Stay Away From Hp Laptops!!!!

nothing but nightmares since getting my HP pavillion 9210us laptop 18 months ago. Where to start....3 months in my power brick literally burned out. after two hours on the phone with someone who has trouble understanding and speaking English, they decided to send a new one. not a big deal. it was shipped relatively fast so i was only without a laptop for two days. 8 months into owning my gem guess what...the power brick wouldn't charge up the battery. a few more hours of my life playing translator to the hp support technician on the phone and they told me to send in my entire unit, only to find out it was a faulty battery. they replaced it under warranty. one more week without a computer. then, 2 weeks before the warranty was set to expire, my wireless connection stopped working and then two days later the computer would not turn on at all. i am talking about 20,000 pictures for my photography courses were unaccessible! i freaked! i called hp. they said that it was a good thing that i called when i did because of the expiring warranty. now, after not hearing from hp for over a week and not getting email updates i decided to waste more of my life by calling tech support again. i need my head checked. 4 hours!!!! i repeat, 4 HOURS!!! after those final 4 hours and 8 techs later, i demanded to speak to someone whose natural language was compatible with mine. those 8 techs were telling me that i owed $343 for the replacing of the motherboard and a new keyboard too for a better fit since my last one almost seemed to be buckling from a too tight fit. they were holding my laptop for ransom. i complained until i was tired of hearing my voice. finally a supervisor agreed that since their records showed that even though the repairs were done after the date of expiration, i at least called hp to inform them of the problem. after three weeks, i finally got my laptop back. 3 weeks after it got back, i had a problem with the power brick again. and now, the last straw....the casing around the monitor has officially snapped off at the hinge. out of warranty, a new part thru the cheapest place with myself fixing it, will run me about $200 and change. read my words, heed my warning, steer clear of anything with the words hewlett packard on it...unless, you are looking for a really overpriced shiny paperweight. i shoulda got me a dell.

 

1. Fat paragraph = hard to read.

2. Yes, because the Dell forum is filled with nothing but sparkling reviews...

 

I know how it feels, but after owning an HP laptop for approx 6 months, and with constant problems with it, I managed to get a 90% refund of the value I payed for it back from HP.

I had to speak with a ENGLISH supervisor before I got anything done.

 

Well not everyone has had such a terrible experience as you did, I do feel for you but myself and other have had good experience with HP over the years, of course there will be people who have had bad experience with HP. But then again most of other forums as Lithus mentioned is also full of stories except for maybe a few smaller brands in the US.

HP business class support as far as I know is excellent, except for the online chat which still connects you to off shore reps. I'll try to test out the Canadian business support sometime next week.

 

@OP: First, I'm sorry that you've had problems, but this is one of about a bazillion such posts here, almost always by people with all of one post of their own. Those bazillion posts cover every builder you can imagine, not just Dell, so given that we've been advised to avoid every builder on the planet, I guess we need to either build our own machines, or stop buying them completely.

@Lithus: Like your threads about peeves a few months ago, I think about starting an "Avoid the following builders/Don't buy from the following/I hate the following builders/I've been screwed by the following builders thread every time I see this sort of post. LOL

@MegaMan: I'm glad that a ENGLISH supervisor was able to help you, and am also glad you were able to get back the money you payed.

 

I think I've made that rant in real life about a million times. When I was selling computers, I'd always get an "anti-Toshiba, pro-HP" person, then followed directly by a "anti-HP, pro-Dell" person or whatnot.

Statistically, I've finally figured out the chances of your laptop breaking. It's 49.5% based on chance, 49.5% based on the competency of the user, and 1% based on how much you tick me off.

 

While I sympathize with the OP as problems can and do occur, this is one of my reasons for wishing to upgrade to the business line for my next lappy. Instead of cursing the whole company, I'll put my money to better use on a model with hopefully superior build quality and support.

In the end I'll get less "bling" for more money, but maybe the SMB models will be less prone to failure and/or deterioration. All of the fancy features in the world don't mean squat if the notebook ends up inoperable........

 

QFT.

I get lost in paragraphs that horrible. I need to highlight where my eyes are so I don't have to start over.

 

It doesn't make sense to say avoid HP just because one unit or even one model may be faulty. I've also had a motherboard replaced of a Tosh S1 business model just out of warranty.. components do fail, it's just one of those things. There are sometimes dud models with faults or even just a dud batch of that model.

Build quality is something else, but without knowing which model you had I can only say avoid buying the cheapest thing you see for doing important work like your photography course. Every company makes a cheap line of laptops and you know there's generally a reason why something is cheap.

I always say avoid the consumer range and go business range if you're a serious laptop user. And nowadays almost everything we use laptops for is important.. accounts, email, photos... it makes sense to pay for better quality and support in the long term.

 

I think it's just going to happen. You'll get a lemon at least once in your life, as horrible as that may be. I've had excellent Gateway computers... and one horribly problem-ridden one. So I do know how it goes with one bad computer of a brand making someone wary of buying another from the same brand. That's why I chose a different brand - and the most-affordable one with what I wanted and needed was an HP. I can only pray that I don't end up regretting it, but so far it's been pretty good. Some overheating issues that I'd have never noticed if not for HWMonitor and the fans kick on way later than I wish they would, though. So who knows. I've heard glowing reviews and scathing reviews for nearly every brand out there. Apparently some people just have really, really bad luck. >_<

 

+1

And honestly, I can't help but laugh about the Dell thing. Has the OP seen the Dell Forums? They have issues too, So do all of them. I understand you've had troubles, but I've had an HP Desktop for 8 years or so now with no problems, haven't even had to replace the HDD! I've had a Compaq Notebook (R4000) for 2 1/2 years now (almost 3 years) no problems. And now a new DV9700T. No problems so far.

My pop buys a new Gateway and within two months it's shutting down because it's overheating, but I'm sure there are Gateway users out there that have never had an issue. Some of it is just luck of the Draw, but I don't believe that HP is any worse than any of the other Notebook offerings on the table.

 

Since you just got in back 3 weeks ago from repair I would call hp back. I would explain the situation and that you would like to be contacted by a case manager. If you call between 8-5 eastern time they may be able to directly connect you to a case manager.

 

Just because you may have had a bad experience with your HP notebook doesn't mean that ALL HP notebooks are trash. There's always a few lemons that slip past quality control. And Dell isn't the best either. They, in my opinion, haven't made durable notebooks since the mid 90s and all of the Dell desktops that I have had have been problematic. However, in contrast, any HP or Compaq computer that I have owned has been relatively problem free. Even an old HP Pavilion 7940 desktop that I found next to a dumpster works better than any Dell that I have owned.

Bottom line, it all boils down to personal preferences and if you just so happen to be one of the unlucky ones who recieves a lemon.

 

Oh, and on another note, all of the mainstream notebook manufacturers use pretty much the same hardware in all of their notebooks. The only thing different is the placement of the ports and the case of the computer.

 

And to add to that, they use the same ODMs to build them. Like Quanta, Compal, Inventec, etc.