poor service/support from HP
 

never again will I buy a HP product, prolly never get another microsoft based computer either! For the last week and a half I have been forced to use my iPhone to fill the spot of a broke down HP laptop! Called for service and they promptly sent me a postage paid box to return the laptop, wouldn't connect to the Internet. I sent the computer back and they estimated a 14 day turn around, I was beyond mad! They did pretty good though and fedex attemted to deliver my repaired laptop less than 48 hours later. However they require a signature from someone at my address, couldn't sign a waiver to leave it or have a neighbor sign for it. I work so that presented a problem! I had to drive almost 25 miles on Saturday to pick it up then another 25 home. Looking forward to full screen views of RCM I immedietlly pluged it in and turned it on. I was greeted by error message after error message! So after another 30 Min call to HP they determined my hard drive had crashed and said they'd send me another box to send mine back 4 repair AGAIN. They say they tested it before shipping it back to me. How does a hard drive fail with no power to it? Computer worked fine other than no Internet when I sent it in, was still able to program my mmm with it(another story to go with that though). So I'm still down and using my iPhone to type this! Shouldn't they offer to send a new or refurb unit to me now? At least apple stands behind there products! Went in a few weeks ago cause it was getting hard to hear people on my iPhone, they simply went and got me another one and I was out the door in 15 minutes, not weeks without a phone! This will be my last HP/microsoft computer and when I replace my printer and camera I assure u they won't be HP products!

Getting bounced around in a couriers van could easily destroy a HDD. You are correct though and HP do suck.

You should only buy the business version of their lineup. They are actually tested and have better warranty. Consumer stuff is different, except for the laptops which is basically the same motherboard with different roms.

Next laptop will be an apple! Have played at the apple store and is a pretty easy adjustment from microsoft to mac OS. I don't have room for a desktop so laptop is only way to go. 120 gb hd, 2.1(?) ghz amd, 2gb ram and its still slow, gets very hot, and battery life is only about 30 min

I dont own an Apple but a friend that does tells me there is no need for any virus software due to no backdoor with the macs...they are more expensive and if you dont need massive amounts of software they will be more dependable...they do make thier own software to fit thier own hardware. With Pcs it can be hit and miss one company making hardware and another making software...back when MS had its Plug and Play it was joked about and called Plug and Pray.....:lol:

Get a apple i have one they are great... but keep the HP to program you mmm.

Or do what I did,

Get an apple, run boot camp and load XP into a partition on the hard drive, get VMWare Fusion and run both OSX and XP at the same exact time with no performance hit - freakin awesome setup. Just make sure to get 4GB Ram if you plan to do it.

Damn, that sucks dude. I haven't owned HP gear but at work we run them and have all sorts of dramas (dell aswell)

Dells have been solid for me except a 8400 desktop which Dell designed to just run too hot. I use 3 desktops and 2 laptops for my business and the prob is support.

Nobody's support is worth the time or the trouble, especially what I call Dell India. Once they have your money, they really could care less!

Good advice to look at the business side of anybody's lineup. I'm due to replace a laptop this year and are looking at those.

Actually I don't think it is that bad a service... You didn't have to pay shipping and they turned around the orginal repair very quickly.

Things can happen in transit which are beyond HP's control. It looks like the are taking care of you.

they make it look like they're trying yes. Why couldn't they point me to an authorized repair center that is local, or have sent me a refurb unit? I'll give them credit on the turn around time but what good is that if it doesnt work after the repair. Honestly, long before this I have said my next one will be an apple. I actually wanted one when I bought this one, but at 3AM wally world was my only option so I bought the best INS they had at the time.

I would strongly suggest avoiding macs. For more reasons then I care to mention. I have a passionate hate for them. Marketing, software, software licensing and repair bills once they are out of the warranty period.

"no backdoor" for mac is a big myth. Mac has been safer from virus infections in the past, simply due to the fact that hackers aren't writing viruses for an OS that has roughly 10% of the consumer market share. If mac continues to gain popularity due to the crappiness of microsoft Vista, you can be sure we will start to see more malware written for Mac OS.

Dell is now selling several models with Ubuntu Linux, a very nice and sleek alternative to Vista or Mac OS.

J.

That's why you front the $300 and get the 3-year all inclusive warranty.

I have been a firm Windows/DOS user since the days of Windows 3.0 and DOS 5. I recently bought a MacBookPro because I wanted to try something different and I am very happy with it. For a regular user application installation couldn't be easier - nothing to worry about in terms of folders and locations - applications are contained in packages and make the install appear like a one file drag to the user.

In my work I have worked with nearly every tier-1 pc provider for desktop, laptop, and server equipment. Dell, IBM, Lenovo, Compaq/HP, Toshiba, Sony, Apple and here would be my recommendations:

Laptops - hands down IBM/Lenovo for a laptop - best and most rugged Windows laptops out there - if anyone would like to try and argue the point please try.

Desktops - Dell XPS - the problem with consumer grade (Inspiron/Dimension) Dell machines is that there is no hardware consistency for internal components so you get what they have on hand. For a corporate user the Precision line of machines are designed so that hardware components are consistent because companies need a consistent platfom for imaging machine. For the home user this is reflected in the XPS line of machines - they use consistent hardware, have great specs, are very fast machines and are very reliable - and Dell's XPS support is superb.

Don't forget that OSX runs on top of a 64-bit Unix OS core (BSD I believe). If you know Unix you can bring up a console and config everything the GUI can do directly through the command line. Apple sells the OS license for less than Windows costs.

