Both HP and Compaq computers are built by HP.  They have been getting some
bad press on reliability, but I bought a Compaq laptop one year ago and
have had no trouble with it at all.  Totally configuring any brand new
machine yourself though is not for the faint of heart.  I have found over
the years that it is nearly impossible to totally configure a machine with
out ever needing sighted assistance.  When the speech stops for some
reason, and it will, your sometimes stuck.  There are also many screen
reader related settings to the display, which if done improperly, will
cause you lots of frustration and time.  Still, I prefer to configure
myself too because the final result, though it takes a while, is exactly
what I want.  It is safe to say though that the machine will not perform
just like you want for at least a couple of months while you figure
everything out.

Good luck!
Bill
         At 11:07 PM 5/26/05 -0700, you wrote:
>I am trying to research computers.  I think I'd like to just get one off the
>shelf and add my window eyes screen reader, triple talk pc card, various
>applications and games.    I've heard bad things about compaq I think
>because of proprietary; I got burned out of ignorance on my last computer,
>especially where cache memory is concerned, bus clock 100, for example,  and
>the computer as a whole has never performed as it should.  I am not
>technical at all; I know the bus clock had something to do with speed of
>operation and was outdated.   I'm interested in high performance and as
>trouble free as one can expect these days.  Any suggestions are welcome.
>Any experiences with hp?  I'm thinking I remember reading some well known
>brand was going out of the pc business; that wasn't hp, was it?
>
>
>dory
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>
>
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VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html