Who hit you, HP Inc? 'Windows 10! It's all Windows 10's fault' HP Ink – the PC and printers half of the Hewlett-Packard split – has blamed Windows 10 for a ho-hum quarter of declining sales. "Windows 10 is a tremendous operating system platform," HP Ink CEO Dion Weisler told analysts and investors on a conference call on Wednesday afternoon. "But we have not yet seen the anticipated Win10 …
The tepid reception (outside the IT Journalists that is) that Windows 10 has received was a sue sign that it was not going to be a money spinner... yet. (or if ever).
The fact that MS is giving it away for FREE (in return for taking your next born and selling them to the hightest bidder) means that there really is no incenting for people to buy 'shiny-shiny' new PC's and Laptops.
Putting all your eggs in the W10 frying pan has IMHO just tipped you out into the fire.
Heads should roll for this in HP.
And they won't be the last.
And heads will most certainly roll. Many, many, MANY heads; just not any in the management department of course - you gotta shelter and protect your management, because they are the life and blood of your enterprise (workers can be safely ejected - they are just dead ballast weight anyway, you're better off without them).
That's the sound I am told I make when my significant other asks me "Is there a problem with the printer?"
The problem, hun, being that we actually have one. From the possession of a printer flows all manner of human trouble to which even Nostradamus, the Book of Revelations, the Bhagavad Gita or The Yellow Pages fail to do justice.
I am become printer, the destroyer of Sunday Evenings.
I'm now actually wondering how Epson is doing. Not that my single purchase of Epson gear will have altered their income much, but more people may have found Epson the better choice of late.
I switched to Epson last year because it had (IMHO) nicer multifunction printers to handle A3 (it also scans it), and so far it appears to have been the right decision, helped by the fact that I don't use original ink - that alone saves so much money that I can pretty much afford not to have any warranty on the printer.
I seem to have gone full circle here. I started with Epson, then Star, then Canon (bubblejet), then a long time HP. Eventually I needed A3, and Epson simply matched my needs better. So I'm baaaack :).
Not sure if that will hold up when we need a proper office duty printers, though - those will have to be colour lasers, and I haven't quite done that research yet. I may end up rescuing HP after all..
Yes, My Epson WF isn't too expensive on ink. Doesn't seem to dry out when we don't use it for a few weeks, churns out children's homework quickly and reliably. Updates drivers without complaining. Prints from email or with an Android app.
The last time I had an HP printer it failed on software installs, jammed if the paper wasn't loaded on a Wednesday under a full moon and cost a fortune in ink. But then my more recent HP mouse also had driver problems. A mouse ffs.
I'm still devastated about the Safe deposit box Robbery in London last year, I've no chance of getting that photo grey cartridge back, ...it was my life savings, my wife divorced me, the judge said it was black and white,...I couldn't argue - he was right.....DAMN you HP, DAMN you mysterious Ginger man never caught, I bet he's printing in 600dpi grey all the way to the next bank..DAMN you!
I'm still devastated about the Safe deposit box Robbery in London last year, I've no chance of getting that photo grey cartridge back
Don't worry, most of them are now ink-arcerated, serving multiple sentences in parallel cos they're serial offenders. Doing A4 year stretch, at least... reams of evidence.
>But then my more recent HP mouse also had driver problems. A mouse ffs.
I am all OK with the rest of your comment, but, unless you are running MS-DOS or Windows 3.x, Windows should have all the drivers it needs for your pointing device .... blaming HP for abysmal USB support in Windows is unfair.
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@AC - Epson Printers
I bought an Epson MFP once. It printed wonderful color pictures. Scanned whatever. Copied whatever. Up until the ink in one color ran out. Then EVERYTHING stopped working until I put a new cartridge in. There is no requirement for ink to scan something, yet they put this stranglehold on users to force them to buy consumables. Fuck em. Went out and bought an HP color laser printer and gave the Epson away.
Had that printer for a number of years til it finally died. Then I bought another HP printer. It is going strong. I might suggest that the HP printer business is flagging because of the superiority of their product. If it doesn't break, there is no reason to buy a new one...
And, I'm doing my part. I bought an Envy last fall. Nice bit of kit. 5 months on and I'm still loving it.
...and I assume your HP printer is nothing like my next door neighbor's which he says is bankrupting him buying ink cartridges. He doesn't print fast enough to run out, but they're always "expired" when it's time to print.
Last HP printer I owned wouldn't feed paper. Period. It either jammed or fed two pages. Didn't matter whether I bought HP's special paper or not. Never mind the ink expenses. I threw it away because I'd have felt guilty giving it to a friend.
So, er, I assume your experience with HP printers has been better. I guess. I'd certainly never even look at another one.
@tekHedd
You know, I've never had a problem with HP printers. I had an old school inkjet (512 I think? all in one cartridge) for probably a decade. The drive belt finally disintegrated. It was a sad day! That's when I bought the Epson.
Never had any failure to feed issues with any of them. Could be climate related in your case though? I suppose I'm a loyalist to a degree, but I can't fault them for not being reliable, which is why they are the printer of my choice.
I bought an Epson MFP once. It printed wonderful color pictures. Scanned whatever. Copied whatever. Up until the ink in one color ran out. Then EVERYTHING stopped working until I put a new cartridge in. There is no requirement for ink to scan something, yet they put this stranglehold on users to force them to buy consumables. Fuck em. Went out and bought an HP color laser printer and gave the Epson away.
That's why I *started* with researching what non-original ink I could use before I even bought the thing, because only their new printers have abandoned the 'cheap hardware, platinum priced ink" strategy which made ink more expensive then blood (but blood doesn't print so well and it sucks having to walk around on the end of a hose). As irony would have it, I bought this printer (a WF 7610) as a replacement for a remarkably fast and robust HP Officejet Pro K550 which was starting to show signs of wear (misalignment, paper feed issues, noises - the works) after 7+ years of faithful service. HP didn't have anything attractive with A3 capability that could take replacement ink, Epson did (I like A3 because it works better with diagrams).
I personally never had problems with HP. Software was easy to get and upgrade for any OS (Windows, Linux, OSX), and it was decent software, not the I-will-spread-everywhere-in-your-system-because-I-used-to-be-a-virus-writer-before-I-got-this-gig disaster that Brother printers inflict on you. Their A3 printer was a disaster, also because it was frighteningly slow, and it thus became the first printer in my life with IT to be returned within 3 hours of purchase..
