Murphy strikes at my new HP 5310m notebook (or was that HP itself?)

Having got caught up in the netbook craze of 2008 I bought a couple of them in succession starting with the Asus EEE PC 701 (the dear departed great great grandfather of netbooks) but after a very short time I realised that a 7 inch screen wasn't really going to cut it for aging eyes. Plus the screen real estate wasn't enough to do any useful surfing. And it was SLOOOOW, especially when Windows XP was installed. Should have stuck with the default linux. But it was very small and light.

In due course this was upgraded to an Acer D250 which, while much better, seemed to still be missing that essential something, namely speed. The Atom N270 CPU didn't really cut it for much more than casual surfing and light tasks.

In short a proper replacement was required, the excuse rationale being to allow me to do some work and write this blog on the run (hah!). The key criterion were reasonable CPU grunt and high if not ultra portability, wouldn't cost an arm and a leg (or even the tip of one's pinky). That basically ruled out the Sony Vaios (good looking machines but too expensive for what's on offer).

The newish Dell Vostro V13 rated a serious look and runs at 1.3GHz. By all accounts its a fairly decent little machine but I wanted that little extra (note to Dell - please come up with some nice colour options like for the Vostro 3000 series, love that bronze finish).

So after all that I found the HP 5310m. Ticked the boxes on nearly all counts. Not as light as the Dell but only a couple of mobile phones difference. There were a few concerns posted on forums around the internet - fingerprint magnet, space key issues and loose batteries seemed to be about it, oh, and poor screen contrast and viewing angles. Not an issue to me - if I wanted a nice screen I would have bought a Macbook (but that's another story).

Never owned a HP before. I had a couple of T series IBMs (before Lenovo's licence to use the name expired - the Lenovo logo just doesn't look as nice as those magic 3 letters) at my last job which performed quite well notwithstanding the punishment inflicted by us so called mobile professionals. Anyway, back to the story. So I picked up the HP last week, unpacked it, ogled the sleek black brushed aluminium lid (it does really make you want to stroke it - it's soooo nice compared to Lenovo's industrial matt black rubberised finish).

I duly charged it as per the getting started guide (took me a while to find the charge light - it's a tiny led located right behind the power socket) and started it up and went through the Windows 7 set up routine (note: the screen's fine with no dead or bright pixels - my eyesight is either worse than I thought or the reviewers were far too harsh). And that's when I saw it. Oh the horror.

Now, as anyone who has actually seen the notebook or read the numerous reviews of this machine on the internet would know, the 5310m has a nice 'chiclet' keyboard sitting atop a gloss black plastic base plate. And just there, right between the right control key and the left arrow, the plate was so warped that it rose above the palm rest. My first thought was not nice, seeing that as it is supposed to be a business notebook I had expected it to be better built than consumer grade machines. And for the most part it was.

My second thought was how on earth could this have made it past quality control, seeing as how much the plate was warped. To be fair I didn't notice the problem at first due to the excitement of having a new toy, and the fact that my study isn't the best lit place in the house in the afternoon. But come on - blind Freddy the QC inspector should have spotted (or should it be felt) that.

Damn that Murphy.

A call to the dealer explaining my situation was duly made with a follow up email sent with photos of the problem. The helpful girl that I dealt with arranged for a replacement so now, a week later, I have another notebook .I will say that the process was handled quite well without any issues so a big thumbs up here for my dealer.

However, having been pinged once I gave it a thorough going over this time round. I wish I hadn't. From a cosmetic perspective I believe the biggest issue with this notebook is the way the keyboard plate is constructed, either by poor design or a manufacturing issue. The keyboard area appears to made up of a number of parts, the glossy base in the middle (which was badly warped in my first machine) with a further 2 plastic plates adjacent to it, on top of which the aluminium palm rest and power button fascia plates are glued (?).

The problem? The plastic base plates don't appear to be totally flat, either through poor choice of material, a frame problem or an issue in the manufacturing process. It's warped (to varying degrees - there is still some minor warping on my replacement notebook but I can't really be bothered to go through the warranty process again.) I believe that this is also the cause of some complaints of deformed palm rests as well. In fact mine has a small ding in it (not really noticeable unless you look for it).

The other result of this is that one side of the palm rest is slightly angled downwards such the the rubber foot on the left side of the lid does not fully contact the palm rest when closed. Even when just eyeballing it, it's clear that the keyboard base is not uniformly level from the back to front of the notebook.

Other than than - it's fine. But the disappointing aspect of the build quality is that it really detracts from what is a pretty decent performing notebook and raises concerns about what quality control HP exercises at the factory level. Maybe mine are 1 (or 2) possibly rare examples from a poor batch run, but that's no excuse.

Would I buy another? Probably not, it's like the m-m-m-m-mole in that Austin Powers movie, once you see it you can't take your eyes off it. I'll splash for a Lenovo or Dell next time.