HP doorsteps Apple shoppers at the altar of dreams HP Inc has launched a new sales tactic to take on Apple - hijacking worshippers of expensive iThings as soon as they step outside the altar of dreams to compare Macs with its slim and light PCs. Taking to the stage of the Global Partner Conference in Boston, Ron Coughlin, HP president of the Personal Systems division, did what …
Well my new HP laptop says Bang & Olufsen in big writing at the top when you open it up, in fact opened up it doesn't even say HP anywhere. B&O were doing the sort of design that Apple are famous for before Apple ever existed.
The design of the Mac Book was all based on a Intel reference design anyway, if other people, including HP can do slim stylish highly portable laptops now, then Apple can't really be considered to own this market place any longer.
Err since when did Apple 'do' innovation...Here a few Apple innovations and what had gone before.
The original MAC All in one Computer :vs Commodore PET
Apple Lisa and LaserWriter vs GUI Xerox Star System
Newton PDA any number of devices
IPod Other MP3s were already available Archos, Rio
iPhone , Sony Ericsson p800,p900 etc
AirPods , well who would have been dumb enough to build those.
What Apple do 'do' is industrial design and closed proprietary systems. Oh and huge mark-up Now if HP wants to follow that Lenovo will win.
I'm no Apple fanboy - never owned any of their products but:
"The original MAC All in one Computer :vs Commodore PET"
Really! 68k :vs 6502?
You might have said Apple ][ :vs PET but even there Apple was innovative - an open architecture for plug-in boards followed up with the Woz floppy drive. Admittedly they dropped all that later but back then they were innovating. It's just that not many of us are old enough to remember.
HP do innovate, but that doesn't seem to get them many column inches in the press. Take the HP Sprout (yes, that really is its name) for example - a desktop PC incorporating a projector and 3D scanning and hand tracking gear:
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-mac-desktops/hp-sprout-review-1284768/review
I'm not saying its a perfect machine, but it seems a step in the right direction, a direction in which we can only advance if stuff like this gets more coverage.
In the laptop space, it is Lenovo that have produced some of the more usefully innovative kit in recent years.
Yes I'll give you that one on the Apple ][, but I would argue that was down to St.Woz rather than St. Jobs. Whether you think Steve Jobs was a perfectionist or a control freak out to make a fortune, the products which have followed offer very little that is different or first to market.
As with nearly every Mac user, HP could offer a thinner, lighter laptop, with double the memory and double the speed at half the price, it wouldn't matter, It all boils down to the OS, HP still uses Windows.
OS X is 95% of the reason Mac users use Mac,
Notice how HP, Dell, Lenovo and so on offer shiny new laptop designs each year, while Macs retain the same external shell design for years, Mac users don't need new designs every year, they need OS X.
Well, what exactly can be improved about a Macbook? OK, perhaps they could have smaller bezels around the display to allow the laptop to become smaller and even lighter, but the basic design is pretty hard to improve on. When HP comes out with new designs every few months, they aren't making improvements to the design of laptops, just changes.
It is like phones. What must-have innovations have there been in smartphones since the original iPhone came out? Sure, they are faster, support newer cellular/wifi standards, have better cameras, have bigger displays etc. but that's not innovation, just incremental improvement. Once they got "fast enough" and the camera "good enough" for most people, upgrade rates started slowing because there is no particular reason why a Galaxy S5 owner should upgrade to a S7, or an iPhone 6 owner should upgrade to an iPhone 7. What they have is good enough, and an 'edge' display or dual camera that allows depth mapping isn't enough for very many to pull the trigger.
"Apple has been the defining brand for engineering amazing premium devices. Apple has defined premium design for decades."
Ironic, because HP used to be known for making well-engineered devices too, then they cut corners on components, build, and support all to turn a profit. Their devices went from rock-solid, state-of-the-art performers to cheap bits of plastic that fell to bits.
Personally, I'd have preferred it if HP had continued to make decent devices, rather than retreating from it to make a cheap buck then running back towards it when they think they can sell more units. If they had, Apple might have had more competition and customers would have had a better choice.
Windows 10.
The kit might be nice and shiny but it is forever blighted by the POS (Piece of Spyware) that is Windows 10.
A very few might see beyond Metro and simply install Linux but for the majority, it is Windows 10 or ... Back to the land of fruit.
...and this year might be the year of Linux on the desktop.
I think you missed the point of the article, it wasn't saying that Windows is better than Mac, or HP is better than Apple. It reports that HP is feeling bullish about its current crop of products because they have a quality [in the sense of a trait] that many believed were the preserve of Apple
It's not Windows 10 you have to worry about, it's the bloatware layer introduced by HP's drivers and "free" software shoved onto their consumer devices.
Guaranteed to reduce any HP device to a crawl unless it's flattened and rebuilt from scratch without them.
So buy your HP kit at the Microsoft Store. The Microsoft signature edition has no bloatware, no third party (aka HP) software.
The difference between Mac and Apple is that the Mac is running UNIX. Now, if HP wanted to license HP-UX, and resume the port to x86, and then hire some quality software developers to upgrade the CDE interface and the available tools ... but that will never happen.
"Now, if HP wanted to license HP-UX, and resume the port to x86, and then hire some quality software developers to upgrade the CDE interface and the available tools ... but that will never happen."
In part because HP-UX is owned by HPE and laptops etc are made by HP Inc. But what a thought.
