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About two weeks ago we decided, based on various and asundry problems that spell imminent doom, that I needed to replace my laptop computer. It was an off name brand machine I had mail ordered from a chain of computer stores in California two years before, a Pentium-III running Win-98, that was reaching its end days. I'm told by many that portables are nowhere near as durable as desktops, but I've always assumed this was a matter of being banged around too much on airplanes and the like (something I never do). This one served me well, and if not for a dying video screen may have been sufficient for another year or two, but if the only way to use it was an external monitor it was going to be useless for 90% of the time I write.
I'm a mobile person in many ways, though many don't believe it, and in years past have been an electronic nomad. There were years in the 80s and early 90s when I moved twice in a year (and once four times in a single year) from one address to another, one part of the state to another. Sometimes this was job related, other times it was to be near friends or romantic interests and sometimes pure desperation in tight housing markets. So I adapted a Live Lightly attitude in my life, discarding unneccessary or no longer needed items in various ways (giving them away, finding them good homes or abandoning them when I left an address). My computers have always been this way too (my second computer was a Laptop before they came with Hard Drives and I've used laptops 90% of the time since).
Anyway, we went shopping for a new machine at the local Microcenter after a few days of magazine and web research. We didn't buy the first trip, as the salesman was way too pushy. The second trip we got a softer sell guy to give us the additional info we needed to decide between the four machines we had narrowed it down to.
The competition was close. The final decision was pretty much made on the fact that the HP Pavillion was supposed to be able to swap out its DVD/CD-RW drive for a second battery. They didn't stock the battery, you had to order it direct, but they did stock the 'main' battery, a stick-like affair very different in shape and size (except they turned out to be out of them when I went to buy one in the store at the same time... sigh).
Having had a machine, two machines back, with this feature, and how useful the extra battery had been back then in regards to extra usage time, I went for the HP zt1260. I got home, ordered the battery and a spare main battery from the HP website (using the 'discount' card that came with the computer) and went about doing the week's worth of installs and data transfers that I needed to get the new machine to run everything I had on the old machine.
Yesterday the batteries came. And that's when I discovered that the salesman had lied (or didn't know his product lines). The second battery was for a different machine, an older discontinued model, and did not in any way fit my machine. So I called up HP, and spoke with their customer service rep. He apologized for the store's mistake, gave me a return number and said Fed Ex would pick up the second battery tomorrow (now today) in the original box and the battery and credit me for the full amount on my credit card. None of the current HP models support a second battery swapped in. None.
I have no qualms with HP, they and Fed Ex have come thru and the battery is now enroute back. I am a bit peeved with the store, as I hate it when salesmen either don't know their merchandise or outright lie in order to make the sale. It's not every day that I spend the sort of money I spent on the machine, heck this will be my biggest personal expenditure, barring medical emergencies, until I have to buy a new computer when this one meets its end. I do business with the store regularly, buying supplies, software etc there at least once a month. Or at least I did. Now they get put into the list of places I don't do business with unless I have no other choice. Oddly this list tends to coincide with businesses that have gone out of business in our area... perhaps this is a sign that they had better do some heavy staff investigation and roll over or they are likely to follow the rest. A salesman that will lie to get a tiny commission regarding one customer will do it a lot more, and it doesn't take long to end up with a lot of peeved customers.
The really silly thing is, I stressed to the salesman the importance of the battery life and the spare battery. Not only was it his misinformation that swayed me... but because of it I bought the Cheaper of two machines (by about $100). So his lie (or lack of knowledge) has cost him future sales AND got him a lesser commission. There's a lesson for retail businesses there.
Other Notes :
Kiralee's game is now up to 3 players planned, though she needs 4 to run. She's feeling a bit more confident with this news, and I hope this means she'll be working on her game preparations some more this weekend. If you'd be interested check out the Quartermain Page and contact her by email.
I'm planning on getting some web site expansion done this weekend, as well as some maintenance. I'm still looking for more writers and artists to contribute to it, as always. We don't pay, but you're sure to get exposure (we're still getting between 7000 and 10000 unique visitors reading 7-12 pages of material each month, not exactly small potatoes).
Except for the Battery Problem, I am very satisfied with my HP Pavillion zt1260, and have settled into it. It has a slight learning curve, as I was going from Win-98 to Win-XP, but I usually pick up on these things fairly fast. (Nearly everything I know about computers, except for a couple of programming courses in the dark old days of Cobol and Fortran, I've taught myself with hands on experience, having manuals and listening to the acquired verbal/written knowledge of others on the Internet and among various acquaintences.) I like the keyboard, find the weight (about 6 1/2 lbs fully loaded), shape and functionality fine. I've yet to manage to crash it, and have only ran out of operating capacity once (there are still memory leaks in Windows, no matter what they say). It does run a bit hotter than my old P3 did, but it is a lot faster, has three times as much hard drive space, a much better sound system, can play media the old machine couldn't and can generally keep up with my need to have a dozen or more windows open while writing or editing code. With a 3 year parts & labor, we come to you door pickup/delivery contract, it should keep me happy for some time to come.
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Synthesis & Synchronicity is the meanderings of the mind of Joseph Teller and may not reflect the reality of your own personal universe. Contents are Copyright 2002 by Joseph Teller and anyone who wants to reproduce it in any way or fashion must request permission (although linkage to these is granted to any and all websites, mailing lists and newsgroups, their operators, posters and users if so desired). Unless of course otherwise noted within the text of the articles involved.