Just wondering who is still using their Compal CL56 notebook these days. I bought one in the fall of 2004. I used it solid for almost 1 year in school until it was stolen (From my house).

After it was stolen I purchased and Asus W5Ae, which was great but i found it a little bit small. I then moved up to an Asus W3J and then as a spare a Z62F.

Just last week I found a Cl56 on ebay in Canada (Where i'm located) for a really good deal ($400) I found out that I really missed this laptop. Even though it is a bit dated now 2 years or so even compared to the newest notebooks other than dual core cpu's and a bit faster gpu's its still an awesome laptop. I'm quite impressed with the longevity of this particular notebook. The screen is great its not the truebrite or anything fancy but the 1400x1050 resolution is great to work with. The GPU is still pretty impressive too (MR 9700) plays most games well and is comparable to the geforce 73/7400go. The battery life to is awesome checking in just over 4 hours.

Is anyone else still using their CL56 and what if any long term problems have you run in to?

PS I still have a spare battery from 2 years ago and it still works great

Any thread asking about the reliability of a model is welcomed here.

Ah... the memories... I found this site following rincewind's review link on Google, IIRC. When I bought mine, I was trying to decide between the CL56 and the Asus M6. Then, I remember the Sager 3790 (or a number close to this), but I was glad I didn't buy it when I saw the screen problems reported by drawmonster, I think.

I was going to buy the CL56 when I saw the screen comparision by some user here (again, I think it was drawmonster, not sure)... the viewing angles were terrible, compared to the other notebook (3790?). So, after that, I was going to buy the M6BNe (I think that's the correct name for the widescreen, 64mb 9700 version).

When I saw the Mitac, I was sure. That was it. 128mb of 9700 goodness, widescreen and thin. Of course, so much (lack of) thickness generate some heat, but it wasn't a huge deal for me...

So... I agree. The CL56 is a great notebook. In my opinion, that 2004 generation was really good (or perhaps I don't need top-notch hardware anymore. barely have time to play a game or two)... The hardware developed is still very, very usable today, don't you think?

LOL Silvr6, I just recently sold my CL56 to pixiektn a month or 2 ago for the price you were mentioning. Those were pretty good laptops for their time and still better than a lot of the cheapie, sub $700 laptops available now. I bought mine in Feb of 2005.

I originally wanted a Mitac 8050i like DDDa, but by the time I was ready to buy, all the Mitacs were out of stock or not being carried by most vendors.

The only problem I can think of was that the screen would rub up against the trackpad button and cause a patch of "sparkly" space on the matte screen. Oh yeah, I needed to have something serviced on it about 2 months after I bought it as it wouldn't POST. The vendor (Mwave) took care of it and had it turned around in about a week.