For someone like me with a lot of knowledge in the technology field, your product, the HP Envy 15T, has served me for well over a year. I began using your product two years ago when my Dell Latitude E4310 was starting to get a bit slow for my needs. I bought your product because of its over-the-top power and performance. This is the computer that allowed me to edit my YouTube videos and other very demanding tasks. After a year, this computer started having some problems. First, the battery was not lasting as much as stated on the product specifications. Some customers may feel that it may be an act of planned obsolescence, where the product is only meant to work for a certain amount of time until it starts to fail, causing the owner to buy a new laptop. This is not the only laptop with these types of issues, as I have owned other HP laptops as well, which have the same exact problems. Tech support is also not that helpful in these situations because they do not honor warranties from other stores, such as Costco, unless the manager wants to send in paperwork. Lastly, my Dell Latitude E4310, while slow, is still running up-to-date software, and has working perfect for over three years now, something my HP laptops have struggled to keep up with. One way to help with this ongoing issue could be to stop planned obsolescence, as it really just angers customers and makes them want to stop buying HP products.

The HP Envy 15T is meant to be used by business and prosumers, and since this is a laptop, it is meant to be used even if there is no charger plugged in. Although this is not the case with me and many other customers. These computers only last about one or two hours on a charge, much less than the time stated on the box. Some customers feel that this is an act of planned obsolescence. Planned Obsolescence is when a product is meant to work for a certain amount of time, and then starting to fail. This causes the user to buy a new laptop, which gives the company more money. This is an endless loop, and if it continues, then HP is just losing customers. I also know this for a fact because I have owned two HP laptops in my life. One is this HP Envy 15t and the other is a HP Pavilion dv7-1264nr. Both have started having problems right out of the warranty period (which is a year). They both had battery life problems, and later started having frequent crashes. The error codes were also the same, which does indicate that HP is purposely using bad/faulty hardware in their PC’s. If HP stopped using faulty hardware in their computers, then it will lead to less planned obsolescence, which in turn will lead to more customers wanting to buy HP laptops.

If the owner does not want to replace his product, then he/she may speak with tech support, but HP tech support is not that great either. Their customer support only honors warranties from HP, any simply will not accept any other warranties such as that of Costco. This happen to me, because I bought my laptop from Costco. Since Costco gives every computer a two year warranty, and HP only gives a one year warranty, once the HP warranty expires, they will no longer help you. The only way that HP could help you with your other warranty is if the store manager sends over Proof of Purchase and Warranty paperwork. Even then, the customer service cannot do much over the phone, except tell you that you need to reset your computer. Resetting your computer causes it to lose data, and it is very tedious and time consuming to copy over 900 GB over to a external hard drive. Eventually, I settled on sending in my PC to the HP facility. My dad is very skilled at repairing computers, and he knew exactly what was causing the problem, but he did not want to mess with the warranty. When I got my PC back, I was surprised to find out that everything they fixed was totally useless, and they completely missed the problem. HP claimed they fixed the issues, but after a short period of time, these same exact problems came back. This could be easily fixed with HP fixing their laptop diagnostic protocol, and their how they honor warranties from other sellers and stores.

Although my Dell Latitude E4310 is very out-of-date for any task I do on a day to day basis, this laptop is happily being used by my parents. They have used it for quite some time, and it is not slow for their means. From time to time, my HP Envy 15t will be unable to even open email, or browse the web. This is not something that should be happening with a $800 computer. Instead, it should be the other way around, where my Dell Laptop, which only costed $450 should be struggling with modern tasks. This is not the case though, and my HP Envy 15t has disappointed me with the lack of stability and being outperformed, in some cases, by a seven year old laptop. If one laptop is not enough, my second HP laptop, the one I owned before this one had these same exact symptoms where the battery fails after one year, or some other unexplainable error. It is also a bit suspicious that the laptop just so happens that it gets very slow right outside of the warranty period. This is acceptable for sub $200 laptops and desktops, but definitely not for one that costs $800.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read this letter, and please consider my suggestions. I hope your development team and staff can sort out these issues so your future products can sell well. By stopping planned obsolescence, using high-quality hardware, and fixing protocol, your company will do much better in the long term with increasing numbers of happy customers.