Cheap material on DV4000 and DV1000?

I'm pretty upset at the quality of the materials in my DV4000. After only about 2.5 months of use, my notebook already looks quite old. Most of the keys of my keyboard and touchpad have become worn out and look shiny and so does the plastic near the touchpads. This makes the notebook look quite older than it already is and I've heard similar complaints of this with some DV1000 owners. Is this problem just in these notebooks or in basically all notebooks? Because I remember having my Fujitsu Lifebook P5020 for a while and none of the keys or anything ever became worn out and glossy. Or am I just paranoid?


Can other people who have had their DV1000s and DV4000s for at least a couple of months please report their experiences with this?

 

Hey rahul if you could post a few pictures, that would be great.

I had my HP zv5000z for about a year before I unloaded it, and the keyboard was pretty shiny, but not that bad, or not to the extent you speak of. When I looked at the newer HP's (zv6000), I was depressed with the drop in quality - much thinner plastic, and they keys weren't as heavy duty in the keyboard.

Two friends of mine have dv1000's - I'll ask them about their experience.

 

Thanks a lot, I'm sorry but I don't have a camera......yet. I'm a pretty poor guy.

 

May be this is accross all recent HP/Compaq series laptops. On my V2000z I see little shine on heavily used keys in 10 weeks. Ofcourse I have been using this for work since 6 weeks, so 10+ hours of typing everyday( At my new work we need to have our own laptop as consultants. At my previous work place I used to have atleast 3 laptops at any time all provided by Office,couple of Latitudes, PowerBook G4, and a Think Pad.)

I did not observe the same wear on my Previous Toshiba after 2 years. But my Dell Lattitude showed some wear after couple of years.

Anyways, I am not really worried about it and it is not that visible on V2000z gray keyboard. ofcourse it will be more visible on a black keyboard.

 

I too have the V2000Z and not the DV1000, but I haven't noticed any noticeable wear after two months of heavy use. I use my laptop for work and personal use, which is at least 10 hours per day. I rarely use my touchpad but I do type extensively and can say that my laptop looks pretty new. Of course I do take good care of it, basically wiping it down once a week.

 

On V2000z it is not that visible. If you look at an angle you will see the shine on those heavily used keys. On black keyboards it is more visible.

So one more point to gray keyboard( one for more visible in low light)

 

Yeah, I do type very heavily on my keyboard and yeah, black keyboards will worn worn out much faster that lightly colored ones like white.

 

Do you eat/drink when you use your laptop? This can create the keys/touchpad to become quite shiny (my friend made a dumb error of eating McDonald's french fries and typing - his keyboard/touchpad looked liked they had aged 5 years in 30 minutes!). Anyway, I would suggest keeping the keyboard as clean as possible, by wiping down after use once in awhile.

 

It's pretty common to all notebook keyboards that are heavily used; it's inevitable... all keyboards will show wear - it's just a matter of how much you use it.

I've had my Asus Z63a for about 3 weeks now...the keys are just starting to look a little shiny. Overall, they still look quite new though...but I can see the "shine" starting to develop on most of the keys and part of the spacebar.

I wouldn't worry about it...your notebook is a tool! Tools are meant to be used.

 

This is the price you pay for getting a lower cost notebook.

 

Yes, that is true. Typing with oily hands make it bad.

I did not wipe it even once ( only wiped screen once as my 2 year old daughter tested her thumb prints all over glossy screen!!) sofar in 2 1/2 months... I am too lazy :-<

 

Well, I wouldn't say the HP dv4000 is a bad notebook that's cheaply and shoddily built. You can buy a ThinkPad for around $700 and they have great keyboards/build quality. On the other hand there are cheap notebooks for the same price that have horrible keyboards/build quality, so it all depends.

 

I agree. By comparison my Thinkpad R51 (which I guess would be IBM's low-end) is going on 18 months of everyday use and the keyboard shows very little signs of wear - a few of the keys are beginning to "shine" - and the palm rest not at all.

 

18 month of pain from the poor quality screen. I don't care as much for a quality of plastic as for screen quality (brightness, sharpness, viewing angles) and IBM is horrible in my book.

 

I have had my dv4000 since 10/15 and it shows no wear. The only thing I see is some oil on the keyboard from my hands but just a slightly damp cloth and now it looks new again.

 

I've had my Dv4000 since early October (bought it the first day it came out with the X700). I use it alot, many hours each day and lots of writing. No sign of wear yet. But, I don't eat whil I'm using it and try to be aware of keeping my hands clean (I rarely get colds or flu either...directly related).

 

I never eat near my notebook and my hands have always been squeaky clean as well when using my DV4000.

 

I wasn't intimating that you did Rahul, sorry if it sounded that way.