Monster Technology

Got this laptop today in the mail from a seller other than Amazon.com. Opened it up got it out of the box pushed the power button and……. nothing happened.

Waited on the “starting windows” screen for a couple of minutes then I got a screen saying “can not find boot device”.

Called HP tech support right away talking to a guy who I couldn’t understand well (heavy Indian accent). He tells me right off the bet that I have 350 days of warranty left on my computer. I ask him how he figures that (after I repeated this a couple of times because besides not speaking English very well he also didn’t understand it well), because I figured a year has 365 days and I got it out of the retail box 5 minutes ago, so where did the other 15 days go? So he asks me again how long I had it and I tell him again 5 minutes (we repeat this question and answer game through the whole “tech support session”. So finally he asks me what the problem is and I tell him that my computer seems to be lacking a hard drive.

He asks me to shut off the computer and boot it up again. Same thing. Wants me to shut it off and boot it up again. Same thing. Then he puts me on hold for 5 minutes comes back wants me to shut it off and turn it back on again while pressing the F10 button repeatedly which I do and a booting device screen comes up. Puts me back on hold to converse with someone who supposedly has more knowledge than he does, comes back a couple minutes later (we should be about 20 min into the session by now because of repeatedly having to ask “excuse me” what did you say or repeating what I said because he couldn’t understand me). So he talks me through searching for my hard drive, wants me to click on the device and press enter which I do… Whoops it doesn’t exist….. Oh my isnt’ that just too bad.

Puts me back on hold, comes back a couple minutes later (we should be about 30 min into the session by now because of repeatedly having to ask “excuse me” what did you say or repeating what I said because he couldn’t understand me). Now he suggests to me that I open up my laptop and look for the hard drive and take it out and re-install it. I’m asking him if he is kidding? No he wasn’t kidding. I told him I just took this laptop out of the box, paid almost $900 for it and he wants me to go open it and try to fix it? Well he told me if I wasn’t comfortable with that I didn’t have to but then I would have to send it in to them so they could fix it for me and return it to me. I told him that wasn’t an acceptable solution for me either because I didn’t pay for a refurbished laptop but a retail priced laptop that should be working. If I send it back to them to fix it it’s technically a refurb. I told him I wanted to exchange this laptop for another brand new same laptop with a hard drive this time. He told me he was sorry but my technical issue was not warranteed under the replacement warranty option.

So really????? I buy a brand new retail priced laptop that I take out of the box and isn’t working but that is not a replacement warranty problem? I wonder what would be a replacement problem then? When it arrives with only the shell… ah no then you probably have to send it back so they can put the rest of the stuff in. Really…. this is ridiculous and I’m very frustrated.

After having had about 6 sony’s (3 of them POS also) I figured I try HP since it’s rated pretty good. Got a 1350US for my son for his birthday which seems to be working just fine, so got this higher model 1360US and end up being frustrated and disappointed especially with the customer service (and really how can a laptop leave the factory with no hard drive or a not working hard drive anyway? Is there no quality control on these things? I can understand minor issues but a computer that doesn’t want to start up?????). Either way I told them I wasn’t going to accept having to send it in and hasseling with it that way and that I was only going to accept an exchange for the same item. They couldn’t do it (giving me the “this particular problem is not under the replacement warranty guarantee again), so I tell them fine, then I’ll return it back to the store from where it came and exchange it for a Sony. They told me I need to do what I need to do, so that’s the story about HP customer service (and product quality control) towards a customer that can just go and return their product and buy something else entirely. They didn’t seem to care a whole lot that I was going to return it and buy a sony. I could not get a working laptop because this particular problem didn’t have a replacement warranty…..period. That’s how it is and if I need to buy another brand of laptop than I that would be my decision (I’m glad he gave me permission to make a decision like that…..) I hope nothing will go wrong with the 1350US because I can see what the hassle will be for a product that actually is out of the 14 day return warranty.

So for me I don’t think I will get another HP just because of this broken NEW product they refuse to replace, the lousy tech support and the fact that you do not get English speaking people on the phone. I don’t want to be rude but it’s annoying have to say “excuse me” every other sentence and having to repeat yourself continuously. I spoke to the tech and then his “supervisor” who were both heavily accented to the point that I was thinking I was talking to the same person.

Anyway I think if this laptop performs like my son’s it would be a nice computer but I haven’t had the chance to find out so I can’t recommend this model to anyone nor would I recommend HP to anyone. Just my experience.

This is acually the next day and I contacted B&H where I purchased the laptop. They were great, sending me a return shipping label and exchanging (actually re-purchasing and returning/refunding for faster service) my laptop with no questions asked. When I get the replacement I will consider re-reviewing this laptop as I still think this may be a nice laptop. I’m still baffled by the whole “customer service” from HP, still irritated with even receiving a laptop with an issue this huge but stuff happens. Again I will review again when I receive the replacement.

Rating: 1 / 5

this has been a very nice computer, i do play war of warcraft and the graphics has been wonderful, for the price i think it’s a great value
Rating: 4 / 5

I’ve had many laptops over the years but this is probably the worst I’ve ever used. HP clearly put form over function when they mis-engineered this line of notebooks. The keyboard is the absolute worst. To start with, the keys are flat so it looks cool but you get no tactile feedback telling you if you are centered on the keys until your fingers go over the edge of a key. Second, the keys are shiny so they are impossible to read at an angle if you are laying down with the computer on your chest or stomach. Third, the addition of the number pad might make accounts happy but for the rest of us that don’t use the number pad it shoves the keys we do use off to the left of center from the screen. This also moves the extremely shiny and finger print ridden mouse pad off of center. The mouse pad also has no separation between the pad and the buttons so if you hit the button high and get the edge of the pad your mouse jumps towards the bottom of the screen right as the click event happens resulting in random clicks where you don’t want them, sometimes with really bad results like sending and email you weren’t ready to send. Probably the worst design decision that will lead to repeated repairs is the power adapter which plugs into the side of the computer and sticks out about 2 inches. With it sticking out that far it acts like a lever so whenever you bump the plug on something it’s putting tons of pressure on the connector and with it sticking out that far it gets bumped ALL THE TIME. It makes it virtually impossible to actually use the use the laptop on your lap. I’m guessing they made the plug this long because it’s common for power adapter wires to fray and break right at the plug but all they’ve done is moved where it will fray out an inch and created a new failure point at the connector inside the computer. What are they going to do next, stick the entire power cord inside a 2 inch PVC pipe? Hmmm, maybe an L shaped plug that’s flush to the computer case and can rotate freely in the connector might work but that might add half a penny to the cost, can’t have that. There are also little lights all over the laptop; the power button, the speaker on/off, the volume control and the network on/off are all lights right under the monitor which to me is visually distracting. There is also a great big HP Logo on the lid that serves no purpose other than advertising for HP and wasting your battery charge. The entire laptop is also one gigantic fingerprint magnet, it’s nice and shiny in the show room but because of this it always looks like you were eating greasy pizza or something the last time you used it. My last gripe is the wide-screen monitor but this isn’t specific to HP, it’s almost impossible to find a laptop without one anymore. Wide-screens are a great fit for watching movies but I prefer to watch movies on my TV, however, wide-screens totally suck for pretty much everything else. When reading and writing documents you don’t want to see wider lines, you want see more lines or to be able to see both a picture and the related text at the same time. I thought the bigger screen would be better but my old 14.1 inch screen was more than an inch taller than this 15.6 inch screen and that extra inch really makes a big difference to me doing my job. In my opinion wide-screens are the absolute worst thing to happen to laptops for people that actually do all of their work on a laptop. I’ve had this computer for a month now and the thought of having to work on this for another 3 years makes me sick, I absolutely hate it.
Rating: 1 / 5