HP laptops, HP Service Center? They suck!

A basic marketing tenet on Customer Satisfaction is that a delighted customer tells his or her experiences to 3 or 4 other customers, but a dissatisfied customer shares it to 12 others.

Now, thanks to the power of blogging I can share my recent unsatisfactory experience with HP’s laptop and their Service Center in the Philippines not just to 12 people but to thousands of readers and visitors worldwide.

Over a year ago, I bought an HP Compaq nc2400 laptop in South Korea for US$1,400. During that time, the unit was one of the smallest, lightest, and thinnest notebooks available in the market.

The laptop performed superbly during the first few months (no surprise there), but starting on the 8th month, its processing became slower (e.g., opening an MS Office file took1 minute) and the battery life dropped considerably to half. Those did not bother me much then because I thought these were the trade-offs for having a small, lightweight notebook.

But in November 2007, the left-click function of the TouchPad started acting weird. Clicking the TouchPad’s left-click button also opened the right-click functions and this could not be rectified by simply adjusting the TouchPad settings.

How bad can that get? Well, for one, I could not shut down the laptop using a mouse because left-clicking on Start > Shut Down always gave me right-click options. The only way to shut down the notebook then was through the keyboard (how many of you know how do that?).

In addition, I found it difficult to open a file or program because double-clicking its icon always gave me right-click options. Just imagine how annoying it would be whenever you left-click on something and what you get are right-click options.

On top of that, I noticed that the laptop’s battery was not fully charging anymore. Although it’s been charged for several hours, the unit charges up to 60-70% only.

So on December 5, I decided to take the unit to HP’s Service Center in Buendia, Makati. The technical support guy tinkered with the TouchPad properties first but gave up after 10 minutes. He also noted the battery problem and recommended that I leave the unit so they can conduct inspection. I agreed.

Fifteen days later, on December 20, I received a call saying they could not solve the problem yet because they were still waiting for a few laptop components that they requested abroad. The guy who called also briefly mentioned that the battery may be up for replacement and they can prepare a price quotation should I wish to buy a new one.

If I wanted to, I could also temporarily pull the unit out because they would not be able to work on the laptop because they were having a 1-and-a-half-week Christmas vacation and would be back only on January 3. I decided not to pull it out.

Finally, a long month and three weeks later, on January 22, I received another call informing me that the laptop is ready for pick-up. I dropped by their office the next day and decided to test the unit while still in the Service Center to see if the problems were indeed solved. The left-click button did work well, but that’s the only thing to be happy about.

As for the battery, apparently it had already died — as in totally defective and worthless. They explained that when they called on December 20 saying the battery may already be up for replacement, they meant that the battery was already useless during that time.

Wait a minute, I left the laptop with them on December 5 with the battery still charging 60-70% and they’re telling me that within 15 days — while the unit was in their possession — the battery became totally defective? How convenient.

If only the battery was covered by their 1-year warranty then it would have been replaced, I was told. Still, don’t I deserve to get the battery, at the least, in the same status when I gave it to them? Do they expect me to simply accept their excuse that the battery became dead, useless, and worthless within 15 days while it was in their possession?

Oh, and they did give me the price quotation for a new laptop battery. Costs P8,700+ (US$212.00). Nice.

Wait, there’s more. When I finally got to test the laptop, a “User Environment” error appeared while the PC was loading. I then discovered that the original user profile would not load and when asked why this was the case, the tech guy replied that the original profile got corrupted. Uh ok, can you solve this? I asked.

An hour of tinkering later, the tech guy said they could not bring the original profile back and the only way to solve this is to reformat the laptop. They recommended me to back up my files and reformat the PC. Very nice.

A dead battery. Corrupted user profile. Tech support that took almost two months to solve. How Pathetic.

Thank you very much, HP, because of this experience I am not going to buy any of your products anymore.