Compaq Presario CQ62-209WM Athlon II Dual-Core P320 2.1GHz 3GB 250GB DVD±RW 15.6" W7HP Notebook

Comments about Compaq Presario CQ62-209WM Athlon II Dual-Core P320 2.1GHz 3GB 250GB DVD±RW 15.6'' W7HP Notebook:

I owned this computer for two years, having purchased it during hte Fall of 2010. The system has the power to play many of the games I play as well as use as an office machine.

The integreated Wireless N was wonderful - I had great signal quality while running on wireless and was able to find all of the G/N point within several blocks. The 1gig Ethernet was also nice when needing a fast wired connection to save battery life.

The downside to this system was Compaq's poor cooling. When running anything grpahically intense the system heat up way more than is comfortable. By placing the HDD on the left side directly under the palmrest, and next to the only outward vent, the system gets very hot even to the point the keys are hot to the touch. The heat from the hard drive adds to this problem. The system is cooled by a single fan which seems too small, given the heat build-up.

What this meant was that I could not game on the system without it becoming too hot to handle. I woulld either have to run a fan directly beneath the system to cool it or limit my game playing to 1 hour intervals with about 15 minutes to allow the system to cool.

My solution was to buy a cooling pad and elevate the back end whenever using the system. This detracts majorly from the design and makes it to where you can't really take advantage of the systems great processor and graphics card.

A similar spec's HP G6, which I have also used, did not have the same heating problems even though they are nearly identical products. Kudos to HP for rethinking their design.

Had I kept the system, I had planned to replace the factory HDD with a SOlid State Drive, now that prices are coming down. A 256GB SDD would have eliminated the hard drive heating issue, while giving the system better Hard Drive Performance and less battery consumption while only adding about $300 to your price tag.

Another drawback was lack of Media Card options - there was no SD/miniSD/MicroSD which was a sahame given the system had such a beautiful display. This meant I couldn't quickly transfer picture from my camer without having to use a USB cable.

Mine also lacked a webcam meaning my system was very low on perks. Both of my Netbooks had both media and webcams integrated, had they had the processor or graphics card this system had, I might have avoided buying it.

Lastly, there was a problem with HP's junkware-laden OS install and the awful Quick Access Keys.

The factory OS install is a mess of demos and junkware. I would say HP's Home Premium 64-bit is nearly useless and recommend you download an OEM copy and do a complete wipe of the hard drive rather than relying on HP's version. Even upgrading to 8GB of RAM didn't solve all of my issues withthe factory installation.

I had performance issues with Home Premium that just weren't there when I wiped the factory install and replaced with 64 bit Win 7 Pro. This was my best OS version for this system.

The Quick Access keys are poorly placed and almost certain to launch an unwanted application at the wrong time. In my opinion, they should be relocated to the top of the keyboard where they were previously or removed outright. There is more than adequate spacing on the palmrest. I found them almost completely unnecessary and a hassle.

With all the negative, I still would reccommend this system to those looking for office productivity or a mobile theatre. If you are a power user, Id suggest the changes listed above or simply find a different system.