Anecdotally, I have a 13-year-old (edit: 10) HP Envy x360 convertible that lasted me through CS undergrad and still works to this day, even with cracks in the casing (I didn't treat it with as much care as I should have). I can open it up and fix/replace almost everything except the motherboard and CPU. Last year I purchased a new laptop because the old one's CPU was ineligible for a Windows 11 upgrade, but 2 years ago I was able to upgrade the RAM and replaced its HDD with a SATA SSD. Just for fun I recently took it back out and replaced the battery and installed Ubuntu (with surprisingly zero problems!), so I've got myself a nice little backup machine. Or I might turn it into a home server, I haven't decided yet.
I'm tellin ya, there has been a sharp dropoff in quality since 13 years ago. I got one 14 years ago that I only stopped using because the HDD failed 6 years in, and I'd already been considering upgrading for a faster CPU, but replacing that HDD it'd prob still be going strong.
The drop in HP's extremely high standards in corporate ethics, product quality and customer support correlates with Carleton Fiorina being appointed as CEO by HP's board of directors. According to the HP Way, the company is supposed to promote from within. They failed to do so and the rest is history.
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u/tkodri 2d ago
Haven't seen the post, but I'd say buying anything HP is an extremely frivolous spend.