However, Epson is in my experience just as good as HP, and as I could get replacement ink to feed this A3+ capable printer (which is where ink costs really start to add up), economics made this pretty much a no-brainer, helped by the fact that it also gave me a double sided ADF, A3 capable network scanner.
I spent £50 on ink and cartridges, which would have costed over £800 in Epson original, but I must add that I am fortunate in not needing colour fidelity as I print mostly document and proofs - that is the price you pay with replacement ink. Maybe I find time one day to work out how to set up a colour profile that corrects this - I'd welcome any tips there.
Agree, that was my immediate thought: Of course PC sales are not good, MS is tapping everyone to upgrade to Win10 on their current PC. The reason most people buy a new PC, or one of the reasons, is to get the new OS... not really necessary with MS giving away Win10 for free on your existing PC. No real need to upgrade hardware for most people either. What they have will work fine. Not really sure I would say this is a strategic error on HP Inc's part though. What other choice do they have at this point? That is kind of why HP broke in two. HP Inc is the declining business. HPE is the declining less business.
"The reason most people buy a new PC, or one of the reasons, is to get the new OS"
No, usually it's just because the old one broke or started running too slow and exceeded the user's frustration threshold. Most folks just don't care about the OS as long as the stuff they had before still works and stuff they want to use are easy to find.
Now that so much of the above-mentioned 'stuff' is web-based, the OS matters less than ever. Hence why we now have a far more diverse market, which is fantastic however way you look at it. Yes that may result in a small downturn for those still limited to the Wintel scene. Windows isn't going away though, we've just got more to choose from is all. HP simply need broaden with the market.
Agree, most things are done through a web browser. For work I think people may still need or want a PC for desktop apps, like Office, but for the home user it is usually just a matter of opening a browser. I agree with the hardware quality thing too. That is definitely one of the major reasons why people upgrade. It is not so much that they need the new hardware specs (as mentioned, if the hardware spec can run an OS and open a browser, that's all most people need). I'm just saying that if your PC isn't broken or slow and hardware specs are likely not a concern, taking away the OS upgrade is another reason not to buy a new PC... as many people who may have wanted the new OS would have, traditionally, thought... well, Windows is $99, or whatever, and a new home PC is $400-500, I might as well just refresh as I will need to do it at some point anyway... a catalytic event. Now that, in addition to all the other reasons you don't need a new PC, is in play.
I don't really know what HP can do to broaden their market. They tried with tablets, swing and a miss. It is difficult for a Win OEM to beat Surface in quality. They could push into Android tablets, but they are then competing with about 20 other OEMs (Samsung, HTC, etc) who are more established. Not a lot of good options.
Good point. I have refurbished two Vista laptops with Win10 to the delight of the owners who had chucked them aside for being unusable. I did warn them of the surveillance built into Win10, the half complete interface and the loss of some control, but it does work well if installed fresh and a few thing turned off and tweaked. Update of existing Windows, on the other hand, is a nightmare. One Win7 Pro update went so badly it was easier to chuck it and resulted in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS as replacement.
However, HP's problem is mostly the Carly Fiorina legacy. My wife's HP laser WiFi network printer has never fully worked, ever, in 3 years of mucking with it. I get the full wireless working so we can all print over the network and a couple of days later it has to be plugged into the computer USB again. It's over 10 years of increasingly crud product and bad service that affected HP sales, although it was not helped by Microsoft's uneven, reskinned Widows 8 beta-ware, with oft changing interface, posing as a new and complete OS.
...especially when they hear about the lockscreen adverts!.
...especially when they hear about the lockscreen adverts!.
Oh, there is more to come. Just when you think you have waded your way past those ads, you will discover that the latest Adobe Reader DC (the "up"grade from v11) ALSO supports ads. As a matter of fact, it seeks to cut out the middle man from what I could find in the Terms it wants you to accept (which is when I started to pay attention - previous Reader updates did not ask for new Terms to be accepted).
Instead of having to follow the cumbersome path via your browser and pesky adblockers, Adobe seems to offer direct access to your machine via the Adobe Reader DC, naturally with its own network. As we all know that the magnificent expertise of Adobe in keeping us safe puts that of Microsoft completely in the shade (yes, that's sarcasm), we are all very happy about that idea, especially since there seems to be no off switch to this, other than to to go back to the Adobe site, download any version 11 reader and from then on ignore the frantic screeching of the update downgrade manager that it's unclean and unsafe. I also don't approve of applications that seek to send off information about me either (that too was in the Terms I did not agree to).
I know where my PDFs come from and my browser can't auto-start any, so I reckon I am probably going to do a better job keeping malware of my system with an old version of Reader than with a new version of Reader and the accompanying backdoor.
And I don't even run Windows.
Er, you use Adobe to read PDFs?
Why?
That is an *excellent* question, but the answer to that is unfortunately not comprehensible to our non-MBA afflicted minds.. Let's just say that is not by choice.
On the plus side, it is also not by default - we soon got rid of that.
I don't know about you, but the overlords in our country decided that all official electronic forms (pdfs, of course) MUST be filled in using Adobe Reader. I don't know what checks they perform, but filling in a form in anything else results in the file not being accepted by their system.
" the latest Adobe Reader DC (the "up"grade from v11) ALSO supports ads. As a matter of fact, it seeks to cut out the middle man from what I could find in the Terms it wants you to accept (which is when I started to pay attention - previous Reader updates did not ask for new Terms to be accepted)....And I don't even run Windows."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okular
To disable: Fortunately, the ads are easy enough to disable. Just head to Settings > Personalization > Lock Screen and uncheck the box that reads “Get fun facts, tips, tricks, and more on your lock screen.”
So, to Microsoft, "fun facts, tips, tricks" are ads ... interesting.
"So, to Microsoft, "fun facts, tips, tricks" are ads ... interesting."
Well, here's a tip for you: "Buy one get one free. Only at $advertiser! Limited offer"
You can argue until you turn blue, consider it an (unwanted) ad, but for me it's a tip.
Actually I think that most people these days buy a new machine when they need a new machine. The conventional pc-market has been heading south for some considerable time. I think that HP need to reexamine the excuses they are making for themselves. Currently, AFAIK, the only growth in the pc-market in general is in the area of "2-in-ones", "hybrids" and the like. If HP's main effort is still in knocking out boxes and expecting us to buy them then they should perhaps reevaluate their strategy.
The problem is hardware is not really worth replacing these days unless you have to. A 5 years old computer will still do the job fine unless you are into games you may get a small boost via a better video card.
CPU technology have been flat for a while, AMD not really done anything and Intel is just plodding along and putting out chips that really do very little more than what the last one did.
People do not buy a computer because MS decided to bring out a new OS.
@Jack of Shadows.
Rocking a £100.00 dual Xeon X5470 Dell workstation from late 2007. Still benches within 20% or so of modern Intel stuff costing a lot lot more. Added in 16GB of ECC ram, 850 EVO, USB3.0 and a HD7870 and it works very nicely.
Per task the HP z600, it's not up to what my 4.8 GHz i5 with 2400 MHz memory and paired Quadro & Tesla (which puts that machine on the map for super-computer status). Now when it comes to juggling CAD/CAM/CASE and especially simulation work on expensive packages that have long known how to intelligently thread, all at the same time? That's a positive pleasure!
Yep, I did have to bring its game up a bit. 48 GB ECC RAM, LSI PCIe x8 SAS/SATA controller, a handful of SSD's and high-speed/high-capacity hard drives in hot-swap cartridges, and I did toss in my much underused AMD W7000. Ah, a USB 3 card for the sticks and such. The thing is, all the old stuff I have laying around goes into the box with a bit of room to spare and just works. Which is more than I can say for "yon super-computer" above. [That, when I get it "up on step" is sweet. But blood sacrifices may be called for.]
Both are a bit technically demanding actually, but in different ways. Come to think of it, given how long a career I had in the US Navy where you'll find literal WWII radios next to the latest and greatest satellite communications stuff, this is my comfort zone.
Absolutely. Hardware has long since exceeded the capacity the vast majority of users need.
Win 7 worked well, and just needed a bit of tinkering - like making the start menu more easy to manage, and a block on software installs creating folders in it, instead of programme links.
Nothing in Win 8-10 makes the "user experience" better ( and the start menu is impossible to manage fully, even if you know how to jump through the hoops, because of the inbuilt "apps").
However, HP have never done themselves any favours. I long since stopped ever buying their products. The hardware was always good, but software was so rubbish. Bloated, unreliable and buggy.
A typical HP software install would fail to update when a new driver came out, because the old one wouldn't uninstall properly, but then wouldn't let the old one work either.
I have to disagree. Hardware has long since proven insufficient to run the latest versions of M$ bloatware. Other software, fine... that 10 year old Sony Vaio that came with XP in the corner? - happy as Larry with the latest Mint... Windows 7? Like a tortoise on mogadon.
HP hardware may have been solid up till the mid or late 90s but it's been generally dire since then (speaking consumer hardware here since that's the bit of HP in question.) I know of no other manufacturer whose laptops have such a propensity for cooking themselves, regardless of how mundane or flashy and expensive.
Even their printers bear no hint of the good old HP LaserJet III style engineering (though granted they are now generally very much cheaper to buy.)
It's not just computers. In the past old HP desktop B&W printers lasted forever - laserjet 4, 4050. Colour lasers just don't; and they are expensive to run. All that happens is the office gets over-run with cartridges for printers that no one has anymore because after a few years the printer gives up. Better to go for a larger photocopier/printer on contract than buy flimsy HP ColourJets.
And yes my home PC is about 7 years old but I recently put in an SSD and it has given it a new lease of life. Not as quick as the i7/32GB PCs I have been setting up for work of course but pretty usable still.
And the rest, my current PC was rebuilt built just at the end of Win Vista.
Still works well, components said Vista compatable, check still XP compatable.
Until I see a reason to change (I know about SSD) I will let it run
Agree, and good luck competing with MS themselves and Surface in the PClet or hybrid or 'a tablet which you can do stuff on' market. I don't like any OEM's chances of beating Surface's quality, integration and build. On a side note, I'm not sure why MS can't take a Surface down to the phone guys and say 'build this, only smaller and with a phone app' or maybe just ask the Surface team to do it. Apparently the Surface phone is in the works though. You look at the, IMO, flawless build quality of Surface and then the build quality of Lumia and think... how does the same company make these products? Just hand all devices to the Surface team and forget about Nokia... which it appears is what MS has planned.
The problem with PC sales has MOSTLY to do with the effect of 'Ape' (8.x) and now Win-10-nic (windows 10), because people do NOT WANT THESE OPERATING SYSTEMS when their EXISTING 7 machines work JUST FINE, and there's generally NO PERCEIVED IMPROVEMENT for a new computer with 10 on it compared to a 'few years old' machine with 7 on it...
And THAT *IS* the problem! Microsoft's "phone on a desktop" concept JUST! PLAIN! SUCKS!!!
So you see the predictable DROP in new computer sales. And you see people EXPLICITLY LOOKING FOR 7 MACHINES. And you see people UPGRADING THEIR EXISTING COMPUTERS with new parts, or even GETTING THEIR COMPUTERS REPAIRED (instead of replacing them) so they don't have to deal with Win-10-nic or "Ape".
Perhaps HP should invest some MARKETING CAPITAL and R&D into making HIGH END LINUX MACHINES and selling THOSE for LOWER PRICES than their Windows equivalents... convince people that LINUX is BETTER, CHEAPER, and JUST AS EASY to use, and don't use nonsensical phone-like UI's like MeGo or Unity (which are too "Ape"-like) but *REAL* desktops like Cinnamon and Mate and even KDE.
Are you LISTENING OUT THERE, HP?
Well, maybe you're right. But why aren't the hundreds of millions of Linux and other non-Windows operating systems users not purchasing printers? The sales of printers fell even further than that of PCs in percentage terms. Are Linux, etc., users not buying printers either?
Or are people buying other brands of printers, just not HP printers, perhaps? I don't know... it's a question, not a comment.
"The sales of printers fell even further than that of PCs in percentage terms. Are Linux, etc., users not buying printers either?
Or are people buying other brands of printers, just not HP printers, perhaps? I don't know... it's a question, not a comment."
They do, but not at the rate HP is expected. HP, for years, has devised, every time Windows N+1 comes, it's a box sale per user. This used to have some merit, because every single pre-10 version of Windows would necessitate amounts of ressources no previous HW could have.
Now, due to MS vision of Windows for phone, and also because MS decided to push 10 down everyone's throat, in order to monetize their data, this has changed and 10 runs on HW 7 or 8 are on.
Also, it seems HP has extended this reasoning to printers, which also had some merit, since those fuckwits had always made dead sure drivers of all their previous products wouldn't be available for N+1. Therefore, with N+1 came a new printer.
But the problem for this is other printers vendors are less retarded and think long term. For example, Canon still does drivers/utilities for OS X El Capitan for their products from last decade. example: utilities for my venerable MP600, which passed away last summer after 10 years of perfect service.
Guess which brand I chose for replacement ?
>Oh really? I can haz Twain drivers for windows 7 64-bit for my _Canon_ LiDE 35 scanner plz? Pretty plz...? Without the need to hack in the LiDE 60 driver instead if possible...?
Sane works great (out-of-the-box) on that scanner (I had the same model), so, treat yourself to some Nordic Mint, you will not look back!
>>Oh really? I can haz Twain drivers for windows 7 64-bit for my _Canon_ LiDE 35 scanner plz? Pretty plz...? Without the need to hack in the LiDE 60 driver instead if possible...?
>Sane works great (out-of-the-box) on that scanner (I had the same model), so, treat yourself to some Nordic Mint, you will not look back!
Scrap that, get yourself the new pi 3, at least you have a good excuse for the missus ...
> Or are people buying other brands of printers, just not HP printers, perhaps? I don't know... it's a question, not a comment
I blame them for bring too good, bastards.
I have a 1012, so old that it uses wires to print with, over a decade and still subjectively produces output like new - with a non-HP laser cartridge natch - now in the hands of someone else in the family.
I had to buy a new printer (the old one used wires! and only 600dpi for God's sake) and even that is maybe 5 years old now.
Also works perfectly, obviously, and also with non-HP cartridges. I read horror stories about them but I bought two for less than the price of one original and the output, which I use rarely to be fair, is, again, subjectively great.
I gave up on ink jets a long time ago because laser printers produce instant output, clean, pure, and touchable even when not used for a month or more. Almost zero energy on standby, always ready and usable from anywhere in the world that' connected - yes, I can print things for other people even though I can't take the paper out (or put it in) if I am not there.
I don't have colour though, oh well, that Ryanair ticket scanner must be so disappointed.
If I needed colour, I would possibly buy an actual colour laser now, they look like they could be afforded, if they last forever of course - we shall see in another 5 years or so when wireless becomes passé and we have thought-transfer printing I guess.
I can only assume their actual sales come from people who actually wear out their printer, office users, and people with loads of money that can't fix paper jams - which I also never get. And, of course, newly minted people with more disposable and newly acquired need in emerging markets - not sure HP sell too much there but their prices are pretty reasonable at the low end from my memory.
Well, maybe you're right. But why aren't the hundreds of millions of Linux and other non-Windows operating systems users not purchasing printers? The sales of printers fell even further than that of PCs in percentage terms. Are Linux, etc., users not buying printers either?
Can only speak for myself of course, but my reason is that my old LJ4,5 and 4700 are still running fine.
"Or are people buying other brands of printers, just not HP printers, perhaps? I don't know... it's a question, not a comment."
In the days of relatively small monitors with poor resolution I would often print out emails, word processing documents or sections of documentation to refer to while working.
Wide screens with better resolutions mean that I can now read a full PDF page without having to enlarge it then scroll within a page. I can also have an editor, word processor or spreadsheet alongside that PDF, and my need for much of the printing I traditionally did simply disappeared.
Added to that I switched to a mono laser back in 2009, It has not only been a lot cheaper to run than an inkjet but it doesn't do all that fussing around cleaning print heads before starting to print. If I really need colour printing there are plenty of print shops around who possess far better kit than I can afford and will do that at a reasonable price.
My choice of mono laser in 2009? Simple: The nicely compact Brother model I chose had an OS X Compatible logo on it. The (ugly and bulky by comparison) HP models only claimed to support Windows, which fact, incidentally, was a complete surprise to the salesman who was trying to push the HP kit.
With respect to an earlier comment about HP printer drivers' limited support of Windows versions, that Brother has worked with all versions of OS X from 10.4 to 10.11, and certainly more than a couple of versions of Windows.
What printing do I do nowadays? Apart from correspondence with my local town hall and the tax office, the last few letters I printed were cancellation notices for ISPs and other online services I no longer required.
People don't give a toss about the OS that runs on their systems. They keep them because it works, when it doesn't they go out and buy something new with whatever Windows version it comes with. No fuss.
Perhaps HP should invest some MARKETING CAPITAL and R&D into making HIGH END LINUX MACHINES and selling THOSE for LOWER PRICES than their Windows equivalents... convince people that LINUX is BETTER, CHEAPER, and JUST AS EASY to use
Take your meds. They might as well invest some serious capital into tech support as well.. and training for tech support. And PR damage control when Jane Doe's computer doesn't open macro'd Excel files or screws up formatting in Word documents. The cost implications are horrendous.
The printer busines tanking is a no brainer. Who the hell prints anything out anymore instead of taking the entire Library of Congress along for a train ride on an iPad? Printing for home is dead.
I blame their sales to their products.
Most recent example, friend came to me wanting to put Linux on a recently acquired, "sale," PC. Firstly, the UEFI looked more like a BIOS from the late 90's. Second, even after disabling all the secure boot crap, I could not get Linux to boot from the hard drive. Even legacy failed to work. Had to send him away with a USB key that has the boot loader on it. With a backup, and a usable file of the thing that could be "dd"'d on to another stick if necessary.
When all this drama was eventually finished, he went away muttering that he'd never buy another piece of HP kit as long as he lived.
Sad, HP... really sad. You've cut too many corners and sucked up too much to M$.
Had that problem, after installing Mint on an Acer I got the "no boot device found" message. The only thing that worked was to enable secure boot, set an admin bios password then install the keys to allow Linux to boot (the bios finds the key file in the boot partition), click yes to install it. Save and exit, reboot and Linux boots just fine.
