Having fun any minute now...
Written: Dec 30 '99
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy set up and easy to use
Cons: Died in less than 30 minutes
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| elverno's Full Review: Hewlett Packard CD-Writer Plus 8220e CD-RW Burner |
I purchased this external CD writer as part of a package for my in-laws, comparative newbies and have been under-whelmed so far.
My father-in-law has thousands of picture slides and we recently convinced him to scan them into a computer and store them on CD-ROM. Enter the 8200e from HP. We received it overnight from Dell. It was well packaged and arrived in good shape. The model we ordered uses the USB serial cable and is extremely easy to set up, just plug in the power and plug in the USB cable.
We set up without any problems and actually made two CDs before the unit died. As we were preparing to create the third CD the external unit itself simply stopped working. After checking every possible power and cable combination I concluded, somewhat embarrassed since I had recommended HP because of its reliability, that it was dead.
After waiting on the phone with Dell for almost an hour (well it was the day after Christmas) we were told that problems with peripherals must be brought up with the manufacturer. I felt like that song in JC Superstar, "He's Herod's race... he's Herod's case!"
After another hour on the phone with HP we concluded (surprise!) that the unit was dead and needed to be returned. But we couldn't return it directly, it needed to be returned through Dell. Hm...
It was a mere 45 minutes of telephone joy that led to the conclusion that if we wanted to get a replacement before my in-laws left for home in the new year that we needed to put it on their credit card. Then, when the dead unit got to Dell they would credit the amount back. Reasonable actually, but if you were pinching pennies to get this far (they're not) it would be very annoying.
So we're awaiting our replacement. Should be here later today. But I'm under-whelmed by the combination of service by Dell and HP and by the apparent lack of quality control that allowed a unit out the door that operated successfully less than 30 minutes.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
elverno
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Member: Vern McCrea
Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 1 member
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