nc8430 first thoughts and HP customer support

I know there are a million of these posted but I figured another opinion couldn't hurt, so here are my first 4 hours of reactions to my new nc8430:

First: HP needs people with better spatial recognition. My computer was shipped with a 6-cell battery, which of course doesn't in the slot for the 8-cell. So I called them up, got bounced around from person to person, and then finally got someone to say they'll check the warehouse and call me back tomorrow to make sure that, yes, I'm not an idiot and I was shipped the wrong battery.

The computer itself, though, is very impressive. It still works without the battery in, so I booted it up and played around for a bit. The materials used to make it are obviously top of the line and very impressive. Some negatives I've found so far though:

The pointer and mouse buttons are rather hard on the fingers. I'll probably get used to this but so far it's been a minor annoyance. In addition, the middle button is rather large and rather inconvenient so far, but again I'm coming from a standard 2-button format so I'll probably get used to it. In addition, the trackpad is much smaller than my old Asus Z70v, and will take some getting used to. Spacebar is a bit small too.

The screen has good wide-angle viewing but not such great vertical angles. Not horrible but certainly not as good as some other screens I've seen. Besides this though the matte screen is very good quality, and plenty bright. I'm glad I didn't get a glossy screen computer. I think mine's a Quanta screen (says QDS).

I can't get online yet (stupid college network...) but I'll get some benchmarks and such posted soon.

 

The vertical angles on the machine are somewhat poor...but it has the best horizontal I've seen yet.

As for the pointer and trackpad, try increasing the touch sensitivity settings though the Device Tag->Synaptics driver. That might help you a little bit...I know it is better for me now.

Why would they ship you the wrong battery though...? And yes, HP does NOT make a 6-cell battery for the nc8430 so you are right.

 

This seems to be the million dollar question - everyone I've talked to at HP has seemingly not believed they could have screwed up. I even checked the "for use in HP models..." part of the battery, and yes the nc8430's model number (HSTNN -104C) is not on the battery. Still waiting for them to get back to me and admit their mistake and ship me the right battery.

On the plus side, I got the computer to work with my college network and started getting all the goodies I want. Best part of all - DBP confirms no dead pixels!