There are several unconfirmed stories on nvidiadefect.com where people in the US and the UK have successfully sued HP in small claims court.

The vast majority of defective machines have better specs than the replacement machine. A 3 year old laptop with a dual-core 2.2 GHz processor (AMD Turion 64 x2 TL-64 processor in many of the defective machines) is still faster than a single-core 2.3 GHz processor (AMD V140 in CQ56). Moreover, the replacement lacks just about every feature present on the defective machines (the CQ56 doesn't even have a webcam).

The settlement agreement stated "similar in kind AND value." The defective HP laptops were sold as recently as April 2009 and the lawsuits against HP/NVIDIA were filed as early as September 2008.

You're right that defective laptops aren't worth much; but, if these laptops were working, I'm sure that a laptop with a dual-core 2.2 GHz processor will be perfectly usable for at least several more years. Most of the computers in this class action suit broke after less than 2 years.

Some of the laptops were sold as recently as April 2009. So a 2-year-old high-end laptop that failed after 1 year is not obsolete and worthless. The specs on these machines are better than many of the machines sold today. A $1500 machine sold 2 years ago is probably still a $650 machine.

Not true - the bait is the settlement agreement stating that members would receive "a replacement computer similar in kind and value." Class members had the option of opting out prior to the settlement agreement being accepted. If too many class members opted out, the case would not be given class action status. Class members who accepted the "bait," gave up their rights to sue HP and NVIDIA. The switch came 2 months AFTER the end of the opt-out period, so those of us unhappy with the replacement computer have no recourse.

You're right - I definitely thought that they would give out the absolute cheapest thing that they can get away with. I never thought a computer almost 50% slower, 68% fewer pixels, and missing ~11 accessories that are on mine, would be considered similar in kind OR value. There are thousands of claimants with similar computers (the whole dv9xxx series and all of the HP Pavilion Tx1xxx), so it's not like I'm the only person with a high performance laptop.

You still have the option of suing NVIDIA in a small claims court or being a member of a (hopefully more successful) class action lawsuit. Since the CQ56 replacement computer was not announced until 2 months after the opt-out period, the HP class members never had the option of opting out once they learned of the replacement model. Many HP owners have successfully sued HP and/or NVIDIA in small claims courts and won judgements from $1K to $2K.

The lawyers (chief counsel is Milberg LLP) walked away with 13 million dollars. However, they could have opened themselves up to lawsuits by submitting false claims to the court. Off the top of my head,
- they falsely said that HP owners had the option of getting their laptops fixed
- their expert, Dr. Nader Bagherzadeh from UCI, made multiple incorrect claims in his expert declaration which Milberg ignored, even after being informed of the mistakes
- they actually fought Ted Frank's action, who was trying to get their clients a better computer
- they modified the settlement website with new language after Ted Frank filed a motion (changing "similar in kind and value" to "similar in kind or value")
- the settlement administrator falsely told every one who called that the court approved the CQ56 replacement computer and that it could not be changed

Unfortunately, many of us liked the terms of the settlement that said "new laptop of similar kind and value," and choose to not opt out. The CQ56 wasn't selected until mid-February - 2 months after the opt-out deadline. Now we lost our right to file a claim against either NVIDIA or HP. Lesson learned: vagueness in settlement agreements is NOT accidental.

Even the cheapest 17" laptops go for over $500. These computers were top-of-the-line 3 years ago, and, while they are no longer high-end, they still are much better performing and have many more extras than new budget computers. Compare the AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-64 processor (1054 passmark score) in some of the originals to the AMD V140 processor (674 passmark) in the CQ56-115DX.

While the settlement agreement did say "similar kind and value," Ted Frank was only arguing for a feature-by-feature comparison where the new laptop should be at least as capable as the original one. The replacement laptop is neither of similar kind (17" != 15", single-core != dual core, etc.) nor value (try to find a 17" dual-core laptop for $279).

There is definitely a large range of laptops affected by this settlement - I highlighted 2 of the higher-end models (which represent a sizeable portion of the class). Many of those models failed within a year and HP just replaced the failed GPU with an equally defective GPU. So it's not really fair to compare the laptop based on age or resale value - a fair analysis should solely based on specs.

The settlement agreement said that HP claimants would receive "a replacement laptop of like or similar kind and equal or similar value." I own a 17" dual-core 1.8GHz dv9000 with 1680x1050 and a lot of accessories. Based on the settlement agreement, I didn't expect to get a new $2000 17" HP Envy laptop. I expected to get a ~$450 17" laptop that perhaps had some features my laptop lacked, but was missing some of the features my laptop had. I was surprised when NVIDIA picked one model to replace all of the laptops, and I was shocked to find that that model was the cheapest laptop that Best Buy sells. So the bait is a "laptop of equal of similar kind and value" and the switch is a laptop that is significantly slower and has almost none of the features contained in the original laptops: dual-core processor, 17" display, webcam, HDMI, firewire, Bluetooth, light-scribe DVD-RW, expansion port, stereo microphones, 4 USB ports, modem, remote control, number pad, dual headphone jacks.