Argh!!!

Less than a year and a half ago (August of 2003), I bought a brand new HP laptop for $1400 - I worked like crazy all summer to pay for it, so that I'd have a laptop to start university with (this was the summer before I started university). The stupid thing has never been anything but trouble - when I got it home, it couldn't connect to the internet, play sound, play DVDS, etc., and it finally turned out that HP had never loaded the drivers like they were supposed to. Then in January of 2004, it stopped connecting to the internet at all. After fighting with HP for over six months (they claimed it wasn't under warranty because it had been put on the market in December of '02, which was more than a year from January of '03, even though I hadn't purchased it until August of '03 and had been told my warranty would last a year from then), they finally agreed to fix it under warranty (I never found out why it wouldn't connect to the internet, but they had to replace the entire main board to get it working again). Then, a month after I got it back (and a month after my warranty expired ), the screen stopped working - it stayed black no matter what. They were supposed to be able to fix this for only a couple of hundred dollars by replacing some part, I forgot the name of it, and then tonight I found out that whatever they thought they could replace to fix the problem actually didn't work - if I want the laptop to work again, I have to pay like $1100 for a whole new display! I am so, so angry! Since I bought the laptop a year and a half ago, it has been in good working condition for only about four or five months of the time, and the rest of it has been constant problems. HP has been nothing but rude, disorganised and unhelpful through all of it, too. I can't believe I paid that much for a computer that I got virtually no use out of!

Obviously I'm just going to buy a whole new laptop, since I can get one for pretty much the same price it would cost to fix the old one. Which brings me to my question - anyone have any recommendations for laptop brands? I do not want another HP! Other than that, I'm pretty much open to anything. What do you have? Do you like it? Have you had any problems? How long did the laptop last you? How is the customer service? Okay, lots of questions but I want to do a bit of 'research' this time so that this doesn't happen again!

I have a mac - powerbook g4 to be exact. I love it! good luck!

Hubby just bought a Toshiba and it works great, a Sony Visio is one he recomends too

Dells are great, D600 or the new D610's, I've had lots of trouble with the D400 series

I only have experience recently with the Dell's, I manage about 450 laptops (All Dell!), over 200 PC's (all Dell) and about 35 windows server (2 compaq, 1 hp, and 32 dells).... so I am a tad biased. (no, I don't work for dell!)

What he said!!

I am personally a Mac person too, but according to all the PC people I talk to, stay away from HP. I just had to have my tech person at work put a completely new hard drive in my friend's mother's HP, and she barely even uses the thing.

Yep, HP's are good for two things: Awesome laser printers - workhorses! And the Unix line of enterprise RISC based servers.

I love my HP PC.

But that SUCKS!!! Hope you find a better one!

Yeah I havent had any problems with my HP pavillion....but after they way they treated you I wouldnt blame you if you if you wrote them off.......
that is really awful.....maybe you should write a letter to the big guys at HP???

We just bought a toshiba and LOVE it!!

I also recommend Dell - chris & I both have Dells and have had really no problems (the one problem I did have I found customer service to be fast and efficent)

good luck - how annoying that this happened

Kylie, I am soooooooooo sorry to hear about your computer problems. I too bought a Toshiba laptop specifically for easy usage during college and it was nothing but trouble. Laptop parts are so hard to fix and so EXPENSIVE. I had the same thing happen with my screen this summer. What they originally thought would take $100 to fix ended up costing $800. Then four months later (2 weeks ago) the whole hard drive crashed and broke and could not be saved. Toshiba support was terrible.

I personally decided a laptop wasn't worth it this time around and bought a Dell desktop. I do miss the convienience of a laptop though. Dell has great customer service and great deals. You can check them out and do all your ordering online at dell.com.

Let us know what you decide to get!

I had a similar problem except with my HP PRINTER!

I absolutely loved it but it keps on jamming on the scanner part it was scanner/printer/copier.
My dad had lost the receipt over all i didnt use it so much but it was great! After a year it broke down and we took it to the shop, No warranty no do!
And for just the little piece of wire that had to be fixed costed 200 euros!! Its still at that store. i dont know what they have done with it but i really miss that printer.
Cannon is such a waste. i think

But i have vowed that also HP does have good things i cant rely on it for a long time there for i will not buy it

Originally Posted by berylayn

Kylie, I am soooooooooo sorry to hear about your computer problems. I too bought a Toshiba laptop specifically for easy usage during college and it was nothing but trouble. Laptop parts are so hard to fix and so EXPENSIVE. I had the same thing happen with my screen this summer. What they originally thought would take $100 to fix ended up costing $800.

Then four months later (2 weeks ago) the whole hard drive crashed and broke and could not be saved. Toshiba support was terrible.

I personally decided a laptop wasn't worth it this time around and bought a Dell desktop. I do miss the convienience of a laptop though. Dell has great customer service and great deals. You can check them out and do all your ordering online at dell.com.

Let us know what you decide to get!

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I've had problems with Toshiba and it's customer service as well. We bought a 36" tv from Sears last Christmas. About 6 months or so afterwards the screen turned bright red! When I first e-mailed them they said to look on their website for the closest service center and to bring it there... and that was in DELAWARE!! Hours away! And this thing is huge! We barely got it in the house it was so heavy. So I e-mailed them again and got the name of a place around here. Called them and they told me to take it back to Sears where I bought it. So now we have to lug that thing up to Sears. What a pain in the butt for a tv that is not even a year old!!

Well, I have exactly NO experience with laptops. My experience with HP has been my workhorse laserjet printer in the office, which has been awesome for years, and two HP photosmart cameras -- in all cases good experience. So, to your particular frustration I cannot comment. BUT, the thing I would suggest when looking for any new electronics -- for that matter, any product you don't have particular experience or expertise with! -- is to go here...

http://www.epinions.com/

and crawl around all the pertinent reviews. They are VERRY helpful. And you often learn things you hadn't thought to ask.

Good luck!

My mom has an HP desktop and it's a piece of crap -- it's caused her nothing but problems. She caved in and finally got a laptop -- a Dell (like mine) which she loves. She leaves the desktop around for my sister's and brothers' families to play with when they come into town.

I would recommend Dell. Get a 3-year warantee where they will come to your house and fix your computer if there are problems. It's worked great for me and for my mom.

Just to add to my note before, Dell's are great for laptops and PC's and servers. HP are great for higher end laser printers (Excellent laser printers!) and the unix servers HP puts out - totally awesome! Pc's computers --- not so much luck on. Compaq comupters are the same. Hmmm... makes you wonder why HP bought out Compaq, now the same company owns BOTH.

I've had a Samsung laptop for about 2.5 years, and the only time (touch wood) I've had trouble with it was when Jamie spit up on it. Grass and saliva inside the laptop normally isn't covered by the guarantee, but they didn't charge me, and had it back to me within the week. They did say that was the first time they'd seen that problem.