ThinkPad X200 Tablet Save Extra 5%
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37 out of 37 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"Good product marred by poor support"
Pros: It has everything that I could think of at reasonable price
Cons: The 12 cell battery sticks out too far, the imprint finish is prone to smudges
Summary: I recently had a very bad experience with HP support when I purchased this laptop. I ordered the laptop on 10/20/06 fully loaded with 2GB RAM, 2Ghz processor, bluetooth, lightscribe DVD writer, 12 cell battery, 256MB display card, HP imprint finish with integrated webcam and microphones etc. The laptop was shipped from Shanghai, China (I always thought HP made these laptops in US) on 10/27/06 and was delivered to me on 10/30/06. Very impressive.
I opened the box There was nothing much in it by the way of packing. I was surprised to see laptop shipped from China to US supported on just two foam pieces. Maybe because FEDEX has its own planes, they can take care of stuff better.
I had also purchased HP's most expensive 3 year accidental damage protection and extended service plan.
One thing immediately caught my attention. The HP imprint finish is extremely susceptible to finger prints, smudges and scratches. On top of it, is it shiny black, so unless I was wearing gloves all the time while handling this laptop, it would get all smudged and smudges would show from a mile. Maybe this is why HP included a small microfiber cloth. But I realized that I will need several yards worth of it.
The setup was easy though I would have preferred that HP leave optional softwares to the user. Anyways, everything was working fine and I spent several hours downloading the Windows updates and doing other customizations and everything seemed to be working fine.
Then I decided to pair my Cingular 8125 Windows Mobile 5 smartphone with the built-in bluetooth. This is one of reasons I bought this laptop. I was tired of connecting the USB bluetooth dongle every time to my Acer Aspire laptop. No matter what I did, the 8125 would not ActiveSync with the DV6000t. I tried all possible solution given by everyone on the web but it just will not work.
Finally, on 11/1/06, I called the award winning technical support. After all, I had paid $349.99 extra for the support. I was on hold for about 10 minutes before I could speak to a live person. The moment I spoke to him, I was positive that this was outsourced support. The person took all my laptop details like part number, serial number, model number, date of purchase, my name, e-mail address, phone number, ZIP code, permission to contact via e-mail, if this was my first contact with support and so on. I was wondering if he would ever ask me what problem I was having, but finally he asked the big question: how can I help you today.
I told him the problem. He said: So your bluetooth is not working. Then he put me on hold for 2 minutes. He came back and asked what device I was trying to pair the laptop with? I told him that it was a smartphone. He put me on hold for another 2 minutes and then told me that this kind of issue is handled by another department and I would have to pay to get support. I told him that I had paid extra for support but he insisted that it was the only way available for me. I told him to put me through to a supervisor. He said that he had already told me the only way out. I insisted. He put me on hold for another 2 minutes and then told me that the supervisor was busy on another call and that even if I spoke to the supervisor, he will tell me the same thing. I was extremely upset. The additional support I had purchased clearly said that it covered any configuration issues.
I immediately called sales and returned the laptop. It was picked up today by FEDEX.
I liked the laptop. It gave me a battery life of 4 hours doing file transfers. Even then it was not fully discharged. The laptop was quiet in operation. The fan did turn on, but it did not make a loud noise. The speed of laptop was good. The ultrabright display was reflective and could not be used outdoors in sunlight. The webcam was good and the sound quality from built-in speakers was good. The wireless network worked fine. The laptop is well loaded with software. There is Quicken 2006 and Money 2006. There is a 60 day subscription to Norton Internet Security. Lot of DVD writing and lightscribe software. Microsoft Works is included with document, spreadsheet, various useful templates, e-mail etc. A 60 day trial version of MS Office 2003 was also installed.
If you are buying this laptop, make sure you take 120GB disk. The 100GB disk leaves only 70GB free. Normally, in a 100GB disk, there is only 92 GB usable space. Out of that, HP uses 8GB to create a recovery partition on D: drive. There is about 14GB worth of operating system and other software installs. If you create a recovery DVD from D: drive, you can free up the 8GB space. The recovery works very well. Before returning the lapop, I recovered it its factory condition and it took half an hour.
The laptop has an optional remote control which can control DVD player etc. The problem is that the IR receiver for that remote is very small( about pea size) and is located on the front panel, next to audio connectors. With the 12 cell battery sticking out of the bottom and the whole laptop sloping forward, I found it hard to operate anything with that remote.
There is a standard built-in 5-media type card reader. This is not mentioned anywhere in the specifications.
The laptop does not accept PCMCIA cards. It takes only the newer Express cards.
The media controls on the front panel are truly appealing. They light up as small blue icons and operate by touch (not pressure). The battery charger is on the side and the charger cable kind of sticks out. The charger also has a blue indicator around the connector to indicate charger is in use.
I do not understand why CNET has given a rating of 6.7. I had read this CNET review before buying this laptop and was bit cautious. The laptop however turned out to be a very good, much better than I had expected after reading a 6.7 review.
I loved this laptop but I felt cheated by the support policies. If the support had made any attempt to rectify the issue, maybe it could have been resolved or I might have made a compromise on bluetooth. I was irked at the fact the support person did not make any attempt to do any kind of troubleshooting. He did not even bother to ask if the bluetooth was turned on. He straightaway tried to make more money out of me. The support cost made up 20% of the total money I had paid and HP still wanted more!! Pathetic. To add insult to injury, HP e-mailed me a survey about my experience with technical support. I clicked on the survey and the first question is asked was "Did you contact HP technical support about a problem where it was determined that your laptop was out of warranty?"
Maybe I will buy the same laptop again but without the extended support.
Another thing which irked me about extended support was that even though I bought the support and laptop from HP in a single transaction, it was somehow my responsibility to activate the extended support. Why HP could not fill in all the details and send me a pre-activated support? All other laptop makers do that.Updated
I am loving this laptop. HP recently sent me the free Windows Vista upgrade as they had promised. I installed Vista and all HP drivers and application software were present on the DVD. I did not have any problems installing Windows Vista. With Vista, I am still getting 2.5-3 hours of battery life on a 12 cell battery AND with Windows Media Player playing my favorite songs. The speed is way better than Windows XP. It has been 5 months since I am using this laptop and my opinion has not changed a bit.
I had installed OpenSuSE Linux 10.2 on this laptop and the 64-bit distro worked just fine. It turns out that the T7200 Intel core duo is 64-bit processor. I had taken this processor as an option and paid extra for it. Obtaining 64 bit drivers for nVidia card was a challenge though.
I would also like to say that after I complained to HP corporate about my experience with tech support, their tech support has improved really.
The price on this laptop has dropped a little bit in the last 6 months. I am glad that HP sticks to their prices unlike some other companies who keep changing the price of their product several times a day.
- 7 replies to this review
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Had been seriously considering the purchase of this laptop; called in to sales to ask if I can get one with XP rather than VISTA (call me crazy). I've got Mr.Wannabe Sales Dude on the phone pretending to be my best friend and slip it to me anyway he can, sales-wise. Great report, laughing, joking, until I joked about not buying a computer "today, but--" He went over the top of me, cut me off with a curt goodbye and promptly hung up. Fine, I didn't have time for him either, and I don't think I'm going to subject myself to more jerkoffs in Support. So Dell, here I come.
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First, thanks AXG for the great write up. I think you hit the nail on the head. My experience with HP has been very similar.
Within days of arrival my beautiful fully loaded dv6000t had a couple of different minor issues that required a Tech Support call.(green vertical stripe on screen when booting, webcam not working[vista driver issue?])
Both times I got off the phone frustrated at the "techs" inability to communicate in English and diagnose/fix my problem. I realize it is fairly commonplace to outsource tech support these days, but In my experience so far, I find HP's outsourced tech support service to be worse than others. Previously, I owned a Dell and was very pleased with both their tech support and at home service technicians. There were a few morons here and there but my problems were always resolved by the end of the call and getting transfered to a supervisor was not an ordeal. With HP I have made 2 calls and have had 0 problems resolved.
Also noteworthy, HP's India call center "techs" are very reluctant to transfer to level 2. I was told both times that a supervisor was not available but would call me within 24hrs. It's been over a week since my last call, no supervisor!
I am keeping the laptop, which I absolutely love by the way, and returning the 3-year express service plan($199). I will sell this machine as soon as the factory warranty expires. I will probably not purchase another HP. If service is an issue for you, I would say avoid HP. Performance A+, Service F. -
I agree totally with every thing you said. My tale is even worse than yours.
I purchased a DV6000 laptop on Dec 6. Got it home, took it out of the factory sealed box, powered it up and found out the display was defective (vertical lines every where. Since it was the last one the store had I decided to give HP support a try. After having to ask the technician to repeat what they were saying several times (couldn't understand them because of their dialect) they agreed to have FEDEX pick the unit up the next day for shipping to their repair facility.
Two days later I was contacted by HP's Memphis TN repair facility and was told the screen was cracked and was not covered under warranty. They went on to say the repair would cost me $729 and wanted to know if I wanted them to repair the unit. I reiterated that I had just purchased the unit and had the receipt showing the date. The repair technician said it didn't matter that HP assumes if a display is cracked that it's the owners fault.
I tried contacting the help line again and was told a case manager would be in touch with me to get further details. After waiting 5 days and still no contact by the case manager I contacted the repair facility to have the unit shipped back for return to the place of purchase.
Based on this experience I would never advise anyone to purchase a HP laptop and expect the company to provide you with "Award Winning" service. -
AXG seems to have had a lousy experience with HP support. I cannot speak to laptop support specifically (it may well be a different department) but my experience with HP support for a color lazer printer was completely opposite of his. An HP not only answered the line within 1 minute (yes, in Bangalore India-I asked) but escalated it to US based support immediately upon my request. The problem was dealt with quickly and professionally (I needed a part that was out of stock in the entire network as it was rare for it to malfunction. The rep not only had a reseller remove it from another machine and ship it next day they even had a senior tech walk me thru an installaion that was normally reserved for on-site techs from HP. All this on a standard HP warranty. Perhaps because this was a big commercila machine (used in my home office) the service was better but I will tell you that I am buying a laptop from them based on this experience.
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Customer service seems to be spotty at best at many companies. I have had similar experiences to yours with Dell and even worse with Panasonic. However, with both Dell and HP, I have found email tech support to be much better than phone tech support. Even the instant messaging tech support is better than phone support which I have usually found to be frustrating and often unhelpful. Just getting the phone technicians to understand the problem is sometimes a challenge. In the future you may wish to try this route. Also, as for extended support, you do not need to purchase it at the time you purchase your computer. Believe me, they will hound you with ads and mailers for the next couple years with various offers since this is a big money maker for them. That way you can try out their support, see if it is worthwhile and then decide whether or not to extend your plan.
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Honestly, I do feel for you, but Hp is known for their support, probably what they're most known for. I honestly think you did get a sucky person and had a bad experience, but maybe if you called again it would of been different.
I also agree, shipping time is very fast, although took mine a while to get configured.
The packaging surprised me too, but the foam and the cardboard are rather sturdy, and everything came unharmed and in pristine shape, so no worries.
I also purchase Hp accidental damage protection, 2 years.
Hp imprint IS very susceptible to finger prints and smudges. Scratches, I don't know so much, but yes it does dirty up rather nicely.
Hp is also know to put a lot of trial software, but this makes the laptops less expensive, and I usually just get a windows xp disc so it works out good for me, for others don't know, but you have to get what works best for you.
The bluetooth problem woulda probably been solved by a competent hp customer service representative, hell I probably coulda helped you with that.
Do take note how you said Award Winning Support. Even Jd power and associates gave them the thumbs up, and those guys know what they're talking about.
That does suck how he made you give him all the info. I would of just hung up on him and tried getting a better person.
And ya usually with problems with other products, they really can't help you, hell, I called my Internet Service Provider and they couldn't help me with my Wi-Fi, when on my router it clearly said (to obtain these settings, call your ISP, THEY KNOW THEM). But like I said, common knowledge.
Lol and you asked for a supervisor and he did not give you a supervisor? First of all, when you ask for a supervisor, they are SUPPOSED to put you through to a supervisor, what you should of done was either A. Get the guy's name down, I'm sure he would of gotten in serious trouble for that, or B. When you get through to sales department and tell them you want to return the laptop, I'm PRETTY sure they ask why you are returning the laptop, if you would of just said you were having a problem with your laptop and customer service was not being helpful and extremely rude, I'm sure they would of worked out something to the extents of even giving you some sort of discount with some extras to make you happy, etc.
Battery life is good, laptop is quiet, fans don't make loud noise, with your config it is extremely fast, I can use mine in sunlight, just have to dim monitor and it does have to do with who specifically manufactures the screen which is a roll of the dice, webcam is ok and the speakers are pretty good to be coming from a laptop. Wireless is pretty good, Laptop is full of software/trial software, Norton is a trash virus protection.
120gb i agree with you, if you are concerned with recovery partition there is a way to delete it if you take the time to learn how to do it, software installs you can get rid of (by the way I have gotten rid of recovery partition and all the extra software I didn't need by the way). As far as the remote goes, it isn't GREAT, but then again what other laptop you know has a remote and a place to put it INSIDE THE LAPTOP, let alone just a remote. I use it when I'm listening to music and playing dvd's. As far as the 12 cell goes, it does kinda suck if you don't like it, but then again you shoulda did just a little research, if you ordered it off of hp.com, they have a little picture illustrating the slope that it makes. But then again you should research all important buys like a laptop instead of just waking up and deciding you want to buy one and just getting whatever configuration. You should know what you want, and what each thing does and why your getting if. If you don't, you shouldn't be spending 1800 dollars on it and complaining afterwards.