Would probably work with an HP too.
I gave up on HP computers ten years ago. I used to like HP and bought their products for many years for both personal and corporate use. They used to have good email support too, responding to queries within an hour or two. Ten years ago I wanted to buy a new laptop that I could make dual-boot with Linux but first contacted HP support to see if they could recommend one of their models as compatible with Linux. A whole week later I got a very short email saying they only supported Windows. Never bought a HP computer again.
"Ten years ago I wanted to buy a new laptop that I could make dual-boot with Linux but first contacted HP support to see if they could recommend one of their models as compatible with Linux."
What did you buy then? 10 years ago - before Windows Vista - support from all major players for Linux was poor-to-nonexistant.
These days HP and others do support Linux - at least with the business computers.
@Sandtitz, I got a local computer business to do a custom build for me. I was at the stage that I wanted to just play around with Linux and try it out, see what it had to offer. I did also buy a couple of high street, off the shelf laptops around that time too, but there was always some insurmountable hardware incompatibility issue or various drivers didn't exist.
I'm now 100% Linux Mint (except for one old XP desktop which isn't allowed on the internet), have been for the last couple of years. Hardware seems much better supported nowadays. Microsoft seem to have lost the plot after Windows 7 and I've transitioned quite happily to Linux.
Why is it that I sometimes feel these words would be a better explanation of HP.
As others have said, the days of being swept along on a tide of OS upgrades are over. There is no compelling reason to ditch functional hardware just because there's a new OS on the horizon and with Windows 10, that was never truer.
For those that want it, Microsoft have made it freely available - so if the existing hardware is good enough then there is no sale.
For those that don't want Windows 10 - and there seem to be Oh so many! - then again the question is - why replace the machine. There is still time before WIndows 7/8.x are totally dead in the water. That removes one driver to upgrade. Upgrading to SSD from spinning rust easily buys another couple of years on a laptop where performance began to be an issue.
And if one does have to buy new, many will try to find a bare machine or one that allows rollback to an earlier OS. I haven't looked. Do HP even offer such a choice?
Someone is being really short sighted on this. (Icon as it's the nearest thing to blinkered)
"Do HP even offer such a choice?"
Have they even considered it? Sales of lightly used PC's with Win 7 on seem very buoyant ATM (s/h values are surprisingly high) which you'd think they might have noticed, but then it is HP.
I'm so old I remember when those initials meant something.
"Upgrading to SSD from spinning rust easily buys another couple of years on a laptop where performance began to be an issue."
I agree. A valid reason for a new laptop instead of some 5+ year old model with an SSD these days (for me) would not be a more powerful CPU but the improved energy efficiency: I have a 2-year-old i7 laptop and I got over 8 hours of light work out of the battery (when new) which was just awesome compared to the 3-4 hours from my earlier i5 based laptop. I expect newer models to be even more efficient.
"And if one does have to buy new, many will try to find a bare machine or one that allows rollback to an earlier OS. I haven't looked. Do HP even offer such a choice?"
Yes they do - with the business computers. With either FreeDOS pre-loaded or with Windows 10 Pro with the usual downgrade rights. I set up a new HP laptop couple weeks ago and it included a Windows 7 DVD. It was an Elitebook 840 G2 IIRC.
Consumer models get only Windows 10 without any downgrade rights. (not different from any earlier 'home' version of Windows)
And here I was, thinking that this might have something to do with the overpriced crappy tat they make.
As far as I am concerned, the "value" of the HP brand has moved into the negative territory just about when they discontinued the LJ4, and started the gradual descent with the 4xxx series - each one taking less and less time to die on me.
Um, anticipated by whom, exactly ?
Oh, right, by those who looked at every previous Windows version sales impact and blindly took the same numbers, forgetting all the while that :
1) Windows 1 0 is the first Microsoft OS to be offered as a free download (for the moment, at least)
2) The OEM image for new PCs was months late, due to MS faffing about with the code right up to the last minute
3) PC hardware no longer has anywhere near the jumps in year-on-year performance that we enjoyed pre-Y2K, meaning that a 3-year-old PC could still conceivably be used to run the new OS without much trouble
In other words, the only people "anticipating" a surge in PC sales were those who had their blinkers on and took PC sales and new Windows version as an article of faith.
The rest of the world checked GWX and either tested their PC or threw the whole damn thing out with the bathwater. No new PC involved.
Once again, a major organization demonstrates just how unconnected it is with the Real World.
The last new laptop I bought was a HP Compaq, going cheap because it was a *downgrade* from Vista to XP pro. Nobody wanted Vista's DRM badness, maybe HP have forgotten that fact. It has only recently been retired due to the screen going dim. I picked up an identical model for £60, it runs Ubuntu nicely.
In our family, everyone from our granddaughters to our parents has access to a decent size tablet (most of which have cost little to nothing having been obtained through mobile phone deals, castoffs from friends who have to have the latest tech, etc). No-one needs to print a document to read it, a photo to admire (or otherwise) it; e-tickets can be displayed at many venues on a mobile phone, without needing a hard copy.
I have a Samsung colour laser printer, purchased many years ago. I realised the other day that I don't think it's been switched on for 9 months, because that was the last time I needed a hard copy of something (and if you're not going to use it for months at a time you definitely don't want an inkjet printer, which I suspect is increasingly killing that market.). If it breaks down I probably won't replace it; I will use work (who allow small amounts of personal printing) and/or libraries and print shops.
Home printing is very nearly dead; and HP need to realise it.
I don't print very much as a home user, but it's still very useful.
I recently RMA'd some stuff that had failed to live up to the seller's claims. They sent me a .pdf address label with the postage prepaid. That has to be printed.
In fact, whenever I send a package, I pay online and print the label. It's cheaper, easier, and faster than waiting in line and handing them the form I filled out with a pen, then waiting for them to type all that stuff in to create a label much like the one I could have printed.
Then there's rebate forms that often need to be printed. I've also needed to print documents and mail them the old-fashioned way when dealing with government agencies.
When I go to a brick-and-mortar store locally that has a "we match internet prices" policy, I just hand them a screenshot of the competitor's listing on the web. And if I have done the "local pick up" option that they and many other retailers offer for online purchases, they ask you to bring a printed copy of the confirmation email.
