My personal experiences with HP/Compaq

I'll review a bit about HP/Compaq, the Build-Quality and the Support, maybe it's helpful for someone.

I have the Presario 705ea, 1GHz Mobile Athlon, pretty ancient machine but eversince I bought it, 2 and a half years ago, it was always stable and did it's work well. The battery is also still in perfect condition: I didn't experience any loss of batterylife, but I'm actually someone who takes the battery out while being at home and I guess that helps a lot.


So much about the Pros, now the cons: The notebook was a good middle-class one when I bought it, but the build quality turned out to be pretty low:

1. The keyboard's surface got polished by my fingertips after one year of daily usage and now it feels pretty greasy and nasty. I don't like it, but I also don't know if other keyboards are better.

2. The plastic-coating got small cracks near to the tft-hinge. I don't do anything brutal to the notebook, it seems to just be badly constructed. This also happened with the replaced TFT.

3. Worse than that was a problem that began with these little lashes on the back of the notebook. There were two 2cm plastic lashes with which you were able to elevate the notebook a bit to keep it from overheating. I loved these lashes, but they weren't stable and broke after a while. Repairing was useless, so from that day on the notebook lay directly on the surface.

4. And that was a great problem: When playing games, the notebook gets hot pretty quickly. Some parts on the back become so hot that you can barely touch them. One day of the fans stopped working and shortly after that, something inside of the notebook burned to dust. The screen at first only flickered randomly and then completely stopped working.

5. The HP/Compaq-Hotline that I called because of that was pretty stupid. The fan was broken, the laptop didn't work properly due to overheating and the screen was already flickering during booting. So it was definitely a Hardware problem. "Please try a system recovery, maybe it is a software-problem."............. [xx(]

I told them that I don't have the recovery-files anymore. No problem, they'll send me a CD with the files and before they can fetch and repair it, I'll have to scan the bill to prove that the notebook is still under warranty and send it to them with a fax.... a FAX!! Who the heck uses fax nowadays! "E-Mail? That's not possible... due to our... uhm... system. We can't recieve e-Mails here." Yah sure. So i helplessly tried to find someone with a fax and the Recovery-CD that I got in the meantime turned out to be an empty CD-R.

I gave up and called again, this time I got to talk to a nice woman. "Hello, how can I help you?" - "My Notebook is broken" - "Is it still under warranty?" - "Yes" - "Ok, please leave your address, we will send you an e-Mail and tomorrow UPS will fetch it".

I added a short description of the errors to the packet and got everything back 3 days later, completely repaired (except the keyboard and the lashes [ ]). Next time I call a repair-hotline, I'll definitely call at least 2 times [ ]


To sum it up, I'm still pretty satisfied with what I got from HP/Compaq. With a bit more care I would have had less problems, and the Support is not really competent, but at least it's quick. I'd always buy a HP/Compaq again [^]

 

hey qwerty, thanks for your input here. that's definitely not a disaster story but nor is it a perfect example of how customer support should operate. it sucks about what you call "lashes" breaking off -- I call them "stands" but I'm not sure what the correct technical term is actually. A lot of laptops do actually rely on airflow underneath and being slightly raised by a stand or rubber feet on the bottom.

As far as the keyboard goes, if you use a keyboard enough that's just kind of what happens. I wear my keyboard out in under a year. I guess I type to much -- (which I do [ ]) and I wouldn't knock HP for that aspect.

 

I have 4 more data points


My friend owns a 4-year old Compaq (some celeron 750MHz). It is still working without problems. Now his wife owns it.

He also owns a 2-year old Compaq - that he "purchased for his wife" (Athlon 2.2+). This one is working without problems 10 hours/6 days a week.

I used to own a 3-year old Pavilion ze1230 with Althon 1500+. That one worked great but had a tendency to overheat (mother board would go 75-80C routinely)and either hang or restart itself from day one. Otherwise reliable and didn't even melt down I sold it 3 years later and everything in it worked the same as it did the first day.

Now I have zv5000z and after 2 month of use I haven't seen a single hang or heat issue. This one arrived with every feature working right from the start.

I guess, HP does a good job, given their laptops brake the laptop price barriers all the time!

 

Hello all,
I own a:
Compaq Presario X -X1010US
Processor manufacturer - Processor type - Clock speed:
Intel Pentium M 1.3 GHz
RAM installed: 512 MB DDR SDRAM
Hard drive size - controller type - hard drive type: 60 GB IDE
CD / DVD type: CD-RW / DVD-ROM combo
Removable storage type: None
Input device type - form factor: Keyboard,Touchpad
Weight: 6.5
Dimensions (W x D x H): 14.1 in x 10 in x 1.3 in
Form factor: Portable
Display size - technology - form factor: 15.4 in TFT active matrix
Max resolution: 1280 x 800
Video RAM installed: 32 ati mobility radeon 9200
Audio output: Sound card
Type: Network adapter
Modem: 56 Kbps Fax / modem
Battery installed: 1 Lithium ion
OS provided: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Service & support type: 1 year warranty

I LOVE IT!!!
I've owned 6 laptops up till now and this is by far the best I've ever had. All the issues I had with the other machines where solved with this one. Well....except the laptop I lost to a roommate's after-party regurgitation. That was a compaq too. Ah...the good times! If I have had any problems with my unit It was never on the hardware side. Mostly, it was evil user installed software from internet parts unknown. I try not to deal with customer service because....I don't want to go to PRISON for killing people in mass. I've heard some pretty bad storys. Most much worst than Qwerty's. So..why did I write in? To maybe help out others just getting started...Or just to brag about my litte'labby'. Who knows?[^]

First off...Im not rich..(sorry ladies) and, Im not a business professional or a student of any kind. I work with my hands and pretty hard everyday(kids..Stay in School!). If you saw me, you would'nt believe that someone like me would be into computers at all. With savings and a bit of luck I bought my X1000 at a store called 'Best Buy' as an 'open box' deal. I think I wound-up paying about $1249(us)with tax and all, which at the time was damm good. No extened warranty's for me please! They just about chased me around the entire store trying to get me to upgrade it! "Sir..In a week this chip will overheat and melt straight thru to china!! "...But our extended protection plan covers thermal core meltdowns!!!". Yea...you laugh, but at one point they threatened me with somthing like it. Or.."and...your battery will last about a year with normal use and it costs about $400 dollers...and has to be installed by a trained tech...but with our..." I Sh#$ you Not...they said stuff like that!

Computers started as a hobby. The coolest hobby ever!! Even 'back in the day' with a Vic-20 and then Commodore-64 I was in my element. These 'tools' allow you to do so much from one box of plastic, wire and pc boards. It was better then all my toys put togeter...well except for Gi Joe action figures and accessory's.(YO JOE!!) Plus my wealthy best friend at the time (No ladies..I don't know his address) had an AMIGA computer. With a 'GENLOCK' (dreamed but never got) you could place 'computer images' on top of video images. But why would anybody want to do that? Enter today. I'm on this thing almost every waking moment. With the internet it has become a world in it's self. My world. My escape, if you will.

Battery: They say:"6 hours of running time" Mmmm...not quite. Try more like 3 hours. And right now it's about 2. If your just doing word docs, I'm sure you'd get more. Me..I'll have 3 or 5 programs going at once while on the INTERNET and watching a movie.(oh..and coffee! gotta have that!) I don't know how they test battery life but, It should be with someone actually DOING something! CD/DVD drive is a motor. Motors eat power like mad. I tryed a tip to disable my drive while on battery, but It really didn't improve things by that much. Maybe if I disable my harddrive.... How about just getting a Second battery? Why don't stores stock my battery?....Well, here's the big serect:

"A lithium-ion battery provides 300-500 discharge/charge cycles and or a lifetime of 2-3 years. The clock starts ticking as soon as the battery comes off the manufacturing line."
That also means, that great deal you saw on e-Bay...was a rip-off too.
Some other tips: "The battery prefers a partial rather than a full discharge. Frequent full discharges should be avoided when possible. Instead, charge the battery more often. Although memory-free, apply a deliberate full discharge once every 30 charges to calibrate batteries with fuel gauge. Running down the battery in the equipment does this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate. Consider removing the battery from a laptop when running on fixed power. (Some laptop manufacturers are concerned about dust and moisture accumulating inside the battery casing.)
Avoid purchasing spare lithium-ion batteries for later use. Observe manufacturing date. Do not buy old stock, even if sold at clearance prices."

And my only other Issue:
Memory: My laptop came preinstalled with 512k and can be upgraded to 1gb. But...two 256k sticks use both slots. Meaning you have to dump a stick to up to 768k or dump both to Gb out. That sucks! Would'nt have been cheaper to use 1 512k stick?

Well, I hope I help out...someone[ ]

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein