I bought a brand new HP laptop about a month ago. It worked great in the store, and had great specs (with the exception of the video card). I got it home only to find that I wasn't very satisfied with it. The startup time was slow, it was overwhelmed with bloatware (most of which I was able to get rid of), and turned out to have a rather subpar screen (which wasn't obvious in the lighting of the store). I have no idea whether to just deal with the laptop and some of the features that I find lacking for it's specs/price (slow startup time, cheap screen, etc) or try to sell this and take a small hit on the price so that I can purchase a new one that I have researched more heavily and also have tried out more. This would also give me the opportunity to get a Mac again (which I miss).
If it's under a month, can't you return it for a refund? It might cost a 10 or 15% restock but that might be better than trying to mess with selling and shipping it.
One of my policies when buying a computer is to reformat it as soon as I get it home. There's always shitloads of bloatware on them, so just wipe and reinstall. You should be able to get all the drivers from the HP website. That will take care of the slow startup. As for the screen, that's just not good.
The trackpad also sucks. I didn't include that because I feel like an idiot for not testing it enough in the store xD . Sadly, the restore feature that HP uses will just reinstall all the shit that came with it in the first place. One of the reasons I am struggling to figure out whether I should get rid of this thing and get a new one is the fact that I really dislike feeling impulsive. And getting a new laptop after a month makes me feel impulsive.
didn't think of that.. I have clean install disks for every windows version from 95 to 7, apart from vista, and Mac OS from 9.2 to 10.6.. I sometimes forget that not everyone's as nerdy as me
Unless the screen was unlivable, I'd make recovery discs, blow away the preinstall and do a clean install (using clean install media, not the recovery discs). HP's preloads disgust me. When I got my HP laptop in 2007, the NIS demo would add 2 minutes to boot time even when it wasn't active. Wild tangent junk games ate up a gig of disc space for no good reason. At work someone brought in their new personal HP laptop. Windows 7, Core i7, the works, and the thing laboured for 5 minutes to start because it was so bogged down with junk. But what do I expect from a company, that along with nVidia, tries to cover up defective products. http://hplies.com Needless to say when I bought a new computer recently, I avoided HP and I avoided nVidia.
Reformat it. If you still don't like it then return it. They don't need it to have the same OS as it was sold with. If you don't want to pay for a new OS, install a Linux one, preferably Ubuntu since it's one of the easiest to use.
I got a HP desktop about 5 years and HP just overloads your shit. So you want to format your shit and run a copy of XP (Preferably Blackmoon or other useful versions of XP). If not, fire up 7 and hope it improves. When you're buying a computer. Test the FUCK out of it. And Best Buy are assholes and you should have never bought from them. What I would do the next time you have a PC purchase. Use Tigerdirect.com and get a pre-built PC or even get a Barebones kit which you build yourself (Which is easy). That way, companies like HP and Best Buy dont completely destory your PC with useless shit. Hope this helps! Also, you CAN return it. Just go to back to Best Buy and start some shit. Get angry if you must. They'll eventually submit and they'll give you a refund if you're angry/dissatisfied enough. Just make sure your anger is tactful and legal. Also also, dont format it and THEN try to take it back to Best Buy. Bad idea. Try to take it back first!
I never formatted it; I don't have my own fresh copy of Windows 7 to use (the 1 copy I have is already registered on my desktop). When I first restarted this for the first time, it didn't even boot into Windows. It tried to have me use this weird product that is their own OS that allows you to surf the internet. It took me 1 or more hours to just remove half the crap on this. I was flabergasted by the sheer volume of software the HP designs for their laptops. I really don't need a video editor, bloated photo editor, fingerprint scanner software, password registry, or a program that does my laundry for me xD . What I have been noticing is that the more time I start using a Windows-only laptop, the more I miss the Mac that I had.
I have to refuse to help you now xD Well, try taking it back. I still think getting a pre-assembled barebones PC would be your best set. If not, you can spend an extra $500 to get a Mac, which I dont particularly recomend but it's up to you. You can always use BootNuke, which I think will help you get rid of all of HP's spyware. But you'll need to reformat to do that so you'll need a copy of Windows. You can pirate a copy if you'd like but you didn't hear that from me. Did you even try taking it back and starting a shitstorm? I still think that'd work.
