I and others have posted when Staples ran specials on variants of this machine a few times, before at $399.98. It's a healthy cut above the Duron/Celeron entry level machines, and it has the added advantage of HP's tech support, which I've always found to be excellent.
Here's info updated from one of my previous posts:
Compaq Presario CQ60-210US
$399.98 After $30 Easy Rebate
SKU: 773768
AMD Athlon X2 QL-62 2.0G
2GB RAM
250GB hard drive
15.6" screen
DVD super Multi
media reader
Vista Home Premium
More recently, they offered essentially the same machine with 4GB of RAM and a burner not spec'd with LightScribe as model CQ60-21
2US for the same price. This is the version with 2GB of RAM. It's still a great machine for the price, and if you need it, you can bump it to 4GB whenever you find the next deal 2 x 2 GB sticks of RAM.
Specs from HP/Compaq:.
Product Name: CQ60-210US
Product Number: NB275UA#ABA
For those who prefer XP,
XP driver info from HP forums. AFIK, the only incorrect listing or bad link on the page is for the Realtek USB 2.0 Card Reader Driver because the driver from forum list, version 3.0.1.4, has been replaced by
ver. V6.0.6000.92 from realtek.com. I found the same driver version on HP/Compaq's site, but their version only lists Vista while Realtek's is spec'd for XP, as well.
HP/Compaq no longer includes a restore disk set with their machines. Instead, the system allows you to burn ONE set of restore DVD's or CD's. It requires three blank DVD's or 11 - 12 CD's. If you intend to do this, as always, the FIRST thing you should do is burn the restore disk set so you can return the machine to its original setup if you need it or if you later want to give/sell it to someone else.
See my
previous HD thread about this machine and
Allisolm's thread about the
CQ60-212US (same machine with more RAM and bigger HD) for more discussion and comments from those who bought these machines.
The lingering side question I've had is whether this machine could be
converted to a Hackintosh. Post on up if you have that info.