All too often people are quick to criticise, but slow, or fail to praise companies when they have a good experience. I purchased a laptop computer back in July of last year, after my 5 year old laptop started to look and perform a little long in the tooth. My old laptop was an HP, and while it was showing it’s age, it has performed very well and in fact had probably been used more than my desktop computer, also an HP. So when it was time to purchase a new laptop, it wasn’t a difficult decision on which I should buy.

Before moving on, I’d like to point out that I’m not a total HP fan boy. At work we use Dell computers, which are also excellent. I even looked at the Dell site, but what starts off as a really cheap laptop, soon turns into an expensive one, once you add on the things you really need. I also get very frustrated with their insistence on breaking computers down into those intended for home/soho, mid size and large businesses. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll buy the computer that does what I want it to do, regardless of how Dell classify them. In fact I recently purchased a computer for the company, which was classified as a home machine, purely because it had the combination of horse power, both CPU and graphics, memory and cost.

So anyway, I purchased my computer from FutureShop, which is one of several big box stores here in Canada. As always I declined the extended warranty, as I a) think it’s a bit of a rip off and b) why is it that stores seem to think that it’s OK to wash their hands of clients after 14 days? I remember, and not too long ago when you could take your equipment back to the store right up to the day the year expired, and even then some stores would, at their discretion still fix problems, if it was within their means.

Where was I, oh yes, I bought my shiny new HP Pavilion DV9408 17″ laptop from FutureShop. I seem to favour them for some reason, even though they are owned by BestBuy, one of the other larger shopping options. All was good with the world until the beginning of this month, when all of a sudden my laptop failed to connect to my home network. I tried a multitude of things, like removing and re-installing the drivers, trying new drivers and trolling message groups, but could not get my laptop to recognise the network card. Finally I called HP technical support and they got me to try a few things, but to no avail. I have to admit, I get a little frustrated with technical support, mainly because, as I’m in the computer industry, I’m usually several steps ahead of them. I don’t mean that to sound conceited, it’s just when they ask you questions like “have you tried switching the wireless off and on?”, well I’m sure you know what I mean, but I’m sure it’s on their tech support script. Finally the tech support guy said it needed to go back to HP. Fortunately for me, it still had two months left on it’s warranty. HP sent an empty box with packaging via UPS and a return label. The UPS guy offered to wait, while I packaged it up, but I wanted to take my time, to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

My laptop was picked up on a Tuesday and by the following Wednesday it was back in my hands, just over a week later. The thing that amazed me, was that according to the slip enclosed with the laptop, they repaired or replace the DVD drive, the LCD bezel, the system board, the network card, both lid hinges and a couple of other things. This surprised me, as the network card is easily accessible via a flap on the underside of the laptop, so either, the network card wasn’t the original source of the problem, or HP took the opportunity to replace or fix a few things that they knew had problems. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, I’m just thankful to have my laptop back.

So from beginning to end, HP’s service has been excellent. The laptop as well, I have to say, is very good, although it would be nice to have an extra gig or so of memory, which machines now, with a similar spec come with, for the same price.

So what’s the point of this article. Nothing really, other than to recognise a company that obviously cares about their customers. So my laptop is now hunky dory, now time to sort out my digital camera, which has a problem with the zoom and view finder and only a month left on the warranty. Can you hear me Canon, I’m heading your way next!

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