See i have had bad things happen when i have a compaq frist one i got the mother borad crashed but that only had a 14 gb hard drive and not even a gb of ram and runing on SD ram this compaq i am using right now is a compaq evo with a duel hard drive which equal 70 GB and runing on 2 Gb of DDR2 ram
It's like how Gateway also makes eMachines: Compaq is to HP as eMachines is to Gateway. They're the budget, cheap, throwaway brand. Built to sell, then replace in a year or two. Just like an Acer. So, for quality: don't go Compaq. For quick, cheap, short-lasting power, go Compaq.
I've only really seen HP, somewhat, and Compaq, especially, computers dying lately. It may be just an isolated trend, but it seems the whole DVX000 series and VX000 series likes to bite the shitter nice and early... I've got a Compaq Pissario... er... Pressario... sitting in my closet, that's been there since 2006 when it crapped out, and an HP DV1000 that's been sitting there since 2006 [near winter] when it crapped out on someone [a different person.] Before then I had a Compaq Armada 1750, which was a decent machine, but that was back before HP turned Compaq into the Budget Brand of laptop. I also had an Acer from nov. 2007 that felt the need to shit out on me the next year, Oct. 2008. I kinda knew not to expect much out of it [I bought it used because the screen was cracked, but other than that it was pretty much brand new], since it was an Acer, but DAMN! One year?
For real durability, and a nice quality long-lasting laptop, I'd have to say go IBM if you can afford it.
I've had a thinkpad T22 since a while back, and it hasn't crapped out on me yet [well, it has a new owner now, but it still runs just fine.] Then, when I upgraded to my T42, it ran just fine untill about two days ago [but I have reason to believe that my brother sat on the backpack it was in, so if that's the case, of course it's gonna be dead... Motherboard problem. Screen is still fine, though.] So, most reliability I've seen so far? Thinkpad. All the way.
