how good is HP?

I'm considering getting a dv6t configured with i5 460 and HD 5650. However, I hear quite a lot of bad reviews about HP's warranty, tech support and the quality (build, stability) of their machines and this is making me a bit nervous to buy from them. Can someone who have experience with HP laptops comment on this? Is HP that bad?

 

I have an HP DM3z consumer notebook and I have to say for the most part I am completely satisfied. I haven't had to deal with HP's tech support or warranty which is a positive sign in itself, but I still can't comment on that.

If HP didn't make good products, consumers wouldn't buy them. There is a reason why HP is the best selling computer manufacturer in the world.

 

I'm not sure about hp's current quality but they used to score pretty bad in statistics, but aside from that its important to know that every manufacturer makes good and bad models, and that hp's and dell's bussines notebooks are far superior compared to their consumer line.

@TSE "if hp didn't make good products, consumers wouldn't buy them", this is not true. People usualy follow their wallets, and most people don't do decent research about the products they buy (the people in this forum are a very small percentage of concious consumers).

I always like to compare with cars: Fiat used to be the best selling car brand in Europe, with the highest fail rates. Another example: in my country (Belgium), people have no clue about car quality in general. In the US u can see quality reports, while these can't be published in Belgium. People rather go for aesthetics and price, rather than good quality.

Anyway to make a long story short, the best thing you can do, is something you already did: you posted yoru question about the dv6t and i'm sure people who own this laptop will point out the flaws if this laptop has any. Since your new in this forum you might not have tried this: just type the model name in 'search forums' and read every thread about it, this way you will most likely find out all the pro's and con's about your specific model.

 

Build quality is very good. I'd be more concerned about the fact that this thing becomes a jet engine after about two months and multiple glitches with graphics and flash.

Honestly, while I like this laptop for the most part, you should see if you can find something better.

 

Comparing a car to a computer isn't always exactly correct though. Computer manufacturers all use basically the same components slightly modified for different cases, etc. Car parts vary greatly.

There are statistics out there that slander HP, but quite frankly you get what you pay for. For $500 I wasn't expecting Thinkpad quality, I was expecting a $500 consumer notebook quality and I am perfectly satisfied.

$500 HP notebooks don't have any higher failure rate than a $500 Dell or Lenovo notebook. There was a graph out on the internet floating around that HPs have the highest failure rating than any other manufacturer. When you sell the most laptops, you attract the biggest audience and that means more people that don't take care of their stuff, especially if they buy a cheapo $700 one from Best Buy.

As long as you take care of your laptop, 99% of the time it won't break.

 

I've had my system for 3 months so far and it's still as fast as it was when I first opened it. The only issues I have now are that the spacebar doesn't work 50% of the time and the right trackpad button feels broken. I'm too busy at the moment to call in for warranty right now though.

 

I just made the comparison with cars to show that most people prefer price (and looks) over quality, to make a general statement about consumers.

About that famous graph (from the squaretrade survey), it was still in percentages, not in total numbers. Wether you sell 100.000 or 200.000 laptops, if your quality is bad the failure percentage will still be very high. The higher number of sold laptops only gives you a more accurate statistical result. On the other hand, it is true that hp sells way more laptops than for example sony and that the laptops of the latter were in the higher price segment, while hp had a lot of cheap consumer laptops (which sony only started selling under the 1k price range after they made that survey). Which leads me to the point I already made, the quality difference can be attributed due to different price categories (hence the big quality difference in consumer and bussines models within brands themselves).

Furthermore I strongly agree with the fact that the way you treat your laptop plays a key role in its lifespan. If you look at my personal experience, everybody shouted the bad quality of acers, nevertheless I bought one in 2007 and it still runs great (and it gave me the option to upgrade my gpu^^). All one can do is look up a certain model to see if it has error, and treat it with care.

 

I've had my system for a year with no issues what so ever. Still just as fast...actually maybe even a bit faster then when I bought it....due to getting rid of annoying bloatware and better drivers.

 

I agree with Student@Antwerp, It all depends how well you take care of your stuff. Off course from time to time, there will be DOAs and hardware beginning to fail over time, but that's normal and that's what warranty is for...
The nVidia GPU recall was bad enough and I think that added to their failure numbers, that was just beyond bad with laptops beginning to fail just after a year or two of use, and no consumer was in control of it. But HP did offer to replace SOME but not all chipsets, which I think they ed up and had consumers going to other brands.

 

Hp support is hit and miss, mostly miss, I have dealt with many support departments for different manufacturers, HP by far is the worst.

It took 6 weeks and 8 chat sessions just to get HP to properly register my purchase date of my Laptop, so my warranty would show correctly on the HP website. Not a good sign of what will happen when i have a real problem.

See this independent assessment
http://www.squaretrade.com/pages/laptop-reliability-1109/

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You really can't use the supposed research of a company that sells warranties. Their goal is to lure you in by any means necessary.

Contrary to what that ST link states, I had the most problems with Toshiba. In fact, I haven't heard a single good thing about Toshiba from any of my colleagues.

If by 8 website chat sessions, then I feel for you. I dislike that live text chat on the HP site. However, the phone support has worked out great for me. Take it slow and be respectful. They'll reciprocate right back towards you.