HP Notebook Takes Bullets Saving Soldier

Wow and the battery didn't even explode when it ate a bullet. That guy's a lucky son of a bitch.
 
I would like to know what that laptop's model # is.


Just going by the size of the screen and the fact that it has a DVD drive and the shape of the battery, I'd guess it's an Elitebook similar to my 12" Elitebook 2530p.
 
Great story, as someone who works with veterans on a daily basis, I fully support our troops.

I'm glad to see that HP replaced his laptop, that's a classy move.
 
Cool story but it definitely doesn't make me feel anything good for HP. If he wasn't a soldier they wouldn't have gave a rats ass. Free good publicity is worth the price of a laptop.

Best part of the article was this comment:

jeni1122:

Wow. I sell HP laptops to schools and this is one of the coolest stories about this product I have ever read. Good story!

Reply

NaOH

Bleugh. I think I'd be happier to hear that you sold drugs to schools.
 
ITT: People who are gonna start knocking on the biggest IT company in the world :p
 
Finally, a good use for an HP laptop.. body armor. At least they are good for something.

75% of my repairs in a normal week are HP laptops. Compared to any other brand, they have far more hardware problems and are more difficult to work on than all but the older Powerbooks.
 
Finally, a good use for an HP laptop.. body armor. At least they are good for something.

75% of my repairs in a normal week are HP laptops. Compared to any other brand, they have far more hardware problems and are more difficult to work on than all but the older Powerbooks.


i'm curious, what hardware problems do they have?
almost every part except the mobo is non-exclusive to hp.
what can possibly fail that doesn't fail in any other brand?


and yes, everyone with an out of warranty broken hp can now sell it on ebay as body armor.
 
Now we just need to use this as a precedent to allow bullet damage to be covered under warranty ..
 
Finally, a good use for an HP laptop.. body armor. At least they are good for something.

75% of my repairs in a normal week are HP laptops. Compared to any other brand, they have far more hardware problems and are more difficult to work on than all but the older Powerbooks.



Statistics, learn it...
 
Assuming it was ak-47 fire, wtf it blocked 6 bullets?

Or it blocked 6 bullets that already had to travel through a brick wall? I call shenanigans somewhere on this story.
 
Assuming it was ak-47 fire, wtf it blocked 6 bullets?

Or it blocked 6 bullets that already had to travel through a brick wall? I call shenanigans somewhere on this story.
+1
But can it block this.

[ame="http://www.viddler.com/explore/HardOCP/videos/32/"]Viddler.com - Hard Drive Death by .50 BMG - Uploaded by HardOCP@@AMEPARAM@@http://www.viddler.com/player/cfe8dbf/@@AMEPARAM@@cfe8dbf/[/ame]
:D
 
Assuming it was ak-47 fire, wtf it blocked 6 bullets?

Or it blocked 6 bullets that already had to travel through a brick wall? I call shenanigans somewhere on this story.

I'd be hard pressed to believe a laptop would stop pistol rounds let alone rifle rounds...

I have two elitebooks sitting next to me, the thin aluminum would get shredded without a doubt.
 
while impressive I wonder what the round type was and from what distance; because that wouldn't stop a nato 5.56. I've seen them punch through 1/4 inch steel plate at relatively close range. Not to mention an AK's more powerful 7.62; which has even more punch. heck even a .40 or .45 pistol round wouldn't be slowed much by a laptop.
 
Finally, a good use for an HP laptop.. body armor. At least they are good for something.

75% of my repairs in a normal week are HP laptops. Compared to any other brand, they have far more hardware problems and are more difficult to work on than all but the older Powerbooks.

I guess I got lucky, since I ran my HP laptop for two years straight with no problems. :p
 
I'd be hard pressed to believe a laptop would stop pistol rounds let alone rifle rounds...

I have two elitebooks sitting next to me, the thin aluminum would get shredded without a doubt.

Mythbusters did that once. The only way it got stopped was when they tried to shoot through the battery.

How far was the shooter and what else was in the backpack?
 
Cool story but it definitely doesn't make me feel anything good for HP. If he wasn't a soldier they wouldn't have gave a rats ass. Free good publicity is worth the price of a laptop.

Best part of the article was this comment:

So confused. Why would anyone else have a story about a laptop taking 6 bullets besides doing it on purpose?

And I agree a little with the wall theory. I have seen AK rounds go through Humvee armor in certain spots.
 
I guess I got lucky, since I ran my HP laptop for two years straight with no problems. :p

I agree with fatrat, HP laptops are nothing but trouble. My sisters laptops has power problems, and lucky she still has warranty from MicroCenter. Too bad the webcam isn't working, and I had to take it apart to clean out the inch of dust they didn't bother to clean.

My cousins Compaq is showing lines on the screen, and it gets worse over time. My sisters HP laptop is dead, and needs a new motherboard. A friends friend wanted me to fix a HP laptop, and that one also has a dead motherboard.

You see the obvious pattern here?
 
My HP laptop was part of that class action lawsuit, so I can attest to how crappy they are. It was sent back 3 times due to the heat from the chips. I sent it back 4 months ago and they still haven't replaced it. Maybe I should have shot it first.
 
I'm very happy for this soldier and am glad he's still alive.

As for HP laptops, I and my family have purchased a number over the years, very few issues. Just replaced my tm2 Tablet PC with a Lenovo x220t Tablet PC but the tm2 is still running just fine after 16 months of heavy use and running 24/7. Also have an HP Slate 500 that's fine after 6 months and even a couple of nasty drops.
 
