General said:
What makes you say that? I have two Compaq machines, a laptop with a 3400+
and a desktop with a 3800+, they've been solid as can be. I run all of my
systems 24/7, I haven't had any trouble. I've had the laptop for 18 months
and the desktop for 16. HP machines are a good value for the money, the
There's nothing wrong with HP, Compaq, Dell, or any other major brand
name for the majority of users.
only reason to not buy from them is if they don't have the configuration
that you want.
That's the key - you don't usually get the performance or features you
want.
I got my X2 4400+ box from Monarch because HP didn't sell a
4400+ at the time, but my 3800+ system had exactly what I wanted at the
time (MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, a decent NVidia graphics card, better sound
then I needed, slots for every kind of flash card, Enermax power supply, a
good case (Wavemaster), 250G drive, DVD RW plus a second DVD ROM) and it
cost less then the individual components would have cost (I was pricing
the same hardware at NewEgg and Monarch when I saw this box at CompUSA).
When I was shopping around for a new system, I priced out a few brand
name systems and spec'd out their components. All of them were about the
same price as the system I put together myself, except that my system is
better and faster.
For the same price as a pre-built name brand, I got a faster HD, faster
RAM, faster video card, quieter case with a better PSU, and a better
widescreen LCD monitor. The rest of the components (DVD, floppy, ports,
sound, etc.) are about the same for performance and value.
When you run a few benchmarking programs though, like Sandra, Doom 3,
encoding, etc., performance is noticeably higher. Yeah, it's only a
measly 5-10% faster, but I was shopping for a high performance system
and I wanted that extra bit of performance for my dollar.
Of course I don't recommend this choice for most users though, because
they would be happy with the performance and features they get from the
name brands. What they lack in performance, they gain in customer
support and bonus software.
It's all a trade-off really.
