All right. I bought myself a new laptop. It’s Compaq Presario Laptop with AMD Athlon X2 QL-62 Dual-Core Processor. As you can see in this post, my laptop (Toshiba Satellite) crashed and I restored the factory default. Toshiba worked fine but it was about time to be replaced. So, I did a quick search on the internet and picked this one. Ideally, I wanted to get one with Windows XP but all new laptops seem to be loaded with Vista. The specs of Presario seem to fit my needs at this time. When I bought Toshiba, I was traveling regularly, so the size and the weight were my major factors. But not now. I wanted an affordable laptop that’s reliable and more RAM and disk space. My Compaq Presario comes with:

• AMD Athlon™ X2 QL-62* dual-core processor
• 2GB DDR2 memory (expandable to 4GB)
• Multiformat DVD±RW/CD-RW drive with double-layer support
• 15.6″ WXGA widescreen display with BrightView technology
• 250GB SATA hard drive (5400 rpm)
• NVIDIA GeForce 8200M graphics
• Integrated microphone
• 5-in-1 media reader
• 3 high-speed USB 2.0 ports
• Built-in high-speed wireless LAN (802.11b/g)
• Built-in 10/100Base-T Ethernet LAN
• Weighs 6.5 lbs. and measures just 1.7″ thin
• Good battery life of up to 2 hours and 30 minutes
• Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1) preinstalled

So far so good. It’s not sluggish as I was afraid. The screen is wide and bright. I need to test the battery life, though. Overall, I am very pleased with this purchase as it was only $429.00 at BestBuy.

Considering I paid over $1,100 for my old Toshiba, it was a good deal.

One thing to note is that this laptop comes with 32bit version of Windows Vista. I have a friend who bought a higher-end Compaq Presario with 64bit Vista, and she’ been having problems installing her old software. So far, all the software I have got installed without problems on my new laptop.