What's with all the HP laptop hate? Last I read HP was rated one of the best for laptops. Never had an issue with my HP laptop anyway.
 
What's with all the HP laptop hate? Last I read HP was rated one of the best for laptops. Never had an issue with my HP laptop anyway.

Uh... the hate could come from the fact they have among the highest warranty return rate. It's just not the fact they sell the most that makes you see so many failures.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/17/laptop-reliability-survey-asus-and-toshiba-win-hp-fails/

I have piles of dead HP laptops in my shop that people have left for recycling.

We switched to ASUS and MSI exclusively 3 years ago, after seeing so many bad HPs and Acers, and have only had 3 warranty returns since. 3 out of hundreds.

You may have a good HP, but 1 out of 4 in 3 years is dead.
 
They all use the same hardware so don't see why that is. What's inside an Asus that makes it better than an HP? I bought mine about 3 years ago so is prior to this "sampling" but I research everything before I buy it and if there was any concern at the time I would not have bought an HP. But no reviews I read said they had issues and all gave good reviews.
 
Those of you doubting that a laptop would be able to stop bullets has no idea how strong multi-layer circuit boards are.

I used to take dead motherboards and try to break them by just about any means possible.

100+ bb's from a bb gun pumped 20 times and it never made much more than a small mark.

I even tried to make holes with a calechee bar (sp?) (About a 40 or 50 pound steel bar about 5 feet long with a nice point at the end) After pounding away at it as hard as I could, I still never broke a hole in a board. Sure they were mangled, but never got a hole in them.

Take that along with the screen, case, and other bits and I am not surprised at all that it would be able to stop multiple bullets.

Let's see... coming from the bottom - you've got a layer of aluminum... then, depenfing on where it hit, 1-4 layers of multi-layered circuit boards. Then you have the keyboard, the screen, and then another layer of aluminum.
 
We switched to ASUS and MSI exclusively 3 years ago, after seeing so many bad HPs and Acers, and have only had 3 warranty returns since. 3 out of hundreds.

You may have a good HP, but 1 out of 4 in 3 years is dead.

It really is luck of the draw. The link you posted is ironic because the ONLY mobile device that I've personally owned that I've ever had to RMA was my Asus EP121, it developed a faulty heat sensor that made the fan spin like mad and make a lot of noise, a common issue with the device though other than that I love the thing. That includes about 4 HP's but admittedly none of the HP's were of the quality of the EP121, that's a very well designed device overall.
 
Good thing it was HP.

If it was a Sony VAIO, a hacker would have used the laptop to fire the bullets.

If it was an Acer, the bullet would have passed straight through without leaving a trace due to all the holes in the design.

If it was an Apple laptop, it would have jumped out of the way to save itself letting the owner take the bullets, and then automatically sued his grieving widow for usage not permitted in the terms and conditions.
 
Good thing it was HP.

If it was a Sony VAIO, a hacker would have used the laptop to fire the bullets.

If it was an Acer, the bullet would have passed straight through without leaving a trace due to all the holes in the design.

If it was an Apple laptop, it would have jumped out of the way to save itself letting the owner take the bullets, and then automatically sued his grieving widow for usage not permitted in the terms and conditions.

LOL!
 

Hell No. That's armor piercing. AK-47s are roughly similar to the M16, just an incompatible bullet and of course it's more rugged by design, The Russians make a very good rifle. I was in the US Army for a bit, Although I've used an M16 rifle as that's what I was trained to use, Back then I was good enough to get a Marksmen medal, what I aimed at, I could drop, moving or not with one shot at 600 meters, ad infinitum or at least as long as the ammo lasted, 1,200 meters I could get close to, But the shots always seemed to drop short of the target.
 
I agree with fatrat, HP laptops are nothing but trouble.

Really? What part of mine ran for two years straight (meaning I left it running continuously for two years) without any problems agrees with your sentiment? :eek:
 
My HP laptop was part of that class action lawsuit, so I can attest to how crappy they are. It was sent back 3 times due to the heat from the chips. I sent it back 4 months ago and they still haven't replaced it. Maybe I should have shot it first.

That was an issue with video chips....IIRC, HP wasn't the only laptop with 'em.

My laptop had an ATi (now AMD) video chip inside...and that is why mine is still rockin. :D
 
I have two HP laptops, the first is 7 years old and the other 2 years old and both have been running like champs. I've got Windows 7 installed on the both of them.
 
Those of you doubting that a laptop would be able to stop bullets has no idea how strong multi-layer circuit boards are.

I used to take dead motherboards and try to break them by just about any means possible.

100+ bb's from a bb gun pumped 20 times and it never made much more than a small mark.

A round from an AK has a bit more penetration than a BB gun ;)

I can see this happening under the right circumstances though. There are a lot of variables such as the type of gun/bullet used, the distance it was fired from, whether it passed through anything else before, and which part of the laptop it hit (as many people mentioned the battery is particularly dense).
 
Looking at the linked article its fairly clear that the bullets went through a backpack first.

Also some of them obviously hit sideways, or were in tumble from hitting other objects first. Needless to say the laptop certainly stopped the bullets.

Did it save the soldier life? Don't think so not unless the only thing he was wearing was a backpack.

Then again he might have been one of these guys...

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...ge=2&ndsp=32&ved=1t:429,r:10,s:28&tx=74&ty=86
 
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