Compaq presario 5702f desktop computer Review

The low cost Presario is in Compaq's budget "SR" line of  PCs. The no frills chassis echoes our excitement about the internal components; the system features a 2.5GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800 CPU, 2GB of RAM, an integrated Nvidia graphics chip, a single 320GB hard drive, and 32-bit windows vista home Premium.

The stock configuration leaves scant room for upgrades. To its credit, the Presario SR5610f is simple and affordable, The SR5610f tower is simple, with very light design touches, including a silver-sparkle finish wrapped around the front panel. The dual layer DVD lives on top of the faceplate and a space is available directly below it for another IDE-loading hard drive. Toward the bottom of the tower, you'll find two USB 2.0 ports and a couple of audio jacks for a stereo mic and a set of headphones. Unfortunately, the Presario misses a step by omitting a front-mounted media-card reader, 

The Presario's components will limit you to the most basic applications, word processing, and Web browsing, . You do get two PCI slots as well as an open PCIe slot for an aftermarket video card in the Compaq, but it lacks additional SATA ports and both DIMM slots are already filled with two memory sticks. If you want to add more memory in the future, plan on sacrificing at least one gigabyte stick of RAM. Given the low-end parts, you'd likely be better off saving for a faster PC than spending the money on upgrading this system.

The Compaq Presario comes with HP's Total Care Advisor software, a customizable desktop toolbar that constantly feeds you system-resource information, shopping information, and purchase recommendations, and support for troubleshooting minor issues. In addition, Compaq includes a one-year limited warranty that includes 24-7 phone and online-chat support. You can also upgrade your warranty with different packages to increase coverage for two or three additional years. There's also HP's Total Care Extended Service Plan with Next-Day Exchange that gives you exactly what it says: more service and next day delivery of your replacement computer. Finally, technical support is conveniently available in either English or Spanish.