us at Staples, for the sexy price of $450 after a $30 mail-in rebate. This is very similar to this guy, but it has a 120gb hard disk (instead of 80gb) and a TK-55 processor (vs TK-53 of the F572us). I haven't compared the other

The Compaq F572us on Black Friday for $300AR at Circuit City!

2007-11-15T07:38:00.000-08:00

According to the ads posted at GottaDeal.com, the Compaq Presario F572 will be offered for $300 after rebate on Black Friday at Circuit City stores!This is an early bird special, and to get the $300 you do have to submit rebate(s) according to the information posted by Gottadeal.com. Here is a picture courtesy of GottaDeal.com.As you have seen from our previous post that has gotten almost 60

DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE blue screen!

2007-10-01T11:49:00.000-07:00

First it woke up from Sleep (close lid Sleep) with the screen content squished horizontally, eg the Clock widget instead of round, it looked fat. So did everything else (text, pictures, etc). So I closed the lid and re-opened it because that usually makes this issue go away.It sure did, but a few minutes later I started getting erratic behavior, and then out of the ...blue, it blue-screened with

Power management re-alignment!

2007-09-29T11:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, I came up with a new strategy on power management: The physical power button on the computer puts it in hibernation. Closing the lid puts it in sleep mode. This both for when connected on AC and when running on the battery. But if you prefer, you can adjust it differently for each power source.But worry not with the physical power button. If you press and hold for more than five seconds the

Quick hitters mainly on battery and such

2007-09-23T14:03:00.000-07:00

I noticed that overnight, even if I turn it off (not hibernate) it seems to wake up at 95% or 96% in the morning. I don't know if it wakes up at 3am regardless and looks for Microsoft updates. I'll check and turn them off (if Microsoft lets me) and see what happens. This is a LiIon battery, not a NiMH or NiCad after all! Update: But this may also be the energy used up simply to boot up the

No screen squishing since switching to Hibernation

2007-09-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

Since I switched the Close Lid function to "Hibernation" instead of the default "Sleep" mode, I haven't had any of the occasional "screen squishing"! Hibernation is my favorite because usually when I had put the computer in sleep mode in the past, I was gone long enough that it went into hibernation out of its own free will. So why waste energy sleeping when you can hibernate? I only do a true

F572us: To Sleep or To Hibernate, that is the question!

2007-09-16T13:00:00.001-07:00

To sleep or to hibernate that is the question! Sleep makes it easier to wake up, hibernation take a bit longer but save more power, namely the pc is turned off. With Sleep the pc is eating up more power. This is not a big deal if you are connected to AC, but if you are running on battery, then that is something to consider.The default is Sleep mode, but in my case I found Hibernation to be more

A second unexpected blue-screen!

2007-09-15T08:23:00.000-07:00

And I got my second blue-screen, it seems to be the same issue, the error reported was something about DRIVE POWER something, it went too fast for me to write it down or memorize it. The power cable was in the computer but it was not powered, it was running from the battery at over 50% full. I was merely looking at a browser window, I was not doing anything dramatic or intensive :)It did create a

My first blue screen! Woohoo!

2007-09-14T12:49:00.000-07:00

You know it's not Windows unless it blue-screens! And it blue-screened on me for the first time. A real blue screen, complete with a dump, an XML file and a txt file that Microsoft could use to spy check on my computer to figure out what caused the problem. I wasn't really doing anything intensive or hardware related at the time. I merely had three browsers open and they were not doing anything

A couple of issues with the Compaq Presario F572us

2007-09-08T14:39:00.000-07:00

There's a couple of issues to report with the Presario F572us. First, while I was using the dvd drive, and while processing a DVD in the drive, an error message came up from the software. When I looked at Windows to see what the problem was, the dvd drive had disappeared (!!!) in the eyes of Windows Vista - it was not listed among the current drives (C: and D: were listed), and the orange light

A few random thoughts on the Presario F572us

2007-09-02T18:09:00.000-07:00

Here are a few random thoughts: Overall it continues to exceed expectations. I expected it to behave in a more entry-level fashion. Perhaps I'm not very demanding. I was able to run three different browsers with multiple tabs (Firefox 2.0, the latest Opera and the default IE) and I did not notice any significant slowness. This was using websites I frequently visit, I did not try to "test" it by

Presario F572us: The One month after review

2007-08-28T18:13:00.000-07:00

It's already been a month since I got this new notebook! So, what I thought I would do, is try to post every month a recap of my experience with it so far. Obviously i can't write everything into a single post, but I'll try to cover the most important things in an interview Q&A style for more funOne-sentence conclusion: It has exceeded my expectations.Negatives? Battery life is 2 hours and change

