Should I be nervous about a refurb over new?
Bought this last time on sale. Hard drive failed after 80 days. Replacement sent under warranty, but could not do a system restore with the provided discs and had to send the whole thing back. Fortunately under warranty. I won’t buy an HP again. The ones I have bought always seem to run hot, and batteries fail shortly after warranty expires.
Just a slight clarification–you must generate the recovery media yourself, either on four DVDs or a 32GB USB drive, when you receive the laptop. They do not “come with” the package. There is an HP Recovery Media Creation utility program installed that allows you to make one set of recovery media from the recovery partition on the hard drive.
Why not an mSATA? I already have one, 840 EVO 250GB.
I think a 3-year 3-day Onsite Warranty from HP for ~$150 is cheaper than a MacBook Pro… ALL HP warranties go thru phone support first, then parts mailouts if easily replaceable, before you have to send it back anyways, so the warranties available differ in length or minor coverage differences, so I went for 3 years. There’s also a 2-year w/accidental coverage for the same price, and a “Pick Up & Return” 2-year warranty that’s even less.
I have a slightly different version, the one with 1080p, 4700MQ quad-core processor, 12GB RAM, 1TB HDD, and 2x2/AC WiFi, Touchscreen, Backlit Keyboard, etc., and then I bought a genuine HP 8GB module for around $60 to replace the 4GB module, to get me to 16GB total.
Hope this helps!
I just bought this laptop on Aug 24, 2014. And it has delivered to me right now. Does someone need it? Because the return fee is so high, 15% of original price!