Review - HP Buying Experience and 110XP

[ThisIsNot]

As many of you know, I have an HP Mini 110XP on order. I have had one on order since June but that was for my work (which was subsequently taken without me being able to play with it). So I decided to buy one for myself to see if Broadcom's Crystal HD could really playback 1080p videos. This is going to be a review of my buying experience from HP's website. I will follow it up with an in-depth review of HP's netbook once it finally comes in.

So, about 2 weeks ago, I placed an order for HP's Mini 110XP netbook. It was configured with the following specs:
Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz processor
1GB RAM
16GB SSD
10" 1366X768 LED display (matte)
Broadcom Crystal HD accelerator
6-cell battery
Black swirl design

I also ordered two accessories with it: black swirl slip case and a 1TB USB 2.0 hard drive. The cost of the netbook came out to $399 through HP's HBA (education) store, the case was an additional $11 and the hard drive was $80. Everything was fine until HP was e-mailing me everyday saying that the production of my netbook was getting delayed. They weren't really giving me any reasons either other than saying that HP was receiving a bunch of orders for their netbooks with the Broadcom chip. Alright, I can see that. HP just started offering the chip in July so I can understand that the units their factory ordered aren't able to keep up with their initial demand projections.

I received an e-mail two days ago saying that my netbook would be further delayed. I called HP and was transferred to their corporate office here in the U.S. I explained everything and said that I just wanted my money back. The reason why I wanted a refund is because I can order the same netbook now and not pay tax on it or the external hard drive. The person then tells me that the reason for my delays hasn't been because of the Broadcom chip but rather the 1TB USB 2.0 hard drive. There were communication issues between the HP departments. Their plant in China was supposed to build my netbook and ship it straight to me while one of their offices in the U.S. was supposed to ship the hard drive separately. They were supposed to time each shipment so that they would arrive on the same day.

So the person kindly refunds my credit card (which is actually my debit card) for the entire purchase price. HP would have received an extremely low score in this area. Instead, I think they get about a 4/10. They messed up and kept me hanging for a few weeks but at least they refunded my money (it went through my bank account this morning).

I repurchased the netbook this morning with the same exact configuration. This time, however, HP gave me a coupon which basically pays for the slipcase. I did not add the USB 2.0 hard drive to my order though. I just want the netbook now.

Their website is easy to navigate but they need to fix communication between their different branches. It ticks me off that their manufacturing location is telling me that the delay is because of mass order numbers when in fact it was something different. They should have just shipped my netbook anyway.

Well, I am kind of glad that they didn't as my total purchase price came out to $399 for the netbook. I didn't have to pay tax (yay NM!), didn't have to pay for 5 day shipping, and the slip case was free (it wasn't technically free, the coupon took $20 off of my order so it worked out). Not too bad for a netbook that can playback 1080p videos. I am a little torqued as the netbook won't be built until August 17th which means that it won't get shipped until the 18th or 19th. That further means that it won't arrive until the 26th of August.

Not the end of the world as the 26th of August is my birthday. So here is my score for the buying experience: 4/10

I plan on doing an in-depth review of the netbook and adding it to this post. I didn't know if I could change the title of the thread later on so I added 110XP review to it. I hope that no one gets confused. I need some time to kill so I thought I would review the buying experience. I would recommend HP's website to others only if they wanted a customized unit. Otherwise, stores such as Best Buy often offer better prices for non-configurable HP notebooks. HP's netbooks seem to carry a high price tag in the stores as Best Buy (and others) will charge $399 for a unit with a 160GB hard drive, N270 processor (not the N280), and 3-cell battery. The Broadcom Crystal HD accelerator is only available if you customize the netbook on HP's website.

Edit:
I also want to add that I came close to ordering a Dell Mini 10 through their education store. Right now, they are having some type of deal with their Mini 10 netbook. My guess is that they are trying to get rid of them as the Z series Atom processor is fading away. I could have purchased a Mini 10 with the 1.6GHz Z530 Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, and an digital TV tuner capable of HD signals (I doubt the computer would be able to play these HD streams, the GMA 500 it terrible). However, one thing I do have to applaud HP on is their build times. Dell said that the preliminary build date (which means that they won't start building it until that day) would be August 24th and that it typically takes a couple business days to finish the building process. Dell would not be able to start building it until the 24th... That is 17 days after the order date (of the 7th). Please forgive me if I think that something as small as a netbook should be built within 14 days. It is not like there are thousands of different customization options. The only things that can really be changed on the Dell Mini 10 are the processor, size of battery, inclusion of TV tuner, WAN, GPS, bluetooth, and color. That is pretty much standard these days for netbooks. So I have to give credit to HP for being able to ship my custom netbook on the 17th of August. I thought that 10 days (6 business days) was a long time. However, after comparing it to Dell's customization time period, I have to say that 10 days is rather quick.

Originally Posted by ThisIsNot

...the 26th of August is my birthday.

