$250 laptop @ staples $299 -$50 coupon links working again

[AMD K9]

Just picked up one of these, I'm trying to get rid of all the bloatware included with it and have issues getting rid of some of the HP stuff.

I'm close to just doing a clean win7 install on it. does anyone know if there are any driver issues i might encounter with it?

It didn't come up an recovery disc, so im wondering if i can use my win7 upgrade disc to do a clean install with the serial from the sticker on the bottom?

Interested in this as well.

 

[razel]

Just picked up one of these, I'm trying to get rid of all the bloatware included with it and have issues getting rid of some of the HP stuff.

It didn't come up an recovery disc, so im wondering if i can use my win7 upgrade disc to do a clean install with the serial from the sticker on the bottom?

I've had no issues removing the bloatware. I didn't completely uninstall the HP stuff. I recommend using Norton's separate uninstaller from their site to completly remove it and pcdecrapifier for the HP stuff.

I wouldn't do the clean win7 install without making the recovery discs 1st, but that's just me. It took about an hour and it made 4 DVDs. You can find the recovery media maker in the start menu... if you deleted it already, you can still get it back. If you still have the recovery partition you can boot off the recovery, restore your system then make the discs.

Best of luck.

 

[AMD K9]

So making the recovery DVDs will allow a backup solution an a version of Win 7 Home Premium as a factory restore minus the bloatware or is the bloatware still there? I just want to blank my drive but keep the DVDs to bring it back to factory specs if only for Win 7 re-installation needed periodically.

Also not a fan of the restore partition

 

[Blackjack200]

Just picked up one of these, I'm trying to get rid of all the bloatware included with it and have issues getting rid of some of the HP stuff.

I'm close to just doing a clean win7 install on it. does anyone know if there are any driver issues i might encounter with it?

It didn't come up an recovery disc, so im wondering if i can use my win7 upgrade disc to do a clean install with the serial from the sticker on the bottom?

Interested in this as well.

I just checked which programs were running on startup (start --> Search --> "msconfig" --> startup) then used add/remove on the CP to remove them. This wiped out the majority of it, and I also took out a few other useless programs.

If there are a couple of small bloatware apps that I missed and they're not loading anything into memory or doing anything at startup, I don't really care.

 

[jjmIII]

Just picked up one of these, I'm trying to get rid of all the bloatware included with it and have issues getting rid of some of the HP stuff.

I'm close to just doing a clean win7 install on it. does anyone know if there are any driver issues i might encounter with it?

It didn't come up an recovery disc, so im wondering if i can use my win7 upgrade disc to do a clean install with the serial from the sticker on the bottom?

http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/...works awesome!

Yes, clean install should be easy if you have a Win7 disk.

 

[drquest]

Picked one of these up yesterday for my inlaws... Been cleaning crap programs off of it and installing updates etc... It's no frills, but seems to run pretty good IMO. We had some rewards coupons too, so it worked out nicely!

 

[ZickZJ]

You bought a $60 plan on a $250 laptop? I don't know how much the battery costs, but I'm taking this laptop to Bogota (http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2090145) so I wanted something I could lose without it being a big deal.

Thanks, I'm getting better tips here than on the stupid travel websites I was going to. One more question... how come I cant find a map of Bogota anywhere? I like to have a nice big map to help me visualize the city and how I'll get around, but I literally can't find one on Amazon or even maps.com

Also, I ended up getting this laptop:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2089783

No HDMI (or card reader, lol) but for $250 I couldn't pass it up.

So did your not actually have HDMI or a card reader? Cause the one I received does. Odd

 

[AMD K9]

So fast forward 2 years from this thread. I actually bought 2 of these laptops. I had one and then I gave the other one to a family member and bought the 2 year $59.99 no-risk warranty. Well my sister rarely uses the laptop so it basically stayed unused. The main reason I bought the warranty was for my sister's benefit since she's not very technical when it comes to computers. I myself never bother with warranties like this as I'd figure if I get 2 years out of a computer then it served me well. The other selling point was that I'd get my money back after the 2 years if I did not use the warranty service.

Well it dawns on me today that I never used the warranty and I remembered the $60 "NO-RISK" warranty so I scramble to get the receipt and head over to Staples. They give me the blank stare like, we haven't seen these warranties for a long time and that's when I knew they were giving me the screw job which is why I never buy these stupid warranties. Well they said it was over 2 years so there was nothing they could do.

I call the Staples Customer service 800 number and they look up the transaction from the info off of the receipt I gave. He tells me the stipulation was they only refund the purchase price of the warranty if it is unused AND a request for the refund is made within 30 days of the end of the warranty expiring (actually he is wrong as the fine print says 30 days after the promotion period ending which would have been mid September so 30 days after that). The salesperson never stated there was a time constraint to claim the unused warranty purchase price, where if on day 31 you are SOL.

He further tells me that the warranty program listed 806540 was a 2 year warranty but WAS NOT the 100% risk free money back warranty that Staples advertised it as. I wonder if everyone that bought into this warranty that tried to redeem the money back got screwed when even if they were within the deadline, were told, "Sorry this warranty does not entail refund of the purchase price after the 2 years are up."

I'm done with Staples and they can shove their rewards program which is also a scam as I buy crap from them all the time but it doesn't count for points. Seems like the program is only good if you go through printer ink or toner like water.