A bit of surgery gives the HP Mini 1000 new sight
By Paul Miller 
posted Feb 26th 2009 1:19PM
posted Feb 26th 2009 1:19PM
HP's Mini 1000 might get all the ladies, but the netbook is not without its flaws. Apparently in the manufacturing process somebody forgot to remove the protective film from the webcam lens, giving thousands of netbooks incredibly impaired vision of their handsome owners. HP hasn't fessed up to the problem in any grand manner, but an HP employee was kind enough to do some on-the-spot surgery of Gear Diary's Vivienne Tam-edition Mini 1000. It's not super-involved, so check out the video after the break and then go scare the life out of your girlfriend when you suddenly attack her flowery netbook with a pair of knives. Tell her Engadget sent you.
Update: At the time this post is going live, the video has been pulled from YouTube. We're not sure what's up with that, but the procedure is pretty simple: wedge open the top of the screen, push down the two connecting tabs to separate it more, pull off the film with tweezers. This might void your warrant (in fact, probably does) so proceed at your own risk!
Update: At the time this post is going live, the video has been pulled from YouTube. We're not sure what's up with that, but the procedure is pretty simple: wedge open the top of the screen, push down the two connecting tabs to separate it more, pull off the film with tweezers. This might void your warrant (in fact, probably does) so proceed at your own risk!
[Via GottaBeMobile]
Wait, so if I buy an HP Mini Note and crack open the lid, I void all those arrest warrants?
BEST LOOPHOLE EVER.
Now you just need to buy one without the police noticing before you crack it open.
the user removed the video
"This video has been removed by the user."
And.....HP still has no way to hook the Mini 1000 up to an external video source of any kind. There is not even a VGA dongle available. They have one 'in production', but not being able to give a presentation off of a laptop is sort of a big deal to many people. And who knows how much it will cost when it does come.
damn.. they removed it...
oh well... did it survive???
Do people use the crappy little built in cams?
I smell a cover up
I'm sure HP told the employee to pull the vid since HP didn't want to be seen as condoning/promoting the action (lest they be held responsible for someone breaking their computer -- or worse -- slicing their hand open).
Everything is about liability.
The more I thought about it -- I'm sure it's because they don't want to acknowledge that there is any problem whatsover. Their tech support can just keep playing dumb and say "we've not received any reports on the issue".
Cracked mine open. Then shortly after arrested. I had a warrant out for my arrest. I'm suing engadget... jk...
HP lost any rights to this issue by not addressing it officially. I understand that a recall would be costly, but this is a major QA issue, they f'd up, and f'd up bad. In sunlight, without this fix, it's too dark to see anything on the camera. It's that bad.
Here is a link on how to fix this issue:
http://myhpmini.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=61
It is a pretty easy fix, and it makes a world of difference. HP tried to tell me it was a problem with the webcam drivers.
Shame on HP. They should fix this. The shitty webcam one of the main reasons I chose not to buy a Mini 1000. And now the truth comes out...
Here's a video of someone fixing it with a guitar pick and tweezers.. Sorry for the mammoth URL.
http://www.blogger.com/img/videoplayer.swf?videoUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fvp.video.google.com%2Fvideodownload%3Fversion%3D0%26secureurl%3DqAAAAOF-u9WtopylwZ9XHAqIS4THiRiKPmn5Np5mu05wZvKdqYEDs2jPI-fr__ahVt4tjGEVBaPZj-DvjD5ztd8I0eningf_4mKju6Av5mAVK6StiL6FHYvDqB0rNUT10amBKMYuRKLLFP5mUNpeVWK590J_I3gGbod-t5JW7Hi67XmxEh_45-iqmteP6vuE3hqkhbUCwqsKW2p-9h4gWZBAlOt7c_AdkTgiwVtUTr7fxkdH%26sigh%3DRumQ1SzryjhlPzdPPFIUgHITwk4%26begin%3D0%26len%3D86400000%26docid%3D0&nogvlm=1&thumbnailUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.google.com%2FThumbnailServer2%3Fapp%3Dblogger%26contentid%3D9a5f9efe8536c753%26offsetms%3D5000%26itag%3Dw320%26sigh%3DXCbVcochm0jy--ZU3NW8q4k9LqU&messagesUrl=video.google.com%2FFlashUiStrings.xlb%3Fframe%3Dflashstrings%26hl%3Den
Thanks
I have a feeling the manager just did a -1 to this employee's performance score for 2009.
HP is a terrible, horrible company that makes a habit out of lying to their customers. I hope they go bankrupt.
nah, they're too important to America. Congress has passed a $237 billion HP bailout bill...
I thought you were talking about Dell .... Far more dishonest. There's a class action suit against them by their own employees. So even if HP lied to their customers, that's almost expected in a capitalist society. Dell Lies to everyone. They even give false information to employees so they will give that same information to customers weather they know they're lying or not. It's all what happens when capitalism is more important than integrity, but that's sure not changing......
I had to do this. There was no choice. It didnt come with any drivers/helper utilities to let you manually tweak brightness/contrast. It made the webcam entirely unusable
I removed the plastic from mine, took awhile to do without damaging the bezel , but works great now. I just hope I never need to use my warranty.
I own a HP Mini 1000 series (Running OS X 10.5.6...hehe), but i believe the story is wrong... i think the idea of the dark film over the lens is so that the black border around the screen is minimalistic... once you remove the film you can clearly see the camera lens and the fton part of the camera, before that it was like the iMacs iSight, almost stealth.
The internal Mic still doesn't work in Vista or Windows 7. Tried the XP IDT drivers in Vista and it killed the sound. How about some compatible drivers here HP.
Those are womans hands
Video is re uploaded here. Just watched it on youtube and downloaded the video just incase
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihrVTGlGYJk&eurl=http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/hp-to-offer-solution-to-hp-mini-1000-webcam-problem-20090226/&feature=player_embedded
Also 'removed by user', so I wonder about two things:
a) Are they lying those users removed it and did youtube/google remove them themselves?
b) Who are those users who can be pushed around if they did actually pull the video themselves? Give us names so we can call them names, by name.
That is not a protective film, it is a IR filter. If you removed it, you just opened a new realm for your camera. Use a dark room + Wii Sensor bar to light up your face.
i was thinking, maybe i should have just left it at: That is not a protective film...
as SW Quote bait.
Well, I've got the HP Mini 1000, and sent in a complaint about the dark webcam to HP support. HP sent me *two* replies, both of which gave software advice that had minimal impact on the problem.
One support reply said "the webcam was designed to be used outdoors." I had to laugh. Seems to me like the kind of rationalization public relations would write. I'd like to see them using the high-glass screen outside on a bright day! Never mind that most people I know do the majority of computing indoors.
And the other reply blamed the issue on the .3 meg cam and gave instructions for pumping up the brightness and gamma to an extreme degree. Which also seemed kinda lame... I've seen that size webcam do much better without such heroic efforts. And their suggested adjustments only resulted in a very bad quality slightly-brighter image.
Having looked extensively into the issue on the web, the only quality solution I've seen is the descriptions I've seen akin to this article in Engadget. Pull the filter with a tricky bit of warranty-voiding surgery. The before and after pictures sure make it clear this is a design flaw.
Shame on HP for pretending otherwise, giving lame PR-oriented solutions, and not admitting their mistake.
But hey, I'm just a Northern Guy.