Laptop Choice

've ordered the HP NX6325 AMD Turion64 TL60 from Ebuyer (http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/113120).

I've used Ebuyer for years and had very few problems with them even with returns. Just your luck I suppose, every company will have the occasional horror story.

In the end I know the Dell was probably a better suited machine, but I just couldn't face dealing with them again. I heard more stories about poor service yesterday so I was happy I bought the HP. All the Dell stories I was told were first hand as well so poor service seems to be the norm with Dell.

I never buy extended warranties either. In the UK you can be covered legally for up to 6 years anyway. You just have to show that it would be reasonable for the equipment to last longer than it did. i.e. You'd expect a washing machine to last more than 1 year with normal use. Plus it only costs £35 quid to lodge an action with the small claims court. The threat of that is often enough to lubricate the wheels of customer service.
I've never had to do that yet, threats of trading standards, and the press have worked for me in the past though.


Thanks for your input.

Well it seems a nice laptop, I hope you're happy with it - you'll have to know what it's like when it arrives :) By the way, I used to work for Hewlett Packard - just pray you don't want their technical support in the coming months :D

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Originally Posted by Moira

By the way, I used to work for Hewlett Packard - just pray you don't want their technical support in the coming months :D

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Thanks for that ;)
Fills me with confidence:D I read that the business laptops are better made than the home laptops. I'll find out if that's true soon enough....

Actually the support for business products is separate from the support for home user products and as such, might be a lot better. They took the customer service/tech support out to India so I lost that job, only keeping the complaints and pre-sales in this country. I don't know about business product support though - it can't be worse.

Just to give you an idea, when I was training, I listened in to a call from a customer wanting to know if his old HP Deskjet 960C would work with mandrake linux. As it happened I had exactly that printer working with mandrake at the time on my laptop so I knew it would work.

Guess how the agent responded? "We don't support that - you'll have to phone linux and ask them."

(That's your HP technical support!)

Typing this on the new machine. It's very nice. No wide screen but the 4:3 is very clear. The keyboard is nice ans the whole machine is finished in a kind of satin finish.

Took a wee while to get set up and run through the updates. Still need to create my own backup disks. I need 2 DVDs or 11 CDs (11!) and I've only 1 DVD left.

Seems to breeze through XP with no problems or hesitations.

I'm facing this same choice myself, right now. My problem is I'm limited to those that offer a track point for cursor. I can't abide those little finger-scratch pads, a bit. So it looks like another IBM for me

Yes I know what you mean about the touch pads. They hurt my fingers after a bit. These little stubby track point things are much better.

I bought a cheap optical mouse at the same time to get round this.

Absolutely! My laptop has one of those finger touch pads and I hate it - I rarely use the laptop without plugging in the mouse, while my own one had a stubby track ball which I was quite at home with.