Last Updated on September 22, 2023 by Christopher G Mendla
Update: Belkin did get back to me within 7 working days as promised. A tip is available for my laptop. They also re-organized the online list to make it easier to find your laptop. All I need to do now is fill out the form. You can get one free tip per serial number.
Update 2: I ran into a slight glitch when ordering my free tip. For some reason, I could not find a serial number on my unit. I emailed their support and got a positive response back within an hour. Not bad at all. The tip is on it’s way and should be here monday.
I use my HP DX6000 laptop a lot at home and in the office as well as on the road. Unplugging the power supply and stuffing it into the laptop bag gets to be a real pain. I saw a Belkin Laptop Travel Power Supply, model number F5L010, at the local office supply store. It looked to be a pretty good deal with the following features:
- The ability to plug into a 110v outlet as well as plugging right into a 12v outlet eliminating the need for an inverter while using 12v power
- It has a USB port which I could use for charging cameras and my bluetooth either while at a hotel or in the car.
Well, that all looked pretty good. I could leave the Belkin Power supply in my bag and the HP OEM Power supply at the home office. I got the unit home and unpackaged it. They include 11 tips and the packaging says “If we don’t include a tip for your Windows based PC, tell us at www.belkin.com/powersupply and we’ll ship one to you free!”. I checked the printed documentation and found that there was no tip listed for the HP DX6000. Then I checked their Handy-dandy online wizard. No dx6000 listed there either. I then filled out the “request a tip” form. … and waited… I filled the form out on april 2nd and had not heard anything back by the 9th.
I called customer service. The tech support is India based and essentially said that they could not answer questions about new tips. The rep was pretty helpful and gave me the number and options to get through to customer support which is US based.
The first person I talked with at customer support was a huge disappointment. She sounded thoroughly bored with her job. Here is what I got from her.
- Belkin can’t tell me if or when a tip would be available for my machine
- Belkin does not take returns so if I go past the return date for the store where I purchased it I now have a cute white $100 paperweight.
- They’ll ship a tip to you free if and when they develop a tip for your laptop.
Fortunately she passed me on to a guy who was a lot more knowledgeable and seemed like he cared. (My inital perception of her was probably wrong because she did forward me to someone who was a little better able to answer my question) What I got from him was.
- They can’t tell me if or when a tip would be available and, in some cases the tip will only either charge or power the laptop. Apparently Dell encodes the power supplies so a foreign supply will only power the unit but will not charge it. (That is labeled clearly on the package) See the update at the top of this post. Belkin responded within 7 days and a tip is avialble
- They can’t do anything about the return policy for the store.
So, I have to make a decision. Should I give Belkin a couple of more days to see if they can tell me if they can provide a tip or should I just return the dang thing and order a power supply directly from HP? I’m leaning toward the return and going back to plugging the Inverter into the 12v outlet.
If you are going to buy the Belkin travel power supply, you might want to check out the availability of tips for your laptop or device at www.belkin.com/powersupply before you purchase the unit.
One final thought. I would feel a lot more comfortable if Belkin would list the output power of the various tips somewhere. That way, I could match up the tip they recommend with the output listed on the power supply for my laptop.
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