These are just a few examples I've thought of off the top of my head.
Not everyone has a printer at work that they can use for personal stuff, and some that do don't wish to go through the hassle of bringing the documents in on a USB stick (or however you do it), possibly waiting a few days (weekends) before you can get your printing done, etc., when you can hit "print" and have the document in hand in a few seconds.
The home printer, like the PC, is not going anywhere. Smart phones and tablets are essentially toys that occasionally get to do serious stuff (largely as satellite devices for PCs), but toys are all that a lot of people ever needed in the first place. Those people have largely abandoned the PC market in favor of mobile devices. Selfies, pictures of food, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, streaming movies/ TV shows/ cat videos, games, etc., all fall into the "toy" category (and I don't mean that as pejoratively as it sounds-- I like toys too. I have an Android tablet that I use for some of those things.) It's easy to see how a printer would be superfluous for those kinds of things.
If that's all you need, that's fine. That doesn't mean that every home user only uses PCs, tablets, or phones for social media or entertainment purposes.
I too found inkjets to be more trouble than they are worth. I found I was only getting only a small number of pages per ink cartridge. After that, the ink would have dried out, and off I would go to buy another cartridge to print whatever it was I needed to print on that day. I would get one or two more documents printed in the coming months, after which it would have dried out again.
So now I use a black laser all-in-one. I'm not printing tons of stuff, but it is very useful when I do, certainly enough to justify the meager price I paid for it.
SWMBO prints out multiple copies of handouts for her patchwork class every week although, to be fair, it's mostly a case of me photocopying them as she insists on writing them by hand.
This is accomplished on an HP 3020, years old, still going strong. If I'd been tempted to replace it by a colour version I'd be put off by the experience of my daughter's work-supplied all-in-one HP with its paper tray which jammed partly in after she took it out to refill. It was difficult to believe that the two machines were built by the same company.
BTW, when I looked at the pre-release W10 last year it didn't, at that time, have a driver for the 3020. But the HP site had a W8 version which worked OK.
HP seems to be an odd hybrid. It used to build stuff really well and at least some of that old stuff is still supported but new stuff reminds me of some of the domestic appliances of the '70s - well enough built to get out of the factory door.
Doctor Syntax said "new stuff reminds me of some of the domestic appliances of the '70s - well enough built to get out of the factory door."
The last HP inkjet printer I bought came from Argos. Got home, unpacked it, connected it up then opened it to put the cartridges in... er... nowhere to put the cartridges. It was missing most of the innards! Took it back and swapped it of course, but I was shocked that a half built printer could get boxed and shipped out of the factory door. So much for quality control!
Apart from the millions and millions of Android/iOS users who have to update their hardware to use the new OS version, you mean?
Or those who have to have the latest features so they can preen and pose in front of their peers?
That aside though, ink? Printer?
Do people actually print stuff these days?
The younger generation read on their device and then click away - if they need to read it again (at another location, for instance) they simply browse to the site/open up 'pocket'/load the saved file/select the bookmark/whatever.
If they need someone esle to see whatever it was they facebook/what'sapp/snapchat/whatever a link to it,
If whoever they need to see it is a reject from the 20th Century they might sms a link or email it (if either of they even have an email account).
Printing?
Really?
Right: people are more interested in upgrading their mobe (ofter for pure show-off reasons) than upgrading their PCs, especially those who now mostly use a PC for little more than firing off a browser.
Power users may still upgrade their PCs more often, but they are no longer driven by the need to switch to a new, more powerful OS - they will upgrade only when their actual PC no longer performs adequately with the software they use.
Any appeal of Windows 10 for a lot of power user was killed by the spyware capabilities Nadella the InSatiaBle wanted inside the OS...
I am genuinely puzzled.....
I can only assume all the "no need to print at home" contingent do not have children who use computers for homework. Mine kids easily have three or four occasions to print homework related stuff each week - either handouts or completed assignments to be handed in.
I assume you have just arrived in a time capsule from a time where teachers do not have email, right, schools do not have websites, where parents and kids have accounts and where they can upload/download Open/LibreOffice documents containing home work ?
BTW, some teachers even upload their course material, so kids can read it all again ... in Impress decks ... Kids who do not have computers at home can use the ones located in the library ...
Merci
"I assume you have just arrived in a time capsule from a time where teachers do not have email, right, schools do not have websites, where parents and kids have accounts and where they can upload/download Open/LibreOffice documents containing home work ?"
No, I live outside US. You do know there are other countries in the world, right?
>No, I live outside US. You do know there are other countries in the world, right?
Yes, France, where I live ...
I guess that they have something similar in the US, only, it is in Azure, the documents MUST BE Office 2007 or later, and the couse material is available in Vizio, which has to be acquired separately ... No, here in freetard-land France, which is about to change thanks to brain-dead gov, homework that needs to be handed-in in digital formats has to be authored in Libre/OpenOffice ...
Indeed, my grand-daughters' school in rural Essex accepts uploaded homework (and has a secure portal to do so). Once uploaded the documents can be accessed and edited either from a school PC or checked out to a home PC and checked back in again once the pupil has finished editing it. Once a document is submitted for marking it is locked and can only be edited by someone with teacher privileges. The mark is added to the metadata for the document(s) and also emailed to the pupil. No need for printing there. If an underfunded state school can afford this technology (which I think is hosted in any case) then it's clearly not expensive.
"Now that's Windows10 installed, now, while it's downloading updates i'll just go and throw my perfectly servicable and fully functional printer in the bin, and go and buy another one."
The above sentence is not echoing throughout the living rooms of the land. If the HP execs thought it was ever going to, then they're a particularly rare type of stupid and have no business (ha!) being in the positions that they are in, earning the money that they do. They're as dumb as a box of rocks.
Part of the issue as well is that when PC hardware is stagnating performance wise, you need to make sure you're offering some great kit that people want to buy in order to hook them in.
So, does any current HP laptop have anything other than a cramped and unpleasant 16:9 screen? No. How about decent touchpads? Nope, they're mostly horrid, buttonless and so huge width wise that it's impossible to type on them without having to switch the trackpad off - even on some of the EliteBooks. Slim screen bezels? Nope, they're all fat and chunky.
