Back in 2001?

Way back in 2001 my brother bought a Compaq Presario for around €1200-€1300..I would like to know if you guys think he was ripped off...these are the specs of the machine (its now broken down)

AMD Mobile Duron 1Ghz
256mb RAM
14.1" Screen
20GB Hard drive
DVD/CDRW Combo

He got it in CompuStore and we knew absolutely nothing about computers back then...he told them he was a noob and wanted something to play games on..I know for definite there was no way it could handle games even back then so thats why I'm wondering did he get a raw deal?

Ruu_Old

Because he bought it at Compustore.*shudder* Seriously they were a sham!

TerrorFirmer

The Duron 1Ghz and even 256mb would have been OK for games back in 2001, with the likes of Wolfenstein, Medal of Honor Allied Assault etc being the big releases, only requiring about 400mhz and 128mb of ram. It would all lie within the gfx card the laptop is running, as to whether it would have been able to play games at the time.

Still though, 1,200/1,300 for a 1Ghz Duron back then even is overpriced, but not a total rip off - again, it all depends on the graphics card...although I guess you must consider the Duron was rather like the Intel Celeron, but better to some extent. The fact it is a Duron CPU would suggest the gfx were weak integrated, which would have made gaming back then impossible more then likely. Compustore, however, were a shop specifically aimed at ripping people off if I ever saw one.

Why do you ask, anyway? Now that you mention it, I got an IBM back around the same time, with a similar spec, PIII 800Mhz, 192mb Ram, 8mb Rage Mobility, Dvd-rom, etc. Your spec listed there seems considerably decent for 2001, especially with a dvd-cdrw which weren't exactly standard (in laptops) at that time. I wouldn't say you were ripped off really, thats too strong a word. But I'd be interested to know what graphics card it had - the Duron cpu and ram were plenty for games of the time.

This is what the specs page lists under "Graphics"

4X AGP with VIA ProSavage KN133 Graphics
16 MB Video Memory (user upgradeable to 32 MB)

Capt'n Midnight

6 calander years,that's a lot of dogyears
or even more in laptop years considering how people treat them

I would not be in the least supprised if the battery and hard drive are dead, they wern't really designed to last this long. (subtle hint to other people with old laptops to backup and consider a newer drive)

Problem is that every 5 years processing power goes up by a factor of 10. In fact the month he got would matter, paying £1000 (€1270) for that in Janurary would have been a much better deal than the same price in December.

Since compustore have gone bust, your chances of getting your money back are kinda low.

TerrorFirmer

The problem at that time with games would have been the poor video card - the processor and memory would have been fine.