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Hardware

HP Jornada Refund 38

Posted by emmett from the sixteen-bits-on-a-dead-man's-chest dept.
theguy writes: "HP is offering a refund for dissatisfied Jornada owners. Hooray, I'm a big HP fan and its good to see some of the big ones listen." Check out the original news bit we wrote about this, if you're just tuning in.
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HP Jornada Refund More

HP Jornada Refund

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  • Refunds? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Are they then subsequently offering refunds on refurb units that were returned by original refund-seekers?

  • sToLeN pOsTs (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ask Slashdot:
    I am going to be incarcerated in a federal prison in a few weeks ( after sentencing) on charges of insider trading, sending unsolicted commercial email, and trading MP3s. I was wondering if Slashdot readers had any information on the best free, Linux based ISP to use while in the ole' pokey (no pun intended)...
    I have already contracted with VA Linux and CompaQ to custom build me a 'matchbook pc', running Slack, that I can safely and happily keep in my rectal cavity, but, again, the big problem is getting that high speed and stable access.

    Also, I need to know if it is possible to post to Slashdot through a federal firewall. I understand that they use Windows NT...is that hard to hack through?
    Thanks a bunch guys! See you in 2 1/2 - 5 years! (Well, probably not...but I'll talk to whoever takes Slashdots place as 'ridiculous quesions on the web.com...)

     ===========sToLeN PoStS==============

  • Good Job HP (Score:3)

    by Dungeon Dweller ( 134014 ) on Friday June 02, 2000 @04:55AM (#1030589)
    It's good to see a big company taking responsibility for its actions. It seems like nobody, people, government, or corporate, feels like having an ounce of honor these days and making things right when they have done wrong. Way to go HP!

  • Mobile computing is good for God (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This may seem like a strange statement to make, but any good Christian out there should get themselves a mobile computer. Why? Because it allows one to spend more of their time in productive work rather than in idle play where there are temptations which lead one from God's path into sin.

    No, until the day when we can spend all of our time either in worship or doing work we need solutions like this to help us stave off the sinful temptations that modern society offers. I for one, don't care about a slight deficiency in the colour depth of the Jornada - as long as it helps me get into Heaven I'm going to buy one, and I urge all decent Christians to do the same.

  • Most laptops claim a full 16 bit color range but in all honesty most flat screen technologies are not capably of that fine color control, for HP to stand up and admit that their marketing exaggerated the capabilities of their hardware is really quite refreshing. After all what is being discussed is just 1 bit of color accuracy per color component.

    4000 colors? Who could possibly need that much! 16 colors and 32k of ram should be enough for any man.
  • Hmm ... 240x320=76800 total visible pixels ... how many colors do you need?!
  • Hp's stock had a nice little jump yesterday -- it'd been on the decline for a bit, perhaps this had something to do with it?
  • 4 bits short. It was 12 bit, sold as 16. Your thinking of 15bit 555 format, common in PC video cards which is sold as 16bit, as the missing bit is wasted/not used, making each pixel 16 bits in size, but only 15 bits of information.

    Thad

  • Haiku (Score:4)

    by 575 ( 195442 ) on Friday June 02, 2000 @05:05AM (#1030595) Journal
    Four thousand colors
    That PDA is not new
    Its an Amiga

  • Wrong brother! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Computers are the tools of the Devil, make no mistake! Using a hand held computer is like holding the Devil's hand, and you wouldn't do that would you brother? Mobile computers just mean that we can use our computers to sin wherever we go - and sinning while in church is especially bad. We must banish all technology from our lives, else we may be tempted. Read the Good Book and pray instead. Amen.

