Product Ratings

Design:
Features:
Battery Life:
Size and weight:
Value for money:
Overall:

The COMPAQ Presario CQ56-251SA is a full size laptop with the modest of features at a price of a mini netbook. We could not find anything on this machine that impressed us except for the price which is well below £300, available from a number of online retailers in the UK.

If you look at the whole package considering its price, design and features then perhaps it does appear to be a smart combination put together by Comapq which offers a bit of everything.

It would be unfair to judge the CQ56-251SA laptop while expecting to find powerful features. Instead we must remember that this laptop has been designed to offer maximum value for money. In these difficult times its good to see a laptop manufacturer trying to offer innovative solutions with a different approach.

Despite the limitations it still offers a full size 15.6 inch Widescreen LCD, 2 GBs of Ram and a decent 250GB hard disk. Surprisingly, they have even managed to squeeze in an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 Graphics chip to deliver better multimedia. Now all of the above features put together this laptop is still far better than most netbooks.

The overall design is also pretty sleek and stylish which at a first glance comes across as a top quality laptop. It also pretty decent battery life of 6 hours which again can be matched with a netbook. Its not a laptop you could own and brag about but its a practical solution that offer good value for money. In short we think the CQ56-251SA laptop is simple, practical and highly affordable.

Laptop Specs

Processor: AMD V-series V160 processor – 2.4 GHz – 1.6 GHz HT – 512 KB L2 Cache – Single Core
Operating System: Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
RAM: 2 GB DDR3
Graphics card: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 Graphics – up to 893 MB shared graphics memory
Screen type: Widescreen LCD
Screen resolution: WXGA- 1366 x 768
Screen size: 15.6″
Screen features: High-Definition LED HP BrightView Display
Hard drive: 250 GB SATA, 5400 rpm
Optical disk drive: LightScribe SuperMulti DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support
Memory card reader: Multi-Format Digital Media Card Reader
USB: 3 x USB 2.0 ports
FireWire: No
Modem/Ethernet: Integrated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN
WiFi: 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth: No
Video interface: 1 x VGA
Audio interface: 1 x stereo headphone-out 1 x microphone-in
TV output: No
Extension card slot: No
Sound: Built-in speakers
Webcam: 1.3 mp webcam
Battery: - 6-cell Li-ion battery – up to 6 hours battery
Accessories included: Battery, power adaptor, documentation
Size: 374 x 246 x 32.8 mm (W x D x H)
Weight : 2.55 kg