HP Evo N620c user reviews (Pentium M 1.4 GHz, 256 MB RAM, 40 GB HDD)

Pros Rigidity
Style
Upgradeability
Durabilty

Cons Speakers
Thick Multi-port

Summary I finally have to upgrade my Compaq Evo N620c?s. They have been so good I felt obligated to post my experience with these over the past 7 year.

That is a long time to have a computer. I have gone through a lot of others (Dell, Toshiba, HP) over the years, but I always held on to these. The first thing that attracted me to the Evo N620c is the style. Not usually the best way to pick out a new computer, but I really liked the clean,compact style with the chrome and silver accents and the blue buttons. It?s not flashy (which is a good thing), but when you look at the details, it's classy in an Armani suit kind of way. I'll agree, it sounds silly. I really like the feel of the texture too. I also liked how when you picked it up from the corner there?s no chassis flex. It is rock solid. The Cnet reviewer said there was too much keyboard flex; I assume he had a pre-production laptop. There is no keyboard flex in either of mine. The palm rest and keyboard equal that of the leader in this area, the ThinkPad (not the new ones, there not as good). The reviewer also mentioned problems with the multi-bay optical drive fitting properly, again, must have been pre-production.

On one of mine I put a 2.0GHz processor, 2GB RAM, a 1600GB 7,200 RPM hard drive and a DVD burner in it. It easily keeps up with much newer laptops. And this thing does not get hot. I am also running Windows 7 Professional without any problems except no Aero, and the quick access buttons do not work (no supported driver).

When I bought them I saw the complaints about no FireWire so I bought a FireWire PC card; I have never used it.
I did buy the advanced port replicators (which has a firewire jack, but only works if the laptop has it). These are very nice, and I will never have another laptop without one. Having the additional multi-bay drives makes it very easy to copy discs or for back-ups (I have the 2.5" HDD caddy that slips into the port replicator).
In the laptop you can also hot-swap the DVD drive with the HDD caddy, which I found very useful. I also have the multi-bay battery that extends the use of the laptop to over 5 hours.

The computer is not perfect though. The speakers are terrible. The reviewer got it right when he said they go louder than they should. I also don?t like how thick the multi-port WiFi is. I use a wireless N pc card now. And I wish it had a mute button. That?s about it.

If I didn?t need newer, more powerful machines for certain applications I run, these would still be my main computers. But it?s time to retire them. One to the guest room for visitors to use, and one might get donated.

Pros This is Very Fast. I use it for Audio and Video Encoding, Decoding, Editing, etc.

Cons Does not have FireWire (I use a PCMCIA Card) and Wireless (Currently using Linksys USB54GC). Don't have a DVD Burner (I purshased it and have a second drive (Lite-On DX20A4H)).

Summary This is Very Fast (At least for me). I'm using Linux now and it is performing excellent. It also works perfectly on Video Editing and it is fast on video Encodings. I'm currently using a Western Digital 2.5 250GB HDD and I have a transfer rate of up to 25MB/s. I Would Recommend this for everyone to do simple tasks and for encodings.

Pros Great keyboard, good screen resolution. Cheap Pentium M option. Simple but striking looks.

Cons External Multiport wifi, needs better gpu,

Summary This is a solid utility laptop which can still hold it's own despite being equipped with yesterday's technology. It is a testament to how revolutionary the Pentium M processor is, where even the older Banias cores still run many contemporary without problem. The bottleneck of this machine is obviously the gpu. While the Radeon 7500 is respectable, it is still inferior to many machines equipped with more robust video cards such as the radeon 9xxx series that come with dell latitudes at a similar price range. Still, this is a great first or second hand laptop and will serve well in a you well in several tasks.

The keyboard is a joy to type on, and the screen resolution is surprisingly high for it's size, with some models equipped to be comfortably viewed at 1440x1050.

Wifi does not come standard, however, and the unit does run a little hot.

Pros The Evo notebook is a great buy, many great features. But no DVD/RW option. The one I have right now is 1.6 Ghz Processor, 512MB , 60 GB hard drive with DVD-CD/RW and works great so far. Battery life is about 4-4.5 hours depending on applications used. Th

Cons No firewire, no 802.11 b/g, older video card on most models.