I currently serve as President of the Huntsville PC Users Group. Click here to access the HPCUG WebPages.
My home computer system consist of two home made AMD based desk top PCs and one HP Pavilion notebook. All are networked using a Netgear WGR614 wireless Router.
One desk top (the main computer) is running Windows XPpro with Office 2003.
One desktop is running Win98se. This computer is hardwired to the main computer and is used in my radio room for Ham Radio. I have an XP home disk for this unit but did not load it because 98se seemed to work better for some Ham Radio applications. I recently decided to look into HDSSTV (High Definition Slow Scan TV). I found that I needed Office 2003 to run the HDSSTV software. I will probably load XP home soon.
The HP Pavilion Lap Top was the last purchase that I will make from Office Depot (unless that is the only source) because they stiffed me on the $100 rebate that I was promised. It was purchased primarily to run PowerPoint slides for beekeeping related classes that I teach. At purchase, it had 2 problems: 1- The display would change brightness randomly. 2 - The battery lasted 4 months after which it would charge to about 10% full charge and would run about 8 minutes to a charge. Power cycling (charge - full discharge) did not help.
I replaced it with a battery purchased from batteries.com. That was a very good battery.
I did not return the laptop to HP immediately because I needed it for presentations and it did work when plugged into AC and the PowerPoint projected image did not blink like the main screen did.
When it failed in mid presentation, I returned it to HP for repair. They "Fixed" the blinking screen and did a good job. They replaced my "batteries.com" still a very good battery with another HP and it lasted 3 months. Now it will charge to 7% and no further.
The second time I used it after repair, in a class, it failed again. I returned it to HP and they returned it "under warranty" with a note stating that they could not "fix" it. They suggested that it might be a bad trace on the mother board or an intermittent solder joint but made no effort to find it or compensate me for a bad unit still under warranty. It is however now working!
The warranty is now out so if it fails again, I will purchase a Dell and scrap the HP. This may take place sooner that I had expected because the keyboard is now failing. Some keys do not work. It does work OK however with an external keyboard plugged in. I had planned to build or buy a new computer to use to host my WebPages. I may buy a new Dell Laptop and relegate the old HP laptop to server duty. It only has a 10 Gig Hard drive but that should suffice for a while especially since I don't know how to set up a server and it should be very adequate for me to learn on.
MY advice -- But if you must, don't buy from Circuit City!! For that matter I only buy from Circuit City if I can find the item no place else. I recently paid full price (not from Circuit City) for a software package that Circuit City had a $30 rebate on. I knew full well that I would never see the rebate so why bother with the aggravation.
It seems to me that the HP quality went south somewhat in sync with their merging with Compaq.