Current HP laptops look cheap and all have compromises. Combined with Windows 10 and lack of performance improvements, there's no reason to buy one.
I've said it before, slap a high-quality, high-res, matte 3:2 screen in, slim screen bezels, a good keyboard and a trackpad with physical buttons which isn't so huge it gets in the way most the time, and you might actually have a product worth buying.
Touchpads without buttons?
Pass.
The first thing I do with any laptop I buy (or when I install a new OS on it, etc.) is to turn off tapping. I don't know how anyone can use touchpads with tapping enabled... in situations when I can't easily turn tapping off (Safe Mode, a Linux Live CD, when booting with a backup program's recovery CD, etc.), I am constantly inadvertently sending "taps" that are not intended.
I have no idea how you would click and drag without a button... I never had to find out.
Having had buttonless touchpads for a few years now I would never go back; a good quality, decently sized touchpad is far more pleasant for me (Macbook Pro, higher end Dell XPS / Chromebook 13 etc)
Most of these do of course actually have buttons hidden under the bottom corners of the touchpad, but you can easily click and drag by doing a double tap but leaving your finger down at the end of the second tap.
Years ago, I couldn't either.
About a year ago though it became a necessity - long story involving a laptop on which (amongst /many/ other things) the USB ports wouldn't work .
Got used to it.
Can't imagine having to move my hand that far from the keyboard any more.
It also encouraged me to start using hotkeys instead of a mouse/pointer* and I now only use /that/ for when I /can't/ do what I need to without clicking - and that doesn't often arise any more either.
* not least because the mouse-buttons on my laptop are aggressively loud.
"a cramped and unpleasant 16:9 screen"
Aspect ratio snobbism.
A wider aspect screen allows me to compare two documents side-by-side. It's also a help in transcribing very wide documents. Just because it doesn't fit your use case doesn't mean it doesn't work for others.
Blame 16:9 screens being cheaper due to the large number made for HDTV. But you're on-target about the utility of a sufficiently high-resolution wide display; I use a Dell 6410 with one and no longer need two monitors to accommodate all the windows I need open at the same time.
In a majority of cases, 16:9 isn't about extra width, it's about reduced height. And saving money.
My 1920x1200 screen has exactly the same number of horizontal pixels as your 1920x1080 16:9 screen, but I have 120 pixels of extra height. So the "I can display two pages side by side and you can't" argument is hogwash.
Look at most laptop screens and you'll see that the top and bottom bezel is significantly thicker than the bezel at the sides. That's potentially useful screen estate replaced with fat bezels of plastic all in the name of cost saving.
To note, I'm not saying all laptops should ditch 16:9, and I'm happy for it to be an option - especially on cheaper machines. But at least give users the choice! When you see high-end laptops on sale for over £1,000, only for them to come with fat top and bottom screen bezels and a screen chosen for its cheapness, it doesn't exactly make me want to pull out my wallet.
Fixed for you.
I now use professional photo printers because a professionaly printed photo may still be better than those just shown on a monitor - but actually (and probably thanks to heavens), HP no longer makes them. And they cost a little more than the $49 landfill printers.
Anyway I have a not so old HP D7260 printer that: 1) complains about the ink loading system 2) has the LCD disabled because the (not so) flexible cable that connects it to the printer broke. 3) Always printed crappy photos despite its six-ink system and dedicated photo tray. It doesn's support printer profiles color profiles but its embedded sRGB/Adobe ones.
As soon as the ink cartridges are depleted, I'll throw it away and get a Canon color laser, sometimes I still need to print something out which is not a photo, and photo inks are too expensive for printing anything else.
The main problem where I live is that machines with Windows 10 have not been available till 2016. If anyone wants a new machine, with skylake innards, it has been better to wait.
And, by the way, Windows 10 is NOT free on new machines - which seem to be more expensive than the last generation.
Yet again, my reason for looking is that the current laptop overheats.I wish one PC manufacturer would merge with a 'fridge' maker. Or a car firm; they don't ask you to live at fried-egg temps, just because a component has upped performance.
I wonder if Intel deliberately aims at that with their idea of overclocking when things get tight. Logically, on first signs of temperature rise, the performance should drop to stay at safe levels, rather than overclock till the safety switch blows.
When I upgraded from XP to 7, HP took 2 years to release a driver to support my 1020. (To their credit, the printer is still working, many years later, still under 7.)
I stopped buying HP printers after my inkjet slowly died after causing me hours of wasted time. Felt good to toss that one in the rubbish bin.
I won't buy a printer with a "starter" cartridge. It's a rip-off and a gross insult.
Just retired an HP Deskjet which was 10-15 years old because usage had dropped to the point that the ink was always dry when I wanted to print. Quality printer with auto duplexing and still works fine. Just not in my use case.
I replaced it with an HP Colour laser jet. Hopefully another 10 years service.
I did note that nearly all the revenue for printers was from consumables. Perhaps they are losing ground there.
On the PC front I am using two Vista era PCs with Windows 8.1 because it gave them a new lease of life. Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad. Neither seem to max out on processor. Both waiting for an SSD upgrade.
So these days, much like with cars, PCs and printers just keep on going.
HP should have gone for manufacturing mobile phones. These are still on the 18 month churn for new hardware and software. PC sales are going to be slow from now on.
The days when a new iteration of the Windoze O/S was a requirement to use new hardware are long gone. Before Win 7 was released the rush to buy a new PC with the latest Windoze O/S had faded as few folks needed a new PC or O/S. Not to be deterred by poor sales of WIN10 however, MS has decreed that they will NOT support AMD's new line of Zen core based processors being released this year nor some of Intel's new CPUs (Kaby Lake), on any Windoze O/S except WIN10. Since moving to the insecure, unreliable, spying edition of WIN10 is illogical, undesirable and impractical for many including enterprise, I'd fully expect that the U.S. Dept. of Justice and the EU would desire a conversation with Microsoft regarding their decree to not support new hardware being released in 2016-2017 on Win 7-8. Considering there is only one minor feature not available on Win 7-8 for the new processors, that most consumers do not require, I can see this becoming a very expensive position for Microsoft to pursue.
