A Tribute to HP's Support - My Experiences

Back in 2008, I purchased my first HP laptop. It was the HP/Compaq Presario F761US; it was a budget machine, it wasn't all too fast, and it for sure fit what I needed back then. What I wanted was a safe, reliable computer that could get me through classwork and programming. That machine did it fairly well, but things only got worse over time.

I've recommended people to HP in the past, I've repaired HP computers myself, and I've even given support out to people in need of it. I'll say this right from the get-go, I'm very knowledgeable on how HP works. Everything that'll be listed are not only my experiences, but also ones coming from my peers.

Like any computer company, support is the biggest area of need. My experiences with HP customer support has been extremely negative.

First Experience

After around for months after buying my Presario laptop, it started having issues with its fan. The fan started to make clicking noises, which were fairly loud, and the processor started to overheat because of it. They ended up replacing the heat sink fan and reimaging the hard drive.

Second Experience

Three months after that my laptop started to have odd issues with its system motherboard. The ended up replacing the system board and replacing the hard drive with a louder one.

Third Experience

HP's technicians ended up putting scratches on my laptop's palm rest. With that, there was some nice fine and short hairs all over the keyboard and palm rest when I opened it out of the box. Thanks HP for making my laptop messy and having scratches! That left to another repair.

Wrap-Up

Now that might not sound too bad, but now let me get somewhat into the details. When talking with HP on one of the repairs (I believe it was the second one), HP customer support was denying my claim for repair. They would not seem to fix it... at all. After speaking with many support representatives and some managers, I was able to convince them into a repair. After many days, I was finally able to get that warranty-covered repair. Essentially, I told them I knew there was a problem and with their support policy, they were liable to fix it in the support period. They started warning me if they didn't find an issue, they would change me quite a bit of money.

Not only did I have problems getting repairs, talking with the support representatives was extremely difficult. While many having thick Indian or Asian accents when speaking English, it was fairly difficult to understand them. I've spoken with enough people from different countries to understand them, but it's still annoying that HP does not want to hire people who can speak English in a decent way.

Now the next part is something that really ticked me off quite a bit. One night, HP called my home phone very late at night. Not only was it annoying to my family, it was a very large disturbance to my father. HP's support needs to adept to the customer's local time zone. Every single time I call support, I give them my time zone and best times to call. HP neglected this information and asked for me very late in the day (actually, it was the next day so you could say very early too).

My Friend's/Family Experiences

One of my friends owned two HP laptops. One of them being a low-end series and the other being an older NC8230. With his low-end laptop, which was also a budget computer, he had way too many issues to name. The main thing with that computer was in fact the graphics card. He had it repaired multiple times and still had problems. With his NC8230, let's just say he had so many problems he ended up sending that machine in way more than it needed to be. It was easily over ten repairs... and yes, we both lost count on how many repairs it had.

On the flip side, when we were buying a laptop for my sister, I found a very good deal on the internet for a nice HP consumer laptop. The laptop is fairly large and heavy, but it handles a very large display with two hard drives. The thing is a beast... anyways, after nearly two years of my sister owning it, it is now having issues powering on and with its battery. The battery lasts not long at all and getting it to power on is next to nothing. As a computer geek myself, the laptop overheats very quickly. With this overheating, the fans get very loud (they're running at maximum RPM a good chunk of the time) and the laptop BSODs, shuts itself down, and it's nearly impossible to start back up. This has happened to my Presario, but not as often.

Summary

With all of these support issues above, you would think I would know of at least one good thing from HP support. Sadly, I cannot say I've ever heard of anything good coming out of it. HP laptops tend to break extremely easily. In fact, my Presario sometimes has difficulties turning on right now! After three years of owning it, you would think the computer would still be working.

HP's quality of support is near minimum and quite honestly, it's hard for me to say that being an HP fan. Their low-end consumer-oriented laptops are some of that worst I've seen and do not last long at all. Their modern business laptops are decent (as having worked with them before), but I'm questioning why they can't put the same quality of a product from their business laptops in their low-end laptops.

With my HP laptop on its last leg, with my sister's laptop started to break, and with my friend constantly sending in his NC8230 and myself needing to send my Presario in three times is just absurd.

With my warranty up for my Presario, I believe it'll be dying very soon. I'm sorry HP, but your quality of laptops is not of the best and I'd really love to give you guys a second chance.