Compaq Presario CQ5500F Desktop PC – Black

July 15, 2010 | By In Technology |

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1 Comment so far

  1. I. J. Barker on July 15th, 2010

    Well I just received this computer about two days ago, but despite this, I think I can make a pretty good assessment about its pros and cons thus far. I’ll begin by saying that from an aesthetic viewpoint, this computer looks very nice. The case itself is matte, but the front bezel itself is a nice, glossy finish that really does look nice, all things considered. It has two USB 2.0 ports on the front as well as jacks for both headphones and a microphone, so no need to reach around to the back of the unit if you don’t feel like it. Oh yes, just so you’re not as confused as I was at first, the power button is technically located on what would be your right hand side if the computer’s front is facing you, situated near the top of the case. The button is illuminated by a somewhat irritating bright blue LED, a lighting choice that seems to have become popular in the computer market these days, so it’s kind of a take it or leave it thing depending on how you feel about such. The only ridiculous part of the external design is, in my opinion, the terribly designed bay for the DVD reader. A plastic flap obscures the drive itself, and to open it, one presses a silver button directly underneath this flap. Now this is all fine and dandy until you try to use it: would a nuclear power plant have a computer monitoring the reactor that is rendered inoperable after turning it on? The same issue takes place here–the plastic flap actually flips over the button itself after opening, making it a totally unnecessary fiasco to press the button again to let the drive read a placed disc.

    The hardware itself is decent; nothing mindblowing in this box to be sure. Two gigs’ worth of DDR3 memory should give this computer some decent punch, but why not upgrade to four and max out its potential? The PSU is 250 watts, I believe. This should be enough to power everything on board adequately, but in case you were intending to add a second hard drive or add a graphics card, upgrading the power supply may be wise. In any case, it only comes with two power couplings for SATA-type devices, both of which are already in use by the hard drive and DVD drive. It does have some older MOLEX-type adaptors, however, and the motherboard hosts one IDE slot. I do have to mention that the power supply is kind of a pain in the rear to remove, though. The box also hosts one PCI slot, two PCI-e and one PCI-e16, I think. I’ll verify this later. Graphics are integrated–not what you would want for gaming, but I find they’re adequate enough to play PoxNora online with minimal hiccups, so it can carry you through in many cases. Processor is an AMD Sempron, which is a lower level unit, although it’s definitely strong enough to run Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit without any issue. I’m having the hardest time finding out what’s the biggest processor the motherboard will take, however; even the HP website and several manuals I’ve read thus far seem not to be willing to divulge this useful bit of knowledge. Overall, though, I think I can recommend this one as a purchase, especially for this ridiculously low price.

    ***EDIT*** They (Amazon) just lowered this PC’s price to under $300. I’m not sure if that means I bought a lemon, but this is a definite must buy if you need decent computing power and the latest Windows OS at a price so low it could be called criminal. Just remember that Windows7 Home Premium does have some compatibility problems with older programs…to remedy this, you will need to change to either Professional or Ultimate.
    Rating: 4 / 5

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