Edit:
I also want to add that I came close to ordering a Dell Mini 10 through their education store.

Pre-birthday wishes to you.

I wanted to buy a Dell but the long build time meant I could never get a confirmed ship date to a location where I would be to accept delivery. I'm a moving target and apparently Dell is too.

My 1000HE has worked fine for me as a personal electronic assistant. I read that I could get the same thing at Sears for $25. Wow!

I'm looking forward to your experience with a more graphics capable netbook. Keep posting.

[ThisIsNot]

Thanks for the birthday wishes. My buying experience has gone from bad to worse. HP shipped my netbook case the same day I ordered. This is kind of rare as I ordered the netbook past noon. Normally websites won't ship orders taken that day unless they were before noon.

Well, I was tracking the netbook case. It was supposed to arrive tomorrow. However, to my surprise, I saw that it was going to be delivered today. One day early may not sound like much (especially for a case to a computer that I don't have) but I would have to give props to FedEx for doing that. I just read that my package was lost in transit and FedEx will be getting in contact with me soon. I don't understand how a truck could have lost my package especially whenever it has been "out for deliver" since 5:30 AM today. The nearest FedEx location is about an hour away in a city called El Paso, TX. Las Cruces, NM does not have a FedEx sorting facility. This means that all FedEx packages come through El Paso and it is pretty common to see something out for delivery all day. I just don't understand how a person could have lost the package, it has been on their truck all day and they didn't lose it until about 30 minutes ago.

I am not the biggest fan of FedEx, I prefer UPS. There is a large UPS sorting facility located in Las Cruces and I have yet to encounter a problem with UPS *knocks on wood*. This is the second time that FedEx has lost something of mine. The first time was when I ordered a computer from Dell. It was an Inspiron 1500 and I ordered it back in the summer of 2004. I also ordered it through Dell's financing program as I wanted to increase my credit score. Well, the computer never came and Dell did not understand that. I refused to pay on Dell's financing program as I didn't have a computer. Dell should have been the one to see that my computer didn't arrive and ship me a new one using a more expedited service. They didn't. Instead, they kept billing me for something that I didn't have. I felt like I was talking to children every single time the Dell representatives called. They didn't understand why I wasn't paying my system off. It wasn't until I was transferred to their offices in Texas whenever someone finally got it through their thick heads that I didn't have the computer and that I (not Dell) was working with FedEx to get a check so that I could pay off the Dell account. I thought everything was settled until I received a letter from a small claims law firm saying that I owed $1500 on my Dell account and that my wages were going to be garnished.

Needless to say, it was a headache and I have since refused to get items shipped through FedEx. It took two years to get that negative mark off of my credit and it was all FedEx's fault. The strange thing is that it was lost while it was out for delivery to my apartment complex. I have a feeling that the FedEx guy took it for himself. Either that or someone got in his truck, took one package, and ran away. There have been some instances when I cannot avoid getting something shipped through FedEx, this HP purchase was one of them.

Now I will have to get in touch with FedEx again so that they could pay for my $11 case. The good news is that I used my debit card to pay for this computer and my bank will be more than willing to give me back the $11 and work it all out with FedEx. That way, I can just order another one from HP. I have already called HP and they said that they would sell me the case for $11 again. The case normally goes for $18 but you get a $5 discount and a further $2 discount if you buy it along with a netbook.

I hate FedEx.

Edit: While I still don't like FedEx, they came through. Apparently the delivery truck was involved in a small fender bender while in Las Cruces. So the driver had to fill out paperwork and the truck had to be hauled back to El Paso (company policy). They then rented a U-haul and moved all of the packages to that. This means that they had to go through the entire inventory on the truck. This further means that they didn't deliver the package until 7:00 PM, a good 12 hours later than it should have been delivered. I have to hand it to FedEx for pulling through like that. I kind of moves them up a notch on my ratings system, they are still pretty low though.

[ThisIsNot]

I guess you can consider this a "blog" until I get the netbook and actually review it (thanks for the forums Chris). I am going to give HP props as they shipped my netbook today, a full 3 days ahead of schedule. I woke up this morning at 10:00 AM (I have finished my first week of a two week break) to find that HP shipped my netbook from Shanghai, China. The only thing is that it was basically 10:00 PM over there and FedEx won't be moving it until Monday. I don't even have an estimated arrival date.

Still, one day early means that it will likely get moved at least a little bit over today and maybe the weekend.

Pardon me, but I'm LMAO with this story. Better you than me. I have everything shipped to my home, get it tested by family computer whiz kids and then the family forwards it to me.

I'll be looking forward to what you review about better graphics in the netbook.

BTW, I checked the online bookstore for New Mexico State University and in some cases they don't require proof of student status. I really like that Sony 17in full HD, 3.06 dual core, blu-ray burner, 8GB RAM monster "netbook" for just $2,000. Just right for split screen note-taking.