I coulda sworn the 5 media type card reader is in the specs, but hey I'll take your word for it, just because it's a little too late and I'm feeling a little too lazy to check.
it not accepting PCMCIA cards is a really legit gripe. One of my few.
Media controls are appealing, charger cable does kinda stick out, all true.
It's funny, even with all your gripes, you still think it deserved a higher score. How laughable is that.
I honestly think you should give the laptop another chance. After all, it is award winning, I honestly just think you talked to the wrong person, and you could of easily talked your way into a free gimme or something of that nature, because they are award winning for a reason, and Hp is really serious about keeping that status.
Are you sure about the warranty? That is very interesting if you are right, I'm going to have to take a look into that.
But...... just give customer service another chance I think. -
Honestly, I do feel for you, but Hp is known for their support, probably what they're most known for. I honestly think you did get a sucky person and had a bad experience, but maybe if you called again it woulda been different.
I also agree, shipping time is very fast, although took mine a while to get configured.
The packaging surprised me too, but the foam and the cardboard are rather sturdy, and everything came unharmed and in pristine shape, so no worries.
I also purchase Hp accidental damage protection, 2 years.
Hp imprint IS very susceptible to finger prints and smudges. Scratches, I don't know so much, but yes it does dirty up rather nicely.
Hp is also know to put a lot of trial software, but this makes the laptops less expensive, and I usually just get a windows xp disc so it works out good for me, for others don't know, but you have to get what works best for you.
The bluetooth problem woulda probably been solved by a competent hp customer service representitive, hell I probably coulda helped you with that.
Do take note how you said Award Winning Support. Even Jd power and associates gave them the thumbs up, and those guys know what they're talking about.
That does suck how he made you give him all the info. I would of just hung up on him and tried getting a better person.
And ya usually with problems with other products, they really can't help you, hell, I called my Internet Service Provider and they couldn't help me with my Wi-Fi, when on my router it clearly said (to obtain these settings, call your ISP, THEY KNOW THEM). But like I said, common knowledge.
Lol and you asked for a supervisor and he did not give you a supervisor? First of all, when you ask for a supervisor, they are SUPPOSED to put you through to a supervisor, what you should of done was either A. Get the guy's name down, I'm sure he would of gotten in serious trouble for that, or B. When you get through to sales department and tell them you want to return the laptop, I'm PRETTY sure they ask why you are returning the laptop, if you would of just said you were having a problem with your laptop and customer service was not being helpful and extremely rude, I'm sure they would of worked out something to the extents of even giving you some sort of discount with some extras to make you happy, etc.
Battery life is good, laptop is quiet, fans don't make loud noise, with your config it is extremely fast, I can use mine in sunlight, just have to dim monitor and it does have to do with who specifically manufactures the screen which is a roll of the dice, webcam is ok and the speakers are pretty good to be coming from a laptop. Wireless is pretty good, Laptop is full of software/trial software, Norton is a trash virus protection.
120gb i agree with you, if you are concerned with recovery partition there is a way to delete it if you take the time to learn how to do it, software installs you can get rid of (by the way I have gotten rid of recovery partition and all the extra software I didn't need by the way). As far as the remote goes, it isn't GREAT, but then again what other laptop you know has a remote and a place to put it INSIDE THE LAPTOP, let alone just a remote. I use it when I'm listening to music and playing dvd's. As far as the 12 cell goes, it does kinda suck if you don't like it, but then again you shoulda did just a little research, if you ordered it off of hp.com, they have a little picture illustrating the slope that it makes. But then again you should research all imporant buys like a laptop instead of just waking up and deciding you want to buy one and just getting whatever configuration. You should know what you want, and what each thing does and why your getting if. If you don't, you shouldn't be spending 1800 dollars on it and complaining afterwards.
I coulda sworn the 5 media type card reader is in the specs, but hey I'll take your word for it, just because it's a little too late and I'm feeling a little too lazy to check.
it not accepting PCMCIA cards is a really legit gripe. One of my few.
Media controls are appealing, charger cable does kinda stick out, all true.
It's funny, even with all your gripes, you still think it deserved a higher score. How laughable is that.
I honestly think you should give the laptop another chance. After all, it is award winning, I honestly just think you talked to the wrong person, and you could of easily talked your way into a free gimme or something of that nature, because they are award winning for a reason, and Hp is really serious about keeping that status.
Are you sure about the warranty? That is very interesting if you are right, I'm going to have to take a look into that.
But...... just give customer service another chance I think.
