HP Envy 15 - Personal Customer Service Experience

I wanted to share my recent experience with HP and to serve as a warning for anyone else planning on checking out the hp envy 15. I was one of the first to buy the envy from the day it was launched back in fall of last year, but had to return it due to a bad gpu. That was fine and the return went alright, and I ordered the 2nd gen one the day it was announced as well and I got it with the new core i5 processor and matte screen. The laptop was delayed in its delivery like many of the other members here and I got it around the beginning of February (so about a 1 month delay). Of course HP had no problem in charging me within hours of me placing the order and 1 month out from when I would actually receive it due to their own delays.

Since then it had been running just fine for the most part, with just a lot of heat build-up when playing any sort of game. Eventually however there seems to have been some longer-term repercussions due to the heat, namely that the edges started to expand out and peel away from the case. This led to the edges starting to chip off (I'm talking about the bright silver plastic edge that outlines the laptop). I published an early review for the envy 15 for the first gen model in case you wanted pictures of the palmrest edges. I could clearly see in at least one corner that due to heat build-up it seemed as though the adhesive that was holding the plastic edge to the main case was getting loose and as a result of the plastic was bulging out.

I called HP and promptly received a box to pack it up and sent it over to them and that was where I learned what people complain about when they say terrible hp customer service. They basically told me it was physical damage, and I took photographs to show them that the glue was indeed coming off but they wouldn't hear any of it. First of all the HP manager refused to acknowledge anything I said, and basically told me their technicians decided it was physical damage and that was the end of it. I was basically not allowed to talk about my findings or suspicions or even discuss the idea and was flat out told I would either have to pay several hundred dollars for the repair (which I think is sort of too much to begin with) or have it sent back to me. I personally have never dealt with customer service this rude and just completely unwilling to even listen to what I have to say. They immediately claimed it was my fault without reason or explanation for that conclusion and actually talked over me and swiftly ended the call when I tried to ask if they could check the heat damage.

My personal goal is to get rid of this laptop as quickly as I can and just warn others that are considering the hp envy 15. It really is a nice laptop, but with the heat issues I've experienced and the absolutely horrible customer service I would strongly advise you to steer in a different direction. I've had good luck with dell in the past and I should have known better than to give hp a chance just because of the envy. I hope the rest of you who bought it are enjoying your purchases without any problems, but I hope this serves as a warning for you should you have to deal with hp customer service and also to other potential buyers. I understand experiences will vary, but just wanted to throw in a longer-term experience story for anyone who's really researching this laptop. In my review I may have said it's a great buy, but after everything I've gone through I definitely have changed that position entirely.

 

I appreciate the warning. After a relatively positive past experience with Dell (m1330 overheating, two motherboard RMAs, turnaround ~4 days maximum) I'm starting to second guess the decision to go with the HP Envy given the horror stories I've read about their customer support. I thought the $20 delay rebate was absurd considering Dell gave me several more substantial discounts during my RMAs that were 6 and 12 months after the purchase date; $100 off, free printer, etc.

Problem is, if I do cancel, I'm afraid it would be impossible to find equal value from an alternative $1,000 (with coupon) laptop so I'm crossing my fingers and knocking on wood in hopes that I win the laptop lottery.

 

Who took your case? I found out that the CM's who work with the extension number 19 to be the nicest ones to work with. As you may have heard that I am getting a replacement and 50% off of an extended in-home warranty from my CM over my Envy's damage from their technicians during two repair sessions with it. She offered me the replacement before I said anything on the terms of what I want out of the situation.

PS: My Envy (the original one) was also brought on EBay, which usually red-flag the CSR's and Managers to pretty much blame it on me in the form of talk to your reseller. I think the CSR's and Support Teams are being arrogant and rude to people who brought their Envys during that blowout sale a few weeks back, since all the recent wave of lemons and disappointments are coming from that user base and that batch of Envys made during early to mid-April.

 

This laptop is like a mobile soap opera, and I haven't even gotten mine!

Sorry to hear that, Genryu. I would in your case look into a charge back on the credit card. After you get the charge back and HP comes calling for the laptop, tell them they can send a rep TO YOUR HOUSE to pick up the laptop and take it away / pack it or whatever. Don't even offer to waste your time with packing and shipping it. GL.

 

Yeah I think once I get it back I will take a look and make sure there was no actual damage done by their expert support staff during the "repair as strikesaber seemed to need to do.

I really was quite happy with the laptop and would've probably lived with the repairs so long as the customer service was up to par to back me up. I've barely had it a few months and I'm seeing problems on their "premium" laptop and the technicians I've spoken to have been nothing but rude. Sort of ruined the experience of owning this laptop for me to the extent that I'm getting ready to sell it and move on.

I hope things works out better for you okashira and niber and that you don't run in to any problems with yours because the HP CS is far from acceptable as it stands right now.

 

To be honest with you, HP Support is really a hit and miss kind of thing. I got lucky that HP is still playing in my favor, but to be honest with you, I might not get a future HP after the Envy 15 over the simple fact that the Envy experience I had so far has been sub-par to the price I paid for it. I might head back to Dell for my future laptop purchase. However, at least support is still decent enough that I still managed to be a respected customer and not being ignored and spat on. The important thing is you got to push the right buttons with the CSR's and call to the right CSR phone numbers. Calling HP Sales Team will lead you to disaster 80% of the time, while calling the Envy Support Line and trying to be persuasive in a nice and respectable tone will persuade the CSR to work with you, not against you most of the time. If you are really smooth with your concerns, you can push the case to a CM and if you called into a North American Tech Line, they will most likely give you a North American CM from Texas and they usually will work with you if you are nice and keep your cool.

