Compaq NX9600

Reviewed by: Underworld1020

Duration of ownership: 1 Year

Strengths: -Large Screen -Hard Drive Capacity(100 GB) -DVD Burner -Full Keyboard -All Sorts of Drives -Easy Access to Hard Drive, RAM, Battery -Quality Speakers -Easy Access Buttons

Weaknesses: -Runs Very Hot(If your gaming you'll need to buy a cooling pad) -Fans Are In Bad Positions(Bottom and back, so you'll need to be on a hard/flat surface) -Battery Last About 1 Hour -Loud/Heavy/Large -Hard Drive Speed(Only 5400 RPM) -NOT as fast as you'd think! Don't expect it to be fast! -Only a 128 MB Graphics Card -Extremly Hard to Disassemble and Access Componets -Certain Markings Ware Off(plus/minus signs, mousepad marking)

Overall Evaluation: When I purchased the product a year ago, I thought it was great. But, I soon realized that it wasn't that great at all. The 3.6 GHZ is very misleading, its not really fast at all. I'm not sure exactly what the bottleneck is yet. At first I thought it was the 5400 RPM hard drive, so I put in a 7200 RPM, and seen very little performance increase. Then I thought maybe it was because it was too hot(an average of 59 degrees celceius for the HD), so I bought a cooling pad. It lowered the average HD temp to about 54-55 degrees celceius, but not much performance increase. There's a bottleneck somewhere, but I'm not sure what it is yet. Overall I think this product sounds great, but it doesn't deliver what you'd expect. I'd look elsewhere if I had another chance.