I did something similar by switching back to my old Lenovo after a poor experience with a HP computer. I tell here my story for those interested in cases like t

I did something similar by switching back to my old Lenovo after a poor experience with a HP computer. I tell here my story for those interested in cases like the one described in the article. Three years ago, I was feeling that my Lenovo Thinkpad Edge 540 (2014) was a bit outdated, and since I just won a grant and had some money for this, I looked for a new laptop. At the time, my employer encouraged all the staff to buy laptops from HP; the discount was not significant, but for those that accepted to follow that route, the amount of bureaucracy was significantly less (I work in a public university in Italy, and the bureaucracy for even the simplest tasks can be daunting!). The model I chose was a HP ProBook G450, and I bought an extended warranty too. After less than one year, one of the small plastic clips holding each key in place on the keyboard got loose, and after having put it again in place a few times, after a couple of weeks broke. I contacted the assistance, asking for a replacement of the pin. Well, they told me that my extended warranty did not cover «external peripherals» like the keyboard (wtf, is the keyboard in a laptop an external perhiperal?!). The person at the phone was clearly embarassed in telling me that HP's policy prevented them from sending these paper clips by email, and he instead told me that the only solution was to substitute the whole keyboard for ~340€. Obviously I refused. I started looking for replacement pins on eBay (which were sold for <1€ each), but in the meantime another key pin broke, followed by another one, and another one… In a few months, I had a dozen of keys with broken pins! (Before suggesting that I should type with less force, let me say that I have a soft touch, and that no other laptop I owned had this kind of problem.) I decided to buy a replacement keyboard on eBay, after I quickly checked on YouTube that there were videos showing how to make the replacement step by step. Once I got the keyboard by email, I started tearing apart the laptop as described in these videos, but at the end I found that some glue was keeping the keyboard attached to the frame, and that I should have used some solvent to remove it and then glue it again. (It would have been better for me to view the video in its entirety before ordering the replacement!) I was scared by the idea of doing this kind of work, as I never did something similar before, so I decided that I would have instead removed the pins from the new keyboard and used them in the laptop. I put together every piece of the laptop again, but I probably broke some wire or misplaced some component, because once assembled the computer refused to start! Out of frustration, instead of debugging the problem, I took my old Lenovo Thinkpad out of the shelf and upgraded its OS, putting the two-year-old HP back in a drawer. It has been my workhorse again since six months, and despite not being as performant as the other one, at least it works! In particular, now I am really appreciating the sturdy keyboard, which is still working fine after 8 years. To think that I disliked it when I typed on it for the first time!