War ‘n’ Tea
I love having an unlocked phone. It really gives me a false sense of empowerment. Yes, I am an AT&T customer, but I don’t have to continue being one to keep my phone!
It also means that if I have a problem with my phone, I have to take it up with the manufacturer of my phone, and not my carrier. This means I have to talk to HP. I do not have a problem with doing that, but having never experienced a problem with an HP device before, I really did not know what to expect from them.
There has really only been one problem with the phone, and that is that some of the buttons do not always register when I press them. The biggest offender is the up button. For some reason, it will not register a button press unless I really mean it. When I press it, it makes the little clicky feeling thing, but no reaction on screen. But if I really press down, really hard, it will finally recognize that I want to press it. This gets kind of annoying.
It began with the up button. It really only happened some of the time. I thought, “Eh, well, it’s just the up button. Not a huge deal.” Then it got worse. Then it started with all the buttons right beneath the screen. Occasional offenders now also include the shift key, the H key, and the D key. Is that weird? I sure think so.
Afraid this was the curse of the HP iPaq 910c, I ran crying to the Google, where I begged it to tell me if there were any other users who experienced the same problem with their iPaqs. I sacrificed a lamb, sprinkled its blood upon my keyboard (all required if you want to use Google properly, and find Google’s favor) and hit enter. I found nothing. This means that my device is likely a lemon, and a rare one, at that. Either that or I was using Google way wrong, and I still have not entirely ruled that out yet.
I had an IM chat with an HP representative who told me to do a barrel roll hard reset, which I did, which changed nothing.
When I called up HP yesterday and got through to a human being, she said her name was Debra and she spoke with a slight southern drawl which made her hard to understand, and surprising for someone who was probably sitting in Hyderabad. I explained to her all I had done so we could skip the “did you do a hard reset?” part of the conversation which really just slows things down. She wasted no time in putting an order in to send a replacement device my way.
All in all, it was a very pleasant experience. I understand the marketing behind offering good customer support. I know it is only to keep the customer buying from them. But I am a total sucker for friendly support people. Debra was very nice, and even told me a fun factoid that there’s a town in South Carolina called Ninety Six. I’m a sucker for that kind of thing.
So, my replacement iPaq shipped yesterday. I’m not completely sure when to expect it, but as long as it works, I do not really care. In all likelihood, I will continue to be an HP customer. I just wish the replacement would arrive a wee bit faster.
Oh and come on, you have got to admit the title is kind of funny.