Review of Hewlett Packard Pavilion laptop series

HP keys can be faulty

I have used a minimum of three HP laptops, two of them Pavilions, still working. The older one running Windows xp flawlessly, came with many CD's such as drivers, including two CD's with versions of Windows in different languages. On the other hand, the newer one has been rather a disappointment!
Starting from unpacking I found out the printed configuration label mentioning an older memory type, other than the one advertised on their site.  Contacting HP Hellas for several times by phone, to report the error in the configuration, did not yield any result. Instead  filing a written complain at the Consumer protection agency and contacting the HP executive team did. Some weeks later I received a call to  fetch a replacement laptop of similar price.
In that case there were no DVD's at all, neither of drivers nor of operating system,  just an application to record the file images from the hard disk to three or four blank DVD's.  After two years of normal home, non office use, and numerous problems with the NVIDIA graphics adapter drivers, some keyboard keys stopped functioning. The backspace key, the backslash key beneath it and lastly the numerical 7 key. The price of a spare part keyboard in Greece was surprisingly  at least 20 € higher than in Germany and was due to be delivered in more than a month! On the other hand, within  3 working days  I received a new keyboard for  a total of 49 € in Frankfurt am Main. The search for a nearby dealer via the HP search page  returned either businesses which were closed or relocated. Hopefully the online manual for disassembling the laptop was clear enough (although some extra screws were not displayed) to replace it on my own, without paying a visit to a technician, at no extra monetary or time cost.Thus, be ware, it counts from where one places one's spare part order!
All in all, the HP pavilions quality seems to deteriorate in time, the newer models are more fragile and easy to break down. All of them are vulnerable to overheating, which forces the laptop to power  off automatically, so as to prevent any further damage, but leaving the user wondering whether his work has been saved! That applies not only to places with a hot summer Mediterranean climate but also to milder climates, such as Germany. Finally, one matter of essence is the shorter duration of  the HP  one year guarantee, when compared to the competition which offers two years of warranty.