Two Bits of Good Luck

[liralen]

One is that my replacement Verizon Blitz arrived today. It's a different make than my first one, the keys and black bits are all matte instead of shiny. It's just solid feeling, and I'm halfway wondering if it's a newer make. It had all the testing data for it on the cover of the box it came in, which was reassuring in an odd way. With a battery in it, it works great. I'll hope my run of rum luck with electronics might be over, *crosses fingers*.

The second is that I got cranky and called HP support one more time (as our coverage with them ends in August) and support escalated to their management; and they're going to look into just replacing the whole thing. That was the one thing that I could think of that might make me okay with them. Besides one happy vote for Acer desktops, on the most part I've only gotten Mac suggestions, which makes me believe that everyone thinks all the Windows PCs pretty much suck equally (laughs). So I thought I might as well roll the dice on something we knew about, first, as our other HP machine has been a workhorse for nearly 8 years, now.

Comments

[incandescens]

Huzzah! My fingers are crossed.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

*crosses fingers as well*

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

I've actually got a recent HP Firebird gaming desktop.

On the plus side, it looks damned cool, and plays modern games well.

On the minus side, it's been in to the shop for repairs twice already, and I bought it in March. As far as I can tell, the first one was a Vista update bricking it unrecoverably, and the second was probably lightning storm related getting past the surge protectors. But still, that's a bit below my recommendation threshold.

On the small plus side, dealing with support hasn't been too painful and the return process and recovery time is about as good as I could expect. Certainly easier than the two times the XBox 360 has gone home for a vacation, and much quicker.

I use the MacBook Pro for all my daily tasks, email and web and documents and stuff.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Yeah... HP support was painful only once... just time consuming otherwise. And they've been quick, for all that it's been three times.

And, yeah, I'm definitely getting the message that if I'm going to be spending more money for a machine, I'd rather a Mac in many ways...

... well, we'll see. Thanks much for the input!

[jenniferck.livejournal.com]

Hi there - just poking my head in to tell you I just got a new macbook pro last week. Of course I love it, no surprise there. I hope you get yours straightened out, but if you don't, you can add my vote to the Mac pile ;)

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Woo. Congratulations on your new machine!!

It looks like it's going to straighten out. Whew... but, yeah, thanks for the recommendation!

[agrimony.livejournal.com]

I actually had no problems with my old Dell desktop. (Well, one problem was that it was severely limited in how the graphics could be updated, but I don't think that's an issue for you from what I recall of your previous post.) In fact, it got replaced only because it could not magically morph into a more modern computer that could handle modern video games better. :)

My current set up is a build-it-yourself system that a friend of mine put together for his gaming system and eventually outgrew and gave to me since he had no use for it. So for the price of buying a new harddrive and the OS, I got a new computer way above the tech level I could have afforded on my own. :)

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Yay for a vote for Dell, too.

I am thinking that, sometimes, it's just the machines one gets...

And this one was certainly a lemon, but perhaps the next one will be okay. We'll see.

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

actually, PCs don't suck; drivers suck. hardware failures like yours are rare enough that the support folk aren't used to dealing with them. desktop PCs are very much of a muchness these days (unless you go for the HP Voodoo super-spiffy Blackbird gaming machines that the Navy Seals use because they can kick them in passing without worrying, and that's overkill for you). yay that HP did the right thing for you ;-)

Of the PC desktop and (counts) 7 notebooks we have here, none of them have had a random hardware failure in the last umpteen years (we had one broken by a fellow traveller). Over the same period of time the four macs in the house have between them had 4 keyboard replacements, 2 screen replacements, 3 motherboard repalcements, 4 power supply and voltage regulator replacements, 4 battery replacements (due to an OS update that causes the battery to cease to accept charge), 2-3 hard drives. Macs have their own advantages, but reliability isn't always one of them!

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's good to hear this from you, as some part of my brain was thinking that I really *haven't* had actual *hardware* problems in any other machine I've ever owned, and I've had a LOT of PCs over the years.

Mmm... Navy Seals... .Ahem...

I am very glad that HP did the right thing by us and am as happy to report that as the not-so-good things. I like being fair about it.

I love knowing your history with all the machines as well, that's very useful knowing you have a mixed-platform household and that it all works together. It's *VERY* nice to hear a balance take on what's happened with which.

*hugs* Thanks so much!

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

navy seals: have you ever been out to Coronado Island in San Diego? We have spent a week there every may the last few years and learned that the seals jog along the beach every morning and evening ;-)

miced platform: we have just about everything here and you need to know the tricks to make them play nice together. But we definitely see the macs needing more maintenance than the PCs... Apple can get more oomph out of cheap components because they can hand craft drivers; but cheap components in aggregate do fail more.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Yes. I've been out on Coronado Island in San Diego watching the Seals work out... *grins*

Mmmm... yeah, that last makes a lot of sense.

Thanks again!

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

oh and hey - hugs you back!!!

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[annieroo2.livejournal.com]

\o/ You must have really good karma! :D

[liralen.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Indeed!!

Or just accumulated it during the whole process. *laughs* OR it's just HP protocol to replace something after the third time. It helped that because this machine had a real problem with its motherboard, they extended the warranty to two years rather than the usual one year.

still... perhaps it was just getting cranky and calling even if I shouldn't have expected anything.