I have a Compaq laptop. Compaq is owned by HP.

The laptop has never been terribly successful. When I bought it, I also got a docking station, which unceremoniously died about a month after the one-year warranty expired, and HP refused to repair it – even on a paid-for basis. The screen has also broken, and under the Next–Working-Day pick-up and repair warranty, the laptop was picked up two working days later, and returned (working) a week later. The hard drive has also broken, whilst the laptop was under warranty, but I was unable to wait a week for HP to fix it, and so had to have this done at personal expense.

Now to the latest fault. Shortly before the warranty for my laptop expired, the screen broke yet again. Unfortunately, this happened immediately before my exams, so I couldn’t afford for the laptop to spend a week away. I contacted HP, who refused to delay any warranty repairs by a couple of weeks, as the laptop would then be out of the warranty period. So, again, at great personal expense, I bought an external monitor, and a one-year next-day on-site warranty extension. All-in-all, I spent around £250 – over £100 of which was on the warranty extension.

The exams ended, and I contacted HP – yesterday, in fact. After more than half-an-hour in a telephone queueing system, HP duly agreed to send for a technician (from HP subcontractor ICM Computers) to visit me the Next Working Day (today) – well done, HP. The technician came out, very efficiently, with a replacement screen. It didn’t work. After an hour of trying to fix it, the technician admitted defeat, and said he’d order a new new screen from HP.

He’s coming back tomorrow, and I get the feeling that this isn’t going to be over quickly, so I’m blogging the experience. Next installment: tomorrow.