  • Huh? (Score:1)

    by jonr ( 1130 )
    I thought that the basic rul was that the customer could return product if it somewhat didn't support his needs. (With the usual disclaimers) Of course, there are stores who always have to behave like total idiots. I've bought for example NIC's that havent worked correctly with certain operating systems, and always have been able to return them for another or get a refund...
    J.
  • Yes I know, but the extra bit on green has virtualy no effect. 32k modes and 64k modes are almost identical in color quality. I did say "1 bit per color component" as the difference between 12 and 15bit, I felt it safe to ignore the 16th bit as I feel this is as much marketing rubish as the original issue.
  • It is good that a corporation like HP is willing to admit its error and offer users a refund. Many companies, even when presented with information that suggests their products may be dangerous, will neglect to recall them. It is nice to see a large company like HP take responsibility for its mistake to ensure customer satisfaction.

  • Beowulf/Jornada Haiku

    H-P jornadas

    make slow beowulf clusters

    and have funny screens.

  • Re:Mobile computing is good for God (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    But do not, under any circumstances, allow the Prince of Darkness [openbsd.org] onto your PC.
  • Where are all the mo-rons who were arguing about the fact that there were so many colors as opposed to the true too-few? lol
  • I really liked the slow sales bit on the Palm 3c.
    What I really love about the palm is it's simplicity and the paradigm that it doesn't do a helluva lot of things, but what it does it does right.
    As an independant consultant I track my hours on that Palm and I'd just hate to see $ 10k flushed down the drain for the ability to watch Mpeg videos, listen to Metallica songs or, for that mather, have some thousand colors on my PDA.
  • Perhaps I'm misreading the Netscape Article. I hope so. What do they mean by "a glitch prevented the use of all 65000 colors", when later on they talk about a 12-bit controller? Sounds to me like they got caught lying, never expecting consumers to notice. That's why I hope I'm wrong.

    Accidentally designing all of your hardware around a 12-bit controller is not a glitch. Claiming a 12-bit controller can produce 65000 colors cannot entirely be an accident.

    -Paul Komarek
  • I was reading the comments on the original story, and I have to agree: this story is pointless. Who cares? How may people own this 16-no-i'm-sorry-but-its-only-12 bit "pocket" pc? Slashdot has hundreds of submissions, admitted some of them may be repeats, but there are still hundreds of other interesting things we could be focusing our time on. Jornada is the absolute LAST thing on my agenda, as well as the 3 people that bought one and want their money back because they lost their 4 bits.

  • I don't think this is that great of HP. (Score:3)

    by tcd004 ( 134130 ) on Friday June 02, 2000 @05:33AM (#1030606) Homepage
    I'm sure there are alot of people out there who are relying in these things, and can't afford to simply exchange them. HP should have offered to refund a portion of the original purchase price. If I bought a car that they told me was 6 cylinder, but turned out to be 4, I'd expect part of my purchase price back, if anything.

    tcd004

    Check out wwink's blog [lostbrain.com].

  • This is nice to see (HP taking responsiblity and all), but it doesn't seem to be a trend. System specs are (now) often misquoted, especially by the manufacturer. Hell -- look at Microsoft. Minimum system requirements for Win98 were, IIRC, something like a 486DX2/50 with 16M of RAM.
  • This is the Erratum from HP's Jornada Site:

    Erratum

    HP has incorrectly stated in its communication that the HP Jornada 540 Series Color Pocket PCs are capable of displaying 16-bit/65,536 colors. HP recently discovered that while the screen technology used in the Jornada 540 have the ability to display images up to 65,536 colors (16-bits), an electronic component within the product limits the actual color resolution that customers can see to 12-bit -- or a maximum of 4,096 colors displayed at any one time. Therefore, the expectation set that images can be displayed in 65,536 colors is in error.

    The color display of the HP Jornada 540 Series Color Pocket PC's standard screens are not affected by this issue. Only high-resolution images viewed using specialized graphic software such as Sierra Imaging's Image Expert CE and Microsoft Internet Explorer will be affected.

    HP apologizes for any inconvenience and confusion caused as a result of this unintentional error. Customers are assured that this miscommunication does not compromise any other functionality of the device. As with all HP products, the HP Jornada 540 Series Pocket PCs come with the same high quality and reliability expected by customers.

    HP has taken immediate steps to rectify this error in all our communication.

    You decide... While it was a 65K Color Display it can only display 4K colors...

