fbpx

HP Compaq Presario B1200 (HP B1256TU)

Since I first bought the Compaq Presario V3000 over a year ago, I’ve been a fan of HP’s line of laptops. So, after selling off that old model, I went back and got an almost similar but lighter version — the Compaq Presario HP B1256TU.

At a smaller form factor, the Compaq Presario’s 12.1″ screen is as clear and bright as the v3000 series. The screen real estate still supports up to 1280×800 pixels, powered by a embedded Intel GMA X3100 graphics hardware.

Compaq Presario B1200

It’s lighter too — 1.79kg is just over 4 lbs. It’s not on the top end of HP (the tx2000 series is) but this rig has an Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 that runs at 2.0 GHz with a default 1024 MB (2x512MB) of RAM. The 160GB of HDD space and a DVD+RW puts it on the middle of the scale in storage space.

It’s almost complete in the connectivity department too — 3 USB ports, phone modem, Gigabit LAN port, S-Video out, VGA out, Bluetooth and an SD-MMC card reader. There’s a built-in 1.3 megapixel webcam too.

The external controls for the 802.11 b/g/n WiFi is also on top of the full keyboard along with speaker switch and volume control.

The speakers are now situated at the bottom front of the laptop, along with the mic and headphone jack.

This model is actually an old one and costs about Php90k when it first came out last year. It has since dropped to just over Php55k. It’s a good deal, IMO.

The drawback though is that they come out of the box with Windows Vista Home Premium and they don’t allow a free downgrade to Windows XP. That makes the default 1GB RAM enough to run the system comfortably. Worse, upgrading the memory to 2GB will require you to buy new 2 x 1GB RAM sticks and take home the 2x512MB that originally came with it. Despite the drawbacks, the recent price downgrade still makes it a good buy.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 984 other subscribers
Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

64 Responses

  1. Avatar for Abe Olandres Abe Olandres says:

    @edelweiza – the Core Duo version which is 1.73GHz with 512MB of RAM is just 30k+.

  2. Avatar for edelweiza edelweiza says:

    is that still available in the market? im planning to buy a laptop this month. i want value, performance and mobility and it seems this laptop has them all. plus it’s a 12-incher already. do you think the price has dropped to 30k now (my budget)? :)

  3. Avatar for Squall Squall says:

    this will fight well with XPS M1330 geforceM 8400 GS.

    advice: dont be fooled with dedicated GPU on laptop.

    GPUs are for desktop fot this time.

  4. Avatar for Lucien Tiojanco Lucien Tiojanco says:

    I wanted to get the one without Windows on it but I found out that these laptops uses Broadcom WiFi chips on them instead of Intel branded ones, meaning they’re very non-Linux friendly…

  5. Avatar for dEyv dEyv says:

    hi yuga!

    do you happen to know where to download HP webcam driver? i have presario b1265tu but i cant find any device driver for the webcam. tried the HP pavilion webcam driver but it didnt work. i cant find any drivers in their website and their email support provided me a link where to download it but it didnt work. HP webcam has a yellow question mark in device manager. i have windows vista. hope you can help.

    Thanks!

  6. Avatar for Jane Jane says:

    I just saw one at V-Mall selling for about 36k. But it’s only 512 MB RAM, 80GB HDD, no OS. Adding 1GB RAM is additional P800. They tell me speakers are Altec Lansing. So, is that ok for the price or not?

  7. Avatar for Vhone Vhone says:

    I need help regarding connection of my sony DR-BT30QA bluetooth headphones, i cannot use it to my compaq presario B1200, i can pair it to the computer`s built in bluetooth, but i cannot make the music goes out on the headphones… please teach me… thanks

  8. Avatar for Jejomar Bongat Jejomar Bongat says:

    Last Thursday I got my HP Pavillon dv2715nr. It was bought in the USA because it’s just a gift from an aunt.

    No problems with the hardware at all but IE7 crashes when I download Firefox.

    Fortunately I got a friend to e-mail the installer so I’m now using Firefox and so far I’m not having problems anyway.

    By the way, where is the HP service center here in the Philippines? I need to know JIC. Thanks. :D

  9. Avatar for Jerald Jerald says:

    What is your opinion on Acer asphire’s new line of laptops? with the same specs, you can get it at 35-40k.I bought an ACer asphire 4290 i think, 160GB, dual core, 1.8Ghz, 2Gig ram, other specs same as this. So far, its running so smooth.Impressive screen resolution and color. Only drawback that I can see is its shared video memomry. But there are other models that have dedicated memory and still price is lower than 50K. never experienced any hang-ups after playing several games. I don’t know what are its drawbacks, maybe you have reviewed them already.

  10. Avatar for Showbiz Intriga? Get It From Boy! Showbiz Intriga? Get It From Boy! says:

    why is your feed entitled “why showbiz blogs rule the blogosphere” (or something)?..no pun intended? just kidding..

    how much is this one?

  11. Avatar for minor minor says:

    Off the topic:

    Pls vote Chocolate Hills and Tubbataha Reefs for New 7 Wonders of Nature, to vote click here

  12. Avatar for Abe Olandres Abe Olandres says:

    @BrianB, I called almost all of them last week. Others could not say when the next shipping will arrive and when it does, there’s only 1 unit lang per store.

  13. Avatar for BrianB BrianB says:

    MacBook Ar. I don’t know why you just didn’t try megamall. I saw one on display at a shop window. That was like 3 days ago.

  14. Avatar for AnitoKid AnitoKid says:

    Will do, kabayan! Will do! :)

    .

  15. Avatar for Abe Olandres Abe Olandres says:

    @jhay, after 2 weeks of hunting for a Macbook Air, still nada. Even went straight to the distributor.

    @anitokid, hey! send my congrats to her!

  16. Avatar for kates kates says:

    Yeah! Compaq. For non-mac laptop, I would definitely go for HP products. I was using my compaq r3000 as my main development machine and it survived the abuse for 4 years.

  17. Avatar for AnitoKid AnitoKid says:

    Hi Abe!

    Just sharing some good news, my friend!

    Remember my daughter? She had a pic-op with
    you at Bloggers Kapihan at Phi-Sci?

    Link is here:
    http://anitokid.blogspot.com/2007/09/first-bloggers-kapihan-series-at.html

    Guess what, Abe! She just graduated at the top of her class! VALEDICTORIAN!

    Pics here, my friend.
    http://anitokid.blogspot.com/2007/09/first-bloggers-kapihan-series-at.html

    All the best!

    AnitoKid

  18. Avatar for jhay jhay says:

    Still no MacBook? :P

  19. Avatar for BrianB BrianB says:

    Yeah, great deal. But it’s not a full keyboard as it does not have number keys. But still a nice buy though it’s a Compaq.

  20. Avatar for Jomark Osabel Jomark Osabel says:

    Nice lappy. I’m thinking of upgrading my core duo laptop. Have to do more research.

    By the way, do this laptop includes a firewire?

Leave a Reply
JOIN OUR TELEGRAM DISCUSSION

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *