My Last HP Laptop

[billroper]

My last HP laptop (with apologies to bedlamhouse) is sitting downstairs incapacitated with two keys that are no longer going to stay attached to the keyboard. This is the third or fourth time that this laptop has lost keys, because the attachment is just that flimsy. Had I realized how lousy this keyboard is, I never would have bought the machine, certainly not to reside in the same household with small children, the elder of whom managed to detach four to five keys with one swipe of her hand this afternoon while I was at work.

My previous HP laptop had a much more stable keyboard. Unfortunately, it had a bogus design for the power connector which eventually led to it breaking loose from the motherboard. I passed that one along to someone who worked in a place with the appropriate soldering tools to try to fix the beast. I think he succeeded.

Mercifully, the new keyboard isn't that expensive. The several hours of swearing that it'll take to install the new keyboard, well, that's a different story.

Comments

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

My HP laptop (that I had to get with effing Vista) gives me no end of annoyance. Its software has A Wonderful Plan For My Life, etc. You know the drill. Seriously, on my last two laptops I used a full-size USB keyboard whenever possible -- saved me a lot of headache.

[bedlamhouse]

Blame not HP for Vista, which was forced upon us. Note that you can still get XP for many models if you order from the web...

I get my first personal experience with Vista (though I've worked on it for other people) since my new work-supplied laptop comes with it.

Oh, boy, am I looking forward to that.

If I'd wanted software that thought it knew everything I wanted and kept me from doing anything else, I'd have stuck with my Lisa...

[grey-lady.livejournal.com]

Yeah - wish we'd done that with my Christmas present HP laptop, which had Vista installed and which we've never been able to get onto the wireless network, despite everything else in the house managing. I can't say for sure it's Vista causing the problem, but ...

In the meantime, it's an expensive paperweight. Ah well. We'll probably hand it over to djbp and see if he can scrub it and load something useful on it.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not blaming HP for Vista. I'm blaming HP for its own software, such as its completely useless "help and support" software, and its media player QuickPlay, the command for which is apparently something I hit routinely while playing any first-person game using WASD navigation -- which is pretty much all of them. So, in mid-fragfest or somewhere in the West Gash region of Morrowind, suddenly the DVD player pops up. (I have the same problem with the now-uninstalled Google Updater, which seemed to need a damn stake through the heart.) No software is that freakin' important... media player programs, much less so.