The 12-cell HP EV089AA laptop battery is compatible with the Compaq Presario F572us

2007-08-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I would try to find out if the 12-cell HP battery is officially compatible with the F572. So I asked the online Compaq/HP customer support and they confirmed that the 12-cell HP EV089AA notebook battery is compatible with the Compaq Presario F572us. In theory it should double the runtime, although one notebook forum user said he got as much as five hours. This

New laptop blog launched: Notebook Bargains is up and running

2007-08-25T22:27:00.000-07:00

New blog: Notebook Bargains is up and running. As the name suggests, this blog will cover notebook and laptop computer bargains, sales and specials from the net and from brick and mortar stores. As seen by this F572 and the $450 Acer this week, you can get a value-packed notebook computer, with 1gb RAM, supermulti DVD burner and a few extras for under $500. Obviously it won't be as fast or

Official Compaq website for the Presario F572us

2007-08-25T13:53:00.000-07:00

This model is not listed in the current line-up of HP/Compaq notebooks. They actually only feature very few models. But you can always search for it/them by model name. Here is the official Compaq/HP page. They also have the specs listed in summary or in-full (printer-friendly page), and you can also download the specs in a PDF file (1.4MB). There is also a link to register it.The Compaq/HP

HP dock, and three notebook deals (Toshiba, Acer and Compaq)

2007-08-23T20:23:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention this before, but this computer is not directly compatible with HP computer docks, at least not fully functional since it does not have a place to ...dock. There are obviously USB options, but it's just another one of those trade-offs when you buy a sub-$500 notebook computer like the Compaq Presario F572us.Speaking of sub-$500 notebook computers, there's a couple of them on

The Compaq Presario F572us on sale online

2007-08-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

This guy is on sale right now as part of Staples web-only online deals. The $480 price is after a $30 rebate and an instant discount. You can also get the HP Deskjet D1341 printer for free after a $70 rebate. Details at the bottom of this page. I do not know when the online sale ends or if you can get the Staples stores to match their website's price. You can probably get them to price-match this

Accessory #3 Review: Sandisk 1gb Cruzer Micro SDCZ4-1024

2007-08-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

I got it at Office Max for $10 on sale this week. (You can also price-match it at your favorite retailer since it is featured in this week's Office Max circular ad). The Sandisk code on the back is SDCZ4-1024-AB10. Software included: Cruzer Lock 2, and trial versions of Pocket Cache and CruzerSync (in case anyone cares :) This is a silver/gray USB Hi-Speed 2.0 stick, with a green light that

Crash #2, Accessory #3 , Performance and ...fingerprints

2007-08-21T09:53:00.000-07:00

In today's episode, we get Accessory #3, we get our 2nd crash (also media related) and talk about some performance numbers.Crash #2The second crash was also related to the media drive. Coincidence? I put a CD-R with mp3s in the cd/dvd tray. The Vista menu came up asking me what to do. One of the options was to import it (using Roxio Import). Since I am doing this snail-pace review, I decided to

Two other user reviews and the F572us is on sale this week: $450 at Circuit City (no rebates)

2007-08-19T14:37:00.000-07:00

The Presario F572us is back on sale at Circuit City for $450 without rebates. But of course you can still take advantage of any rebate offers that apply for additional savings (eg printer or software purchases).There are two other user reviews of this laptop at the NotebookReview forums. One by pac1687 and another by mikelets456. Check them out! Notebookreview.com is a great resource for laptops,

Accessory Deals in the Sunday paper (8/19/07) [added lots more!]

2007-08-19T12:59:00.000-07:00

Here are some laptop/notebook low priced accessories that might be of interest, advertised in the Sunday paper (8/19/07):Notebook cable lock $25 at Office Max1gb Sandisk 1gb USB flash drive $10 at Office Max2gb Verbatim StoreNGo USB flash $20 @ OfficeMaxSony MicroVault Classic 2GB USB stick $20 (rootkit???) at Staples4gb Sandisk Cruzer Micro with Ready Boost for Vista $35 (ReadyBoost allows

Quick hitters (Recharging, Roxio and Fry's deals) [updated]

2007-08-17T14:24:00.000-07:00

Recharging time: Charging while using the notebook seems to take about as long as the battery lasts: around 2 hours and change. I haven't measured (re)charging without using the computer, and I do not know if it makes a difference in recharge timeThe Roxio Basic edition included with the computer will not allow you to make copies of your store-purchased DVD movies. This is yet another example of