Having used both a MacBook and a netbook, if I were on campus now, it would be netbook all the way sharing files by flash drive or SD cards. No need for the more robust MB.

In some ways though it depends on how the student receives the course materials. If a course outline is received as a pdf file and the student wanted to add textbook notes and lecture notes to the outline (and who wouldn't) the computer would need to be able to write to pdf. If the campus was wifi covered, access to library materials and research online would be needed. If not, a scanner would be needed for dead tree copying. Study teams need networking skills and software for cross referencing.

Good luck with school. Looking forward to your posts.

[ThisIsNot]

The netbook might be delivered earlier than expected. It flew from Shanghai to Anchorage, AK during the morning of the 15th. I guess Customs had to inspect it (or something like that) and it flew from Anchorage to Memphis, TN. I have yet to figure out what these shipping companies do. Honestly, why would they fly it to Memphis? That overshoots New Mexico by a bunch of states. Why not fly it down to Nevada (I know they have a large FedEx facility the) and then fly it to El Paso? I could get the netbook a couple days early if they did that. I would say that they could go straight from Anchorage to El Paso but I doubt that there are flights like that. They could have even gone from Anchorage to Dallas, TX and then to El Paso.

I once had to overnight ship a package from the office to another company. The funny thing is that the other company is in the same city we are. We don't have bike rider carriers like big cities so we had to ship it. The main reason why we shipped the package is because this other company is notorious for saying that they didn't receive stuff when in fact we have dropped it off in person. Their in-house mailing system is so messed up that things get lost. We wanted proof that something was delivered and that their in-house mail system is to blame. Anyway, we used FedEx to overnight the package (it was a 3 ring binder filled with copies of some of our data). The FedEx guy picked the binder up at 9:00 AM, took it to El Paso (30 minutes away), it flew out to Dallas, it then flew to New Jersey, went to Memphis, flew back to El Paso, and was delivered the next day. Why in the hell was this done? The FedEx guy could have easily just left the package in his truck or at the El Paso facility. There was no need for it to travel across half of the U.S. since it was being delivered in the same city. Even after all that, the company said that they didn't receive the package. We didn't send them another one and instead sent them a bill for the FedEx shipping. They eventually found the package sitting under a bunch of other packages that their employees just threw in a corner.

FedEx perplexes me with the way they operate, the same goes for UPS. They should let me run the companies as I could reduce costs and save shipping times. There is no need to fly a package to almost the East Coast whenever it is being delivered almost in the middle of the Southern U.S.

I know who you can blame for the Memphis route. Your cheap netbook got tossed on top of an expensive Apple pallet. You might like this shipping thread.

Outsourcing to China as the world's largest low cost labor force is expensive.

Keep blogging and thanks for all the informative posts.

[ThisIsNot]

You mean inexpensive netbook, not cheap. Cheap would imply that I paid $100 for something that will fall apart in the next few months. Inexpensive means that I didn't pay that much for something that is high quality. Who knows, the HP netbook could be cheap.

I hate to say this but at least I am not the only one with issues. The funny thing is that I ordered a Nintendo DS Lite way back before the U.S. launch. I ordered a Japanese import. They shipped it from Japan to New York and then to Cincinnati (where I was living) all in the matter of two days, that was through UPS too. There were only two stops on its way to my apartment and it didn't overshoot where I lived. The package also weighed more than the netbook. Lik-sang (who Sony shut down) sent it as a 10 lb package as it had the console, a Japan only game, a carrying case, and they threw a couple other things in there (free mouse pad, lanyard, calendar, etc.). Went right through customs without an issue.

I also had an iPod case shipped from Canada to Cincinnati through UPS, no issues either. I am sure that there are people who have UPS horror stories though, no shipping service has ever been perfect. I just don't understand why they operate the way they do. I understand that the FedEx corporate HQ is in Memphis but that doesn't mean that they had to ship my netbook there (1087 miles form El Paso). Look at all of those extra resources that they are using to get it in Memphis and then back over here. What's next? Are they going to ship it to New York, then LA, then Seattle, and then El Paso for a truck delivery to Las Cruces. No wonder why HP normally charges $25 for standard 5-7 day FedEx shipping.

Originally Posted by ThisIsNot

You mean inexpensive netbook, not cheap.

No offense meant/intended. I almost never mean offense. The generic word cheap can mean either shoddy or affordable. I take it you are aggravated with the shipping problems and not (necessarily) with me.

Since you are a graphics specialist, how do computer subsets work together to make the best performance? Where does the bit stream come from and where does it go? Other than graphics processor where should I be looking for performance? Chipset, faster CPU, faster FSB, faster HDD, bigger fan?

I'm not exactly sure that improved graphics is where I want to go. Small and cheap with the Asus is working for me.

[ericinboston]

everyone...I had a horrific, horrific experience buying from HP 2 years ago via their website...long story short, I will never ever buy an HP product again. Ever. Anything...even it if was a book of matches.

-Eric