i am looking at buying a new laptop and have seen a compaq cq56 156sa and a hp g56 106sa. i have heard that compaqs are unreliable even though it it slightly cheaper than the hp
any advice plz?

Well, since HP now owns Compaq, most of the parts are probably shared so not sure there would be any difference in reliability. I would enter the brand and model numbers in Google along with the word, "review" and see what is said. Don't pay a lot of attention to user reviews, unless everyone has the same complaint, indicating a trend.