If Microsoft hadn't given Windows 10 upgrades away for free, how many people would have gone out to buy a new computer just because it had an operating system that wouldn't let you control how much information it sent to Microsoft, and wouldn't let you control what system updates it accepted?
So giving it away free wasn't the only problem; what Windows 10 is would also have reduced its value as an incentive to new sales even if people did have to buy a new computer to get it.
PC sales down, they blame MS. Well, ok.. Win10 sucks, that's true. I can get Win10 without buying a new PC. So HP, how about offering another OS and one not full of HP bloatware? It gets worse with every generation HP PC. I've got one (in the last two years) HP that was basically unusable due to the bloatware from HP. Ended up buy Win7 and doing a clean install and minimal cleanup of bloat.
Printer/Ink sales down... they blame what, the paperless office generation? How about again, the crapware? We have a fairly new ENVY for the wife. Nice printer but it keeps offering HP Rewards and to order ink from HP. And there's no way to turn it off. The prices they charge for ink are outrageous compared to other printers. My old HP 9800 just keeps chugging along and as long as the ink cartridge fits, it runs. I'd buy another one but... seems HP doesn't care about the 11X14 market.
Just retiring some dc7700's here (a mix of XP & Win7) - admittedly we've had a few of those with faulty mainboards over the last decade or so!
(and we still have 1x d530s in use)
I'll echo the sentiment of "why upgrade?"
We're using HP desktops at work. I recently took delivery of a bunch of fully-optioned 800 EliteDesk G1's (G2 is out now). The boxes they're replacing are 5 years old, and still perfectly functional. Being retired due to age, not capability...
Laser printer prices have all but collapsed, so there's no longer a substantial price premium to get a laser vs get an inkjet, unless you have specific needs like photo-quality prints. For those of us who might print a document once or twice a year at best (like me, for instance), my cost per page has now dropped from $50 to 0.3 cents cause I don't have to replace the hopelessly dried up cartridge. So you can imagine the consumables market collapsing.
On top of that, I've noticed that HP quality has become more and more of an oxymoron. They've even cut back on their servers, so the latest Gen 9 machines support only RHEL, Windows. Use anything else like Solaris, BSD or a Debian derivative? Hope you don't mind running off of a USB key cause you won't be using the storage controller anytime soon!
I need a high end machine for game dev, my wife needs a mid range machine for teaching. Both machines should dual boot Windows / Linux, as not all apps run on both yet. Here are the only choices we have, but we're kind of lost, so any advice appreciated...
Toshiba... - As per Philips, becoming a rapidly disappearing brand name...
Asus... - Bought two Asus ROG top end boxes before, but both were returned and shipped back with same nvidia screen hanging / overheating issues. They work great when they work though, but I would buy them again. Very risky!... (There was also an unflattering Asus router story this week)
Lenovo... - Hard to forget the Superfish + UEFI fiasco. To think for 200k the company put their whole brand on the line. Have they cleaned up their act, or just moved onto something else that'll get exposed in a year or two... Just like the TV makers with their sneaky pop-up Ad deals with Yahoo, I just can't bring myself to trust Lenovo again... Superfish was too great an 'Overton Window' moment imo...
Dell... - Probably bought more Dells for work use than any other brand. But what do they offer anymore that's good? Alienware = far too pricey... Plus, similar to Lenovo, they introduced a sneaky unkillable root cert, but claimed it was for our benefit, namely 'tagging'. Do I believe them? When I see how Lenovo lied, and how TV makers still lie about their Ad deals with Yahoo etc, I've got to remain skeptical.
HP... - Wife has a rapidly dying HP Pavilion. Screen died after a year and half. Laptop always overheats. Its bulky. Its unspecial at best. HP's latest offerings have little more to offer than just a brand name. They don't even come with enough memory, or hard disk space for holiday photos! Talk about overpriced!
Acer... - Don't know them, except that they're cheap. Unfortunately a lot unwanted PC and Laptop models from North America end up getting sold in South America. That's hardly a big selling point. Anyone have thoughts about Acer?
Apple... - Desirable but damn expensive here. So probably not an option, but info appreciated anyway!
Others... - ???
Never base your decision to buy something on the price tag.
Look at the TCO - the total cost of ownership.
In those terms, Apple is cheap. Apple laptops are brilliantly over-engineered, so the last for ages. The keyboards are a dream to use - your first TCO saving. Every time you type anything, a good keyboard will help you be faster and more accurate, and reduce fatigue. Add up the savings there.
Apple machines are much cheaper to support - add up the savings there.
Apples machines don't crash, at least hardly ever - each time you have a crash, it costs money.
Most importantly of all. OS/X is designed - not thrown together. That means it is easy to use and navigate. A job that would take ten minutes of frustrated effort on a Windows box, and then need help from support, is likely to take seconds on a Mac. Add up all those, over the life of the machine, and you've saved weeks, or months, of time. You've also reduced you levels of stress, quite probably lengthening your life, and reducing you time off work for depression or burn-out.
Buying a Mac is better than cheap, it makes you more productive and happier, whilst saving you from all the costs that come from bad (or no) design.
>In those terms, Apple is cheap.
You forgot the most important, Apple hardware comes with soldered RAM and SSD storage, which means that they reach EOUL (End Of Useful Life) about 1 or 2y after date of purchase.
Oh, and a lot of third party software no longer runs on Mavericks, let alone My Captain or whatever the fancy names are ... They are removing frameworks left-right and center since Lion, so heaps of software is simply no longer supported ...
For Apple fanboy.
I remember well printers of old with their parched ink cartridges, and I think that's what's killed ink jet sales. I have had Brother printers last two times and find them reliable and durable. Still have the DCP-J125 and use it as my scanner (gave up on the ink race), but the little HL-1210W mono laser that I bought last year has been great and quite cheap to run.
Looked after plenty of HP ink jets at work over the years and found them temperamental, flimsy and ink hungry.. At that time I used Epsom printers which I thought better.
Regarding OSX, the machines may have superior keyboards and graphics and the like but the OS is not easier to use IMHO. I find file and folder management ( moving and renaming and the like) more time consuming and less intuitive, and photo and music transfers between devices far more tedious than the simple copy and paste options available in the Windows/Linux world. Also dislike the single button mouse / trackpad and always attach a dual button mouse when I use a Mac.
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