In praise of HP

[boyce]

I have owned three IPaqs my latest being the fantastic 4700 (sorry to see it go).

The reason I have always bought from Compaq/HP is that, by and large, they look after their customers by making robust, well designed - some would even say stylish products and, most importantly, they do fix the bugs and problems.

Take the 4700 - it has its faults but it had a fast processor, well engineered, quality manufactured, VGA and looong battery life.

When I bought it I didn't expect to be able to upgrade it to the next operating system but was able to do so for a relatively small sum (I had to revert back to PPC 2003 SE - see last post but this was not HP's fault).

Even though HP had announced that the 4700 is being discontinued they have still updated the software.

True, it does take HP a while to do what they promise but at least they do!

I don't know what PPC I will buy next but in making a decision I will be bearing in mind HP's commitment to their customer (not perfect to not bad either).

[capo]

Customer service isn't something I usually think of when I think of HP, but I'm glad to read an opposing viewpoint. My experience was quite different, but I'll skip rehashing it all again. I've since switched to Dell - my x50v isn't as sexy as my iPaq 4155, but it's a solid performer and I've had great luck with Dell in terms of support and service.

[j0dan]

i couldn't let a pro hp post go by without putting in my 2cents.

i'm a VERY unhappy hp owner. having owned a h4150 and a few printers.. i will never ever EVER buy an hp product again.. terrible support.. promised upgrades of the os to wm2003se, but nothing.

i've also had the privilage (not) of working for hp customer support... we treated customers like **** because really thats all we were allowed to do.

[echernosky]

Here's my 2 cents too. I'll think twice before ever buying another HP device.

The 2215 I bought (2 years ago) had a bad power board thingamajig. I went through their return process. What a nightmare!

When I got the device back, it still turned off occasionally. I sent it back for more repairs. They sent it back to me reassuring me that the device met specifications or some silly stuff like that.

At that point, I gave up dealing with them. I shouldn't have, but I did.

The "power outages" have now gotten worse. I can expect to have to turn the thing back on every few minutes . Going to have to replace the unit with something new.

I do hope that HP stays in the market though to drive up the competition on the brand that I DO want to buy.

[Nurhisham Hussein]

My 2 cents:

I found the last few posts about the relative merits of the 4700 and the x51v rather funny, considering they're both designed and made by the same company.

[r@dimus]

Take the 4700 - it has its faults but it had a fast processor, well engineered, quality manufactured, VGA and looong battery life.

When I bought it I didn't expect to be able to upgrade it to the next operating system but was able to do so for a relatively small sum (I had to revert back to PPC 2003 SE - see last post but this was not HP's fault).

Even though HP had announced that the 4700 is being discontinued they have still updated the software.



That's rather nice of them, but does the upgrade actually WORK or does it end up creating more problems than it really solves? There are legions of Dell X50v owners who tried to update their devices to WM5 and had nothing but trouble. Even early on, before HP bought Compaq, early iPaq owners were told that they could update their PPC's to the next version of the OS but when it came out Compaq had to strip a lot of stuff out because the older devices did not have enough ROM to hold the whole install.

Upgrading PPC's to the newer OS's has historically been an iffy proposition. Especially with WM5, which completely overhauls the memory architecture from the old model of all storage in volitaile RAM to storage in the flashROM and running programs in the volitile RAM.

Just be sure you can downgrade the OS before you go installing the WM5 update.