OSX is less prone to viruses - mainly because it doesn't run VB script - and it doesn't have as much of an attack surface as Windows does. As 83gt said, if more people wanted to write malware to attack it - then there would be more of a concern.

NetBIOS and RPC are Windows downfalls to an open attack surface. If you lock down those ports or make sure the Windows Firewall is working then the attack surface is greatly reduced. The other side of Windows viruses is user stupidity - people don't use common sense and smart browsing practices and that's where they get infected with malware - Microsoft actually did a smart thing with IE in Vista and set it so that it runs with less than User priviliges to protect the pc against user stupidity.

I'm not going to argue which is ultimately better because I use Windows and Mac now equally. For a home user looking for a reliable simple setup I think Mac may be the easier option (but more $$$); however, in a corporate environment Mac really doesn't have much of a place because the business software just isn't written to support that OS.

And besides.......... Apple stuff just looks cool :tongue: and works well..... can you tell me you bash Mac and don't use an iPod?

And Mac doesn't play all my games. :cry:

I suppose you could use a vmware virtualizing windows, but that just sucks.

My g/f and I had this debate a number of times. I am a PC fan, she is a Mac fan.

The gaming conversation:

- Me: "Argg! Where are the good games in this thing?" (looking at her Mac).
- Her: "Computers are for work, consoles are for games. If you want to play a game, go play the Wii or whatever".
- Me: "Yeah, and you have a house full of hardware that can be replaced with one PC. Beisides, I have to get up and go upstairs to play the Wii. The computer is right here. Why can't Macs be an all-in-one solution?"

The graphics argument:

- Her: "I need to do some graphics work".
- Me: "Just do it on the PC. It's got the software and hardware to do it".
- Her: "But it works better on the Mac".
- Me: "Huh? How so? Exactly what part of Photoshop works better on the Mac?"
- Her: "It just does. I know all my shortcuts using the apple button".

About virus software:

- Her: "Why do I have to update my virus program everytime I turn the PC on?"
- Me: "Because new definitions are released to deal with the latest viruses out there."
- Her: "I never have to do this on my Mac."
- Me: "Only because hackers don't care to program them for 10% of the computer population".

About hardware (specifically, her old iMac):

- Me: "What's that squealing sound? The CPU fan?"
- Her: "I think so. You should replace it."
- Me: "Oh no I'm not! If Macs are so great, you stick your fingers in there. Just be careful for the flyback transformer." (hee hee)

And so on and so forth...

The one thing we DO agree on is that stupid single mouse button. WTF!? Good thing she's using a "real" mouse... and a MicroSoft one at that! :lol:

I went through the HP saga and they have poor support. I also have been through apple's service because my wife has an apple laptop and their support was very poor also. They continually wanted to blame every problem on the existence of pc's. Basically they refused to fix the problems or admit they had any problems. According to the Apple/Mac store techs everything works perfectly and if it doesn't it's a pc's fault.

Personally I can't see how her computer locking up and losing files has anything to do with pc's.

On the support front I agree with VintageMA on the XPS as their support was to notch for me. I will also note that dell's higher level support with the standard business product lines is top notch as well.

That was beautiful Brian!

Actually - you should consider looking further into using bootcamp and VMWare Fusion with an XP load. It's really very impressive.

It allows you to run what they call "Unity" where your windows apps show up as application windows within the Mac desktop.

There is also a support for DirectX 9 within the virtual machine so that you can play a windows game through the VMWare session and the speed is suprisingly good.

It is important when using VMWare though to have performed a boot camp installation - that way you hard a section of the physical hard drive reserved for just Windows - rather than virtual disk file that could get fragmented across the drive and end up slowing everything down.

Honestly, the games I currently have aren't all that power-intensive. But I doubt she's gonna let me possibly wreck her iMac (OSX) to test this. And she only has less than 1GB of a 10GB disk left. She also has a G3, but that's down right now. May look into getting that up and running and trying the bootcamp/VMWare thing.

Sorry Brian should've asked for specs first. I would say that you should be on Leopard 10.5.2 or higher with at least 10GB free HDD and a few GB of RAM to try this.

The one thing that is impressive (btw - sorry to hijack thread to talk about Macs) is that at least Apple makes an effort to support Windows and help a person's transistion over to a new OS, whereas M$ couldn't care less.

Believe me, if I could dump M$ altogether I would! Their stuff is too expensive (especially the office suite!) for what you get. I flat out refuse to go with Vista. What a piece of CRAP! Talk about tons of code that does nothing except consume resources!

I tried the dual boot Linux thing, and while it worked ok, I never got the video performance from whatever video card I had, so the game that did work, worked poorly.

It is much easier to design and build an OS / drivers when you control every bit of hardware in the system - OSX is fine but it is hardly an open OS.

I'm not sure what the rave about bootcamp is - It is really just a hack to get past EFI BIOS. From there out you are actually all MS working on apple hardware... MS should get the credit! They allow there software to run on Apple... Try OSX on a Dell.

I know MS is a big company and has its challenges but in general they've hit the mark with the software...

IIRC the research shows Vista has had less security defects than OSX... http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=758&tag=rbxccnbzd1

PS I have a PC's and a mini mac which is my media PC connected to my PC. In the last 2 years I've had to rebuild from install disk the Mac twice the PC never. My PC scarily has been rather stable under Vista 64 - The only crashes have been memory errors due to very tight timings and a heavy overclock.