I went out and bought the Wal-Mart machine yesterday. It's fast to boot, to bring up web or documents and, now fully operational, still has 107 of 138 GB free, even with all the ash and trash HP loads on it - I'll clean that out over time.
There was nobody in line at Wal-Mart. I went back to the home entertainment area about 15 minutes to the hour, the only customer present. When 8:00 rolled around, the clerk pulled up a laptop from under the counter and sold it to me - less than 1 minute transaction.
My problems began when I got it home. Contrary to the quick start guide, the wifi was off by default - first time I've seen a machine with switchable capability. Most of the built-in help material is about Windows, rather than the computer, but I finally located a help that showed possible locations for the button; unfortunately, none of the illustrated suggestions seemed to work. The phone number supplied with the machine didn't connect on Sunday, and the online support suggested
http://www.hp.com/go/notebookcare
which I tried from my desktop, does not seem to lead to anyone that will chat with you. I tried looking in the BIOS, another of the suggestions, but was unsuccessful finding anything that looked like a wifi switch. Finally I tried pressing the red wifi light, and it turned out to be a button that turned the light blue and I was off and running.
Having gotten through the hard part - HP's legendary customer service - the laptop is up and fully functional. And contrary to the pronouncements of the self-proclaimed experts that hang out on this forum, this is a VERY usable machine for standard laptop use.
The best of ZDNet, delivered
ZDNet Newsletters
Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox
