Three Fridays ago, our local electric company showed up to work on the electric pole behind our house. Sounds fine, right? Except that they didn’t offer any warning that they were doing such a thing and the normal pre-nap noise level in my house makes it pretty impossible to hear someone walking quietly through my yard.

As such, without warning, the electric started to pulse and surge through our home. My first concern was the washing machine in our basement laundry room. It sounded like it might explode. Seeing as how it was spinning a large load of Goodmama cloth diapers, I ran downstairs to switch it to off. By the time I got upstairs, the man was done working on the wires and climbing down from his ladder. I mumbled, loudly (which is possible if you have my normal volume), but didn’t think to consider anything else that might have been affected. Until I went to do some work a bit later. My laptop was off. Strange, seeing as how FireDad’s was still on. Still, I thought nothing of it until I went to move the laptop across the room later that afternoon. I unplugged it from the wall: dead.

I frowned, plugged it back in and booted it up. I used the HP Battery Check and found out that my battery was no longer detected. That’s right. The electric company fried my battery. While I could still use my computer, I was placing any work that I was doing in danger if we had a sudden outage or my foot pulled the cord out of the computer (what? you never do that? really?). I could have survived this for awhile if my wireless card hadn’t already gone and two keys weren’t sticking up halfway due to a necessary removal of keys and an inability to place them back.

I finally decided it was time for a new laptop.

Old Frydaddy-Lappy, as we now call that computer, was purchased quite quickly and without much research while I was pregnant with LittleBrother. I had been put on bed rest, as per usual with my pregnancies, but still needed to work. My loving husband beat feet to our local Radio Shack, asked questions and purchased my Compaq Presario F730. He was a good computer but it was time for an upgrade.

For quite some time, I had been saving gift cards in my Amazon account and stalking the HP Pavilion G60-230US. I had it bookmarked and I checked it three to four times per week as prices tend to rise and fall. The Tuesday after The Great Battery Fry, I opened the bookmark to see that the price had been dropped considerably. It was priced at $549.00 with a $50.00 mail in rebate. With the money I had saved in gift cards, I ended up shelling out $174.00 of which I will get $50.00 of it back. The next day the laptop went back up about $40.00 and now sits at over $100 from the price I paid. I’d say it was the right time to purchase, no?

Amazon claimed it would take 2-4 weeks for shipping. I agreed to that at purchase and was fine to wait. But, Amazon, oh how I love them, shipped a day and a half later. I got my laptop last Friday and it has been a love fest every since. (Now that I have typed that sentence, I am awaiting the Blue Screen of Death and the laughter of monkeys.)

It’s not quite the powerhouse that I got for my Husband for Christmas. (HP Pavilion HDX18. Sexy.) But it has the same smooth silver keyboard so that my wrists resting on it won’t rub off all of the finish like on my previous laptop. But the swanky keyboard, large hard drive (320GB), enough RAM (3GB) and other bonus features (webcam, card reader, etc) weren’t the only reasons that I chose HP. In fact, the other reason is the main reason that I never even looked at another brand.

HP’s customer service far surpasses any customer service we have dealt with in the past six years. Despite having to go through a lengthy automated menu, all of the people to whom I have had to speak in the past year have been fabulous. Unfortunately, we did have an issue with my Husband’s laptop (the screen didn’t work). HP all but fell backward over themselves to pick up the computer, have it fixed and return it to us… on their dime. They were polite, apologetic and swift in each action despite a holiday falling in the middle of the issue. I had another question about a warranty issue at one point and was met with a friendly voice and prompt answers. To boot, members of HP’s various teams are all over twitter and not only are they informative and knowledgeable about their own products but they are lovely to interact with at all times.

And that’s what really matters in the end. You never know if the laptop/computer/printer/etc you buy is going to be a lemon or not. Sometimes things can break during the shipping process. Things simply happen. But knowing that HP has such a great history of customer service, I didn’t hesitate in buying through them yet again. I don’t think, barring this computer attempting to eat one of my children, we’ll ever switch brands when it comes to computers. We’ve had a few different brands in the past and, sadly, their customer service was really a customer disservice. I’m trying to talk my own Mother into making the switch as well.

