A few words on laptops

My favorite subject. Those who follow this blog on a regular basis know that I am not a fan of laptops, despite the brilliant mobility they offer.

• They are expensive
• They can easily break
• They are slow

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my $2000 HP laptop (only one year old) died a month ago. It was one of the better models on the market and it offered a lot of features even though it was a portable notebook.

I had to buy myself a new one after the accident (which I still know very little about...), but I had to recalibrate my expectations and requirements. Fine, I can deal with it. After all, I'm not a gamer.

But only a few days after the purchase, this new one starts fucking things up. First of all, the producer came up with the lame and stupid idea to turn all important buttons into touch-screen icons. This means that the volume knob is actually a strip which you have to caress with an almost erotic touch for it to respond properly. What ever happened to NORMAL buttons? I had the same thing on my other laptop and each time I pushed the "button", it gave a corny sound to notify that "hey, you just pushed me". It's like a toy for three-year olds.

Secondly, they decided to have a large window (not a NORMAL indicator like those on TV's) popping up that covers up almost one fourth of the screen. This means that your view is ruined for five seconds each time you want to adjust the volume while watching a movie. I'd like to meet the asshole who came up with this terrific invention.

My problem here is that this pop-up window won't go away, and after several conversations with technicians at HP, I've been advised to install a software update, not only once, but "a couple of times" in order to remove the stupid box. Does it surprise you that it was ineffectual?

Conclusion: Stay away from Hewlett-Packard. This was the last time I ever bought a computer from them. I always regarded them as a fairly priced brand with quality, but now I'm not sure anymore. They come up with horrendous, cosmetic ideas and work on the appearance of the chassi instead of coming up with something that really works. Maybe it's better to spend that extra $200 for a more expensive brand but to see the goddamn thing work properly.

Hewlett-Packard, start making computers, not scientific gadgets.