  • I did say "1 bit per color component"
    Indeed. Sorry, I must have skim read past that. :(

    Mental note to self: Don't correct people who are already correct. :)

    Thad

  • Re:Glitch? (Score:3)

    by Misch ( 158807 ) on Friday June 02, 2000 @05:48AM (#1030610) Homepage
    Accidentally designing all of your hardware around a 12-bit controller is not a glitch. Claiming a 12-bit controller can produce 65000 colors cannot entirely be an accident.

    Yes it can be an accident. You create a specifications document for a product. That document gets reviewed and checked. It is sent off to marketing, R&D, and other areas.

    Someone, somewhere along the line someone makes a modification to the specifications, and this change doesn't make its way over to marketing. By this time, the advertising and promotional materials for the product have been created, but are never really checked against the final spec. Thus, marketing and deliverable differ. A simple mistake. At least HP is standing up and saying "Yeah, we screwed up."... it's a lot more than some companies are doing... (especially those who are going to hide behind the UCITA...)

    There's a fine difference between mistake and lying... this feels like a mistake.

  • What microsoft has on these people to make them only support Windows CE. Hewlett Packard made one of the best palmtop PCs - the 200LX - and never upgraded or went anywhere with this little monster. I had one for many years until it passed away :). My palm is nice, but the LX wasn't much better, and with native DOS support, it even ran Turbo C++!!

    What I ask is why, oh why, can't HP apply their excellent engineering and the AWESOME tactile feel keys to a machine that runs linux, or at the very least, a new version of the 200LX? I'm sure there's a pent up demand for a machine like that from the geeks out there. My palm pro is a nice organizer. What I'd like is something that's light and has more power - and runs linux. (In one of those hpc form factors - and the Sony Picturebook is several thousand dollars, way outta whack).

    Wake up and smell the coffee. Business users aren't going to make these things a success. Geeks are. Make a kick-butt PIM package like came on the 200LX (yet to be surpassed IMHO) and support a standard OS like DOS or Linux, and the world of engineers who lustly covet their 48G's will beat a path to your door.

    Now that HP is going to have all of these returned machines, wouldn't it be a great opportunity to sell 'em all, maybe at a tidy profit?

    Kudos

  • Disclaimer: I don't work for HP, but I do work with HP...

    They are the only company that I know that will offer a trade [hp.com] in on old equipment. For a while on their large format printers/plotters, they would even accept competitor products, such as Calcomp and Epson, as trade ins!

    They always have been willing to make the customer happy. Good to see they aren't trying to cover up, and admit when they are wrong.

  • Maybe I'm missing something here, but if your device offers 4000 colors after you claimed it would display 65,000... that seems like a total breakdown in quality control, if not blatant false advertising. Rather than a "glitch", which is what HP and the referenced article are calling it.
  • HP ripped off their customers. They lied to them. I'm surprised this wasn't leaked earlier - there must have been quite a few HP employees/contractors who worked on the Jornada in development, manufacturing, marketing, and sales and knew about this little discrepancy.

    If a customer likes their Jornada, they won't return it over this - they'll want to keep using it! HP chose the cheapest way out, banking on the fact that their customers are probably pissed, but not pissed enough to return their Jornada and then have to go out and buy a different product.

    A reduction in MSRP and a partial refund of the purchase price is the right thing to do.

  • Don't blame the stores (Score:3)

    by Zico ( 14255 ) on Friday June 02, 2000 @06:33AM (#1030615)

    A lot more stores used to be more lenient about this kind of thing, until people started abusing it. Want a good laptop to write your term paper on? No problem, just go buy one, then return it after finals week, saying you weren't happy with it. After being victimized by things like this one too many times (kinda like when Slashdot was encouraging people to sign up for MSN and immediately drop it, pocketing whatever was bought with the $400 voucher), stores these days are a lot less enthusiastic about giving their customers the benefit of the doubt. Thanks to people like the above, most stores have big restocking fees if you decide to return something. Go see how much fun it is to return something to ChumpUSA these days.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • Mine was worth every penny I paid (Score:4)

    by jht ( 5006 ) on Friday June 02, 2000 @06:35AM (#1030616) Homepage Journal
    Because it was free (we got 5 of them in their switch promotion - and the HP4000 switch rocks). I'm hacking around with one, and I gave the other ones to my staff. It's not a bad little unit. The screen may not be 16-bit, but it's more than good enough for AvantGo browsing and e-book reading (which, along with Inbox sync, is all I do with it). I use the HP a decent amount during the work day.

    My Palm Vx, though, is still much handier because:

    It's half the size of the HP. Even though the HP does fit in a pocket (barely), it's a lot heavier than the Palm.
    It's faster for most tasks (except offline browsing).
    The battery life is much better (though the HP isn't as bad as I expected - I can easily get through a couple of workdays before it needs a recharge).
    I can sync the Palm with my iBook and my Linux box - not just with Windows.

    And finally:
    Palm isn't Microsoft!

    - -Josh Turiel
  • I have a Jornada 680 - the style with the keyboard. Does this 'glitch' affect those as well? The article doesn't seem to address the issue. Come to think of it, the article strikes me as really vague. It would be more comforting if they at least pointed to a press release on hp.com...
  • "-You're- a -hot- -dog-, and you'd better not try to hurt her, -Frank- -Fur- -ter-!"

    -Rocky Horror Picture Show

  • They *are* offering a full refund. Read the article again.
  • Sorry, I should have been more clear. I think they should be willing to allow you to keep the device, and receive a check for $40.

    tcd004

  • I think the refund should be calculated based on the fact that they shorted me 4 bits per pixel.

    That would be 50&#162 x 240 x 320 = $38,400.

    That should cover all medical care for the eyestrain caused by trying to tell the difference between 12-bit and 16-bit images.

  • After all what is being discussed is just 1 bit of color accuracy per color component.

    Well, it is exponential... the difference between 1-bit (monochrome) and 2-bit (4 grays) is very noticeable :) As you get more bits, it starts making less difference, but still, I can easily tell the difference between a 5-bit color ramp (32 shades) and a 6-bit one (64 shades). The difference between 4 and 5 bits would be even more noticeable. (And my laptop's LCD screen is capable of displaying more than 5 bits per color component... looks like it can do the full 8 bits that the video chips put out).

  • Totally agree

    Put Win2k on my thinkpad - nice, recognised my PC cards and generally saved a day of driver installs, tho' not the TP dsp modem, and IBM is slow with that

    I back up the TP to a HP Surestore T20e travan via adaptek scsi pc card. No driver. No software support. Nothing.

    HP's site says the drivers will be out Spring 2000. Maybe its still technically Spring where you are, but this is crap. Can't believe HP is so slow on stuff right now.

    And I'm stuffed too with having to pay for new sware for my 3100 multifunction laser. HP want me to wait, then pay, then wait again. Sucks even more that you cant just install the driver (to just do basic print) even with their sware

    awww hell . .. . im going to have to reinstall '98 just to doa backup and print . . .

  • I've been dreaming about this for a long while

    the 200LX harks back to the days when - allegedly - the bulk of HP's products were designed by their engineers just trying to find a good tool

    think about their test and measurement division for a while, I mean forget TEK scopes - HP rocked

    I think products define themselves from the culture in which they are born. It lingers in every aspect of design abd i think what you say about "tactile" is also an issue of human tactility - the idea you are inteacting with an intimately concieved product in which every aspect interlinks and responds

    for example the function I loved best was the fact I could use RPN, seeing losts of stack lines in the calculator mode and flip the calculations in and out of fields in the built-in Lotus 1-2-3.

    I think its a testament to good ROM use. Everything was there when you needed it. I also remember a lot of vertical interest with medics and the like. Will this vertical interest really continue with products like the Journada which are aimed at *everybody*?

    I lost my 200LX and i just reached out for the manual in a fit of nostalgia. Oh how I miss it :(

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