Is HP a good brand of notebook computer to buy?

Question

I am going to be buying a computer from best buy. I just want some insight b4 I actually go buy. I am interested in the Hewlett-Packard - Pavilion Notebook with AMD Turion™ 64 X2.

I am going to be buying a computer from best buy. I just want some insight b4 I actually go buy. I am interested in the Hewlett-Packard - Pavilion Notebook with AMD Turion™ 64 X2. And please only answer if you have experience in this computer, and not from what "you hear".

Oh yeah, and if you don't recomend HP, what do you recomend?

Answer 1

Most likely a bad idea (especially if you plan to use the computer for over 2.5 years).
After 2.5 years the power board often goes bad (they use a cheap power plug in HP/Compaq laptops). Same goes for the wireless card and sound card, figure on spending $120 for external replacements for these items after about 2 years with an HP.
And tech support is terrible: it's outsourced to/done by people in Bangalore for $50 and they don't even guarantee they can fix the problem but take the fee anyhow (they give you "fix it instructions" so obvious a fairly educated middle schooler could give you them)...they do offer in-house repair and mail-in repair but for $350 minimum and often much more including parts and extra repair (they insist for you to send it via mail it before they give you a repair quote (lousy service) and at that point/cost you might as well get a new PC). HP's also have hard-to-access parts, so a notebook repair outlet will charge you much more to fix them then other notebooks (esp. Dell's, which are designed to be easy to fix).

I now have a Dell Inspiron with an dual-core processor (much more powerful than the Turion), an ATi x1300 video card (the internal Intel video cards are very slow) and 1Gb of DDR2RAM (quite fast) I got for $850 and could have paid $1150+ for the same spec computer from HP. Anything slower than what I got would have a tough time running Windows Vista well also...note Nvidia's cards and the AMD Athlon 64 processor are also quite good.

Stick with Dell or Toshiba they are much more reliable and better deals for the money...Dell I can say from owning one is much better.

If you really need a budget deal that badly and don't want to own the computer more than 2-2.5 years, so for Gateway it's cheaper/better specs and the quality is about the same (yes it'll break, but in the case you'll want a new PC by that time it's OK...responding to the comment above with the Gateway, that's an extreme case).

Answer 2

If you buy an HP for 30 bucks let a tech shop (geek squad, firedog...) or a techie friend optimize the computer, get rid of most of the HP programs that come with the computer, they slow it down, and can break it, biggest offender, HP advisor. Good Luck

Answer 3

well your on the right track its smart to buy from best buy cause if anything goes wrong with your comp you can just take it to the store and they will fix it there instead of having to ship it back to the company which can take weeks maybe months to get back.

HP is a good computer but i personaly like Sony the best and HP is second in my book but for price wise HP is better and doesnt cost as much as Sony.

AMD Turion 64x2 is a good strong processor but you can kiss your battery life good buy once you unplug that mean beast and go on battery power (depending on what your doing)

Answer 4

HP is decent, but Dell is better... only problem is that you can't buy from stores, you have to order them and wait for delivery. But they are cheaper and tend to run better. Whatever you do... stay away from Gateways though. My friend had one, and he had to get it replaced after about 3 days.

Answer 5

I don't have any experience with their laptops, but I have seen many problems with their desktops.