DTS Audio Control Panel Audio Enhancements dont stay off

[daxliniere]

A couple very quick replies:

1) Yes, the light spill around the keys is totally unacceptable. It actually makes the keyboard HARDER to read, I find.

2) Re: Separate volume for speakers and headphones - YES! This is a great idea. I had forgotten that my Dell does this automatically.

In some ways, I'm so happy with this laptop. Battery life really astounds me, but then there are stupid little engineering/software flaws like these which make me intensely frustrated at the laptop.
Would I recommend an HP laptop to someone else.. mmm.. I'm really not sure. Ask me again in the future and I might have an answer for you.

Cheers,
Dax.

[andrewiam_com]

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@daxliniere wrote:

In some ways, I'm so happy with this laptop. Battery life really astounds me, but then there are stupid little engineering/software flaws like these which make me intensely frustrated at the laptop.

Would I recommend an HP laptop to someone else.. mmm.. I'm really not sure. Ask me again in the future and I might have an answer for you.

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I wholeheartedly agree.  The quiet fan, amazing keyboard, long battery life, accurate touchscreen, foldable design, port selection, sometimes decent escalation team, and surprisingly easy to repair design are fantastic.  But the terrible drivers, cost-cutting by choosing Realtek codecs and Synaptics touchpads and digitizers, key backlight bleed, reflective screen, loose hinge, slow hinge sensor, blinking (not fading) standby LED, poor quality control, and other quirks make this Yet Another Windows Laptop that is filled with great ideas but poor execution.  If the Microsoft Surface Book had launched 6 months earlier, I would have picked it up in a heartbeat because I know Redmond does a better job with software/driver/hardware integration than Palo Alto. 

HP quickly called me after I sent the letter of complaint.  They want me to factory reset so they can verify the issues, even though I am on my third Spectre (including repairs) and fifth factory reset among those three Spectres.  I feel insulted every time I call because the support representatives on the phone seem to know less than me about fixing laptops.  Although I'm asssuming anyone with a set of functioning brain cells and actual interest in computers immediately left HP Support for greener pastures. 

On a note about PCs having features earlier but rougher, Synaptics invented a touchpad that could sense force 3 years ago.  It had iffy intergration, no tactile feedback, and no manufacturer adoption so everyone forgot about the idea until Apple made Force Touch a few months ago it and made it 100 times better.  Now all the other companies suddenly want the feature.  Imagine if Huawei followed through with their Force Touch, or HP collaborated with Microsoft as much as their marketing material claimed? 

[daxliniere]

And how difficult would it be to make the keyboard backlight turn on automatically when a key is pressed and gently fade off after the keyboard hasn't been touched for 1 minute?

This should be a third mode, so the existing always-on and always-off modes are retained.

[daxliniere]

"Although I'm asssuming anyone with a set of functioning brain cells and actual interest in computers immediately left HP Support for greener pastures."

I dunno, that seems a bit harsh. While I agree it's ridiculous we still haven't got a fix for such a rudimentary thing, a blanket-call that all current HP staff are brainless is going a long way. (Plus they are real people with real feelings like you and I.)

I would hope that, as one of their flagship products, they fix these outstanding bugs and niggles to provide the highest quality UX without re-designing a new laptop.

[andrewiam_com]

Yeah, that was a bit harsh. I wasn't in a very good mood when I wrote that. I just resey my laptop and I'll see if the issues comes back. (My money is on yes.)

[daxliniere]

For Pete's sake, HP, can we please get a fix for this?! It's an obvious bug and it's a massive PITA.

What is the point of a support forum if you don't fix this?

I'm very frustrated and annoyed with my purchase right now. As an audio engineer, I use the audio system of this laptop a lot and it's a pain that I have to open the control panel every time I plug headphones in. Absolutely terrible.

[daxliniere]

"I just reset my laptop and I'll see if the issues comes back. (My money is on yes.)"

I never understand why support lines ask you to reset your device. How the hell is a badly written driver/software package going to be fixed by that? It MIGHT be different if someone has jammed their PC with too much crap, but for a new PC, this is just illogical.

[andrewiam_com]

Yesterday morning I had a two-hour call and text chat with an "engineer" at HP after resetting my computer.  He tried many different things with different drivers, but of course they all have the same issues.  (At my suggestion, he even uninstalled the audio devices from Device Manager so Windows could reinstall the drivers from Windows Update, but he forgot to uninstal the drivers so it did nothing.  )

I then compared the same song on SoundCloud between my Spectre x360, desktop with Creative 2 ZS sound card, Samsung Galaxy Note 2, and Nvidia Shield Tablet.  Only the Spectre has audio issues.  The "engineer" had the nerve to say, "remember that this is a laptop, and the hardware is not enogh for the performance".  (That's a direct quote from the chat log.)  I then reminded him my $300 Shield Tablet, which has a DAC so cheap that it cannot recognize the inline play/pause button on headphones, sounds perfectly fine but the $1300 Spectre has issues.  He wrapped up the chat rather quickly after that.  I am insulted that I know more about driver troubleshooting that the "engineer" HP sent me.  At this point, I just recommend MacBooks to anyone that asks.  Apple somehow manages to earn profits on similarly specced and priced laptops, while sourcing stuff like DACs, without any issues.  HP has decades of experience but somehow can't?

[BinaryJay]

The slowest computer I ever owned that was capable of playing back an MP3 without stuttering was a 60 Mhz original Pentium, and that was back in the day before there was any hardware optimization for it at all and incredibly inefficient decorders.

You were right to be insulted by that HP support person treating you like an idiot.  Well, either they were assuming you were an idiot or their other job is sewing slippers.

[GX9]

If it were me I would have repeated what he/she said: "Yes remember it is a laptop, with an effin full blown core i cpu, do you even know what your sayin?" Hahaha, you must have been pretty pissed andrew. In what world or universe is a tablet faster than a laptop in the same generation.