HP makes excellent hardware, which has been their bread and butter for a long time. HP is a bankable name, and their recent ‘merger’ with Compaq has not diminished their stature as manufacturers.
 
I have been having problems with my printer/scanner/all around fabulous machine, the HP PSC 750. It refuses to feed paper. Refuses like, well, this is a family blog, but it won’t take paper. That is not to say paper isn’t available, it is. HP has an excellent web site, with support pages written for humans, with pictures and plenty of explanations. If you cannot follow the explanations, you shouldn’t have a computer, that’s how good they are.
 
All the pictures and explanations didn’t fix my printer’s problem, forcing me to speak with an actual HP human on the phone. Rather than talk me through the entire troubleshooting process, he accepted my description of having done it all, three times, and he talked me through a software reset that wasn’t on the site, which also didn’t fix the problem. The upshot is that I now have a new (well, probably reconditioned) printer on the way, which I will exchange for the dead one I have now.
 
I’ll keep you posted.