I’m hoping that this laptop lasts a bit longer than my previous one. I hope that the research I put into this particular purchase will pay off in the end. But I know that we made the right decision in going with HP again. The year long warranty gives me a peace of mind. (As long as I can manage not to spill my coffee on it… what? You’ve never done that either? Hush.) If I could only figure out how to get those two keys to fit back into the keyboard, I’d turn Old Frydaddy-Lappy into the boys’ laptop. We’ll see, we’ll see.

The FedEx man knocked on my door as the boys and I were enjoying lunch. When I opened the door, he said, “My whole truck is for you.” He then proceeded to bring seven boxes of techno-loving goodness through my front door. When I told him that I was hosting a giveaway, he acted like I was a Superstar. I would like to state that I am not a Superstar. I’m a lucky blogger, fully aware of her own blessings this year and excited to bestow some material (techie!) blessings on another family.

And so, I present to you, The Goods.

What’s pictured? (And what’s in the two brown boxes?) Read on.

Hardware

HP TouchSmart IQ816 PC
HP HDX 18 series Premium Notebook PC
HP MediaSmart Connect
HP Pavilion dv4 series Entertainment Notebook PC (with Windows Live)
HP Mini 1000 (with XP)

Accessories
HP Photosmart C6380 Wireless AIO (printer)
HP 564 Photo Value Pak

Software
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate/Home Premium or Microsoft Windows XP pre-installed on all units (Mini 1000 runs XP)
Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition 2007 (Student-Teacher Edition) – 1 DVD with 3 licenses
Microsoft Windows Live
Corel VideoStudio X2

Entertainment
Kung Fu Panda (2 widescreen DVDs; 1 widescreen Blu-ray disc)

Worth: >$6000.00 US.

As I said in our announcement post, we are just one of 50 blogs giving away this fantastic prize pack. The full list of blogs is right here for your clicking (and reading because, man, some great blogs in this list!) is right here:

Gotta Be Mobile
Barb’s Connected World
Geek.com
Gear Live
Neowin
Small Biz Vista
JK On the Run
BostonPocketPC
Notebooks.com
Geekzone
I Started Something
Bleeping Computer
The Gadgeteer
Planet x64
Digital Home Thoughts
Digital Inspiration
Geeks!
MediaBlab
Geek News Central
The Digital Lifestyle
GearDiary
Last 100
Geeks To Go!
Liliputing
OSNN
Slashdot Review
SlashGear
Gadgetell
Windows Connected
Techie Diva
One Day, One Job
Student Bloggers
Study Hacks – Demystifying College Success
HackCollege
Noticias Tech
Eliax
La Bitácora de Erwin Ried
Carlos Alberto
InfoWester
GeeksRoom
CíberPrensa
Unión de Bloggers Hispanos
Living – In Theory
Moosh in Indy
Morningside Mom
Thoughts on poetics & tech
Techmamas
Stop, Drop & Blog
Down-to-Earth Mama
merlot mom

While I cannot yet tell you what day our (as in Stop, Drop & Blog) giveaway goes live, I can promise to link to each blog on their “go live” giveaway date. I will also note that each blog owner is responsible for making the rules for their own, individual giveaway. Each will differ; some just a little and other greatly. Ours? I’ll let you know as soon as I can!

And now that all of this hardware and software is just sitting in my living room, I ask you, my readers: WHAT should I review? I’ve decided to only review one piece of hardware because I want the winner to receive as much new material as possible. However, HP and Microsoft have both given us the thumbs up on reviewing these items prior to the giveaway. In fact, their ads say that we will be! And so, I’m trying to decide which one would be the most fun. I’m dying to touch the TouchSmart but, let’s be honest, that thing would be covered in peanut butter smears in 2.4 seconds if I opened it in this house with TheBrothers present. That wouldn’t be a great way to send a computer off to our winner. And so, I’ll refrain.

So, opinions? What are you dying to learn about? Leave a comment and let me know!