However, I may be lucky that my situation has been much better than the situations of you and many other and that my next time around could be a bad one. It is really up to a bit of luck, planning and convincing to get HP Support on your side and not vice-versa, but for the majority of customers, they will get the hit or miss scenario where their experiences with HP is a good one or a really bad one.

With service aside, I find the Envy to be lackluster in quality and premium feel than with their products in the past and I have to agree with you that HP is losing their marbles on their products in the same way Dell used to be back in the mid 2000's (now they becoming better again in support and quality of products). I am sticking with the Envy for now but my future purchase might be with Dell or Lenovo, unless HP gets their game back in the next few years product-wise for the home consumer division.

 

Thanks for the warning. None of the 2 tech support or 1 sales rep I talked to were rude at all, they just didn't seem to "care" that they sent me a $1500 laptop that I couldn't even turn on. (well the screen). Even though nothing showed up on the screen, it did get EXTREMELY hot on the bottom, and it was an i5. I got it round the end of march, so it was prob. part of the problem batch, but I wonder if it would eventually had the same problems you had w/ long term damage from heat (had I gotten a replacement instead of a refund).

 

Nothing like having a premium experience with a premium product.......

 

I have not had any problems at all with the CSR's that I've ever interacted with for HP. I've used non Envy's in the past (an old 2800T that had WiFi problems - fixed with no problems or issues - has been working fine since then), an nw8000 that they went out of their way to help me out with (fall from a height cracked the LCD panel, and they still fixed it) to an 8510 that got "cooked" with a lightning strike, to this Envy 15 that had an issue with the slice battery.

I've never had any problems with their CSR's before.

There. One more single opinion to base a judgment on a computer purchase on.

I've heard and read that HP is, in fact, best in their support. I've also seen that they have some of the "worst" repair histories also. However, I've never had a (serious) problem with any of the laptops I've bought from HP.

Also keep in mind that in general, people's reviews on the internet are:

• This is the greatest product EVAR!
• This product is the WORST EVAR!!!11!

Ever notice that people never post "This product does what I want it to do, no more and no less".

 

Those people don't bother coming on Internet forums.

Take the recent $450 off coupon - what did it have, 1800 uses? And how many people here reported that they bought it? Six? Seven? And of those, three had problems?

Trying to get a good statistical picture of the laptop market is very difficult because there isn't much reliable data out there. The only consistent fact -- and this is true of just about any large company you deal with in life -- is that, if you have been wronged and you politely but firmly escalate your issue, you will be taken care of. In my own experience, that's certainly been true of both Dell and HP.

These forums are great for learning that you should look out for specific problems. They're less great for trying to form an opinion about a company or a product as a whole, because -- as you said -- you get mostly the two extreme, and therefore statistically useless ends of the bell curve showing up here.

There are plenty of really great people here who aren't on either extreme ... just gotta learn to look for 'em.

 

No company mentioned in this thread is perfect. As an example and to prove that HP is not always the devil and Dell a saint, i've had nothing but good experiences with HP customer support with my Envy and previous HP laptops, whereas Dell has been on national television here because of their inexplicable bad customer service in Scandinavian countries.
I'm not trashing on Dell but merely trying to say that one bad experience with a company, being that Dell or HP doens't mean all CSR's are bad although some of them clearly are.

 

I definitely agree with many of the posts made here already, this is just my personal story based on repeated experience with the HP customer service and likely does not at all reflect on their overall quality as a company. I had hoped more to draw attention to potential problems new owners may face with the envy 15 specifically, related to heat issues and otherwise, that customer service might be more difficult to negotiate with over. I really do hope that no one who has purchased this laptop encounters any problems and that they are happy with their purchases. Still there are some obvious design shortcomings I feel with the envy 15 that I have personally experienced, and I would not recommend the envy 15 to others until such issues have been addressed properly by HP. My problems may be isolated regarding the heat problems, but I have seen others talk about very high temperatures in prior postings, and am worried the heat expansion cracking I've experienced may eventually result for others.

 

As a long long time Dell user (last one was an m1330), having pissed me off with their customer service, I decided to get the Envy 15.

Performance-wise, its top-notch. But the heat issue for this thing is THE ABSOLUTE WORST I have EVER experienced on ANY laptop, including a long line of Dells, Asus, Lenovos, etc. Right now it approaches close to 110-130+ degrees Farenheit just running *any* game. Its ridiculous!!!

I will NEVER EVER get another HP laptop. I gave them this chance by getting what I thought was a premium system (Envy 15 i7 with 8gigs memory).

Battery life on this thing is also atrocious! I can not get more than 1hr on this thing, whereas my old dell m1330 dual-core (I know its a different class of laptop) but I frequently get 2-3hrs on the regular and 4+ on the ext battery.

 

110-130 F is normal operation on many high-end laptops (54 C is really good for any laptop running on load). Heat gets bad when you hit over 80 Celsius (176 F). So I have to disagree with you there on your judgement of heat on the Envy. In addition, i7 Quads in general are very hot chips for any laptop. I don't recommend them on Envys if you want a cool system, hence why I stuck with the Core i5 (MUCH Cooler system than the i7's). Also, i7 Quads kill battery life as well over the i5's and this is for any Core i7 laptop from any brand. You are blaming the wrong thing here. HP didn't do anything wrong as the heating problems are mostly caused by the Core i7's. In addition, the Envy has one of the best cooling system around for handling the Core i7 in such a form factor. If I was you, you should consider returning it for a i5 Envy and you will realize the difference.

HP is to blame for many manufacturing defects on the Envy, which they are fixing and the recent batches of Envys made are getting better and better in quality. However regarding with your concern, they are not to blame at all. Instead you are dealing with an already known issue of the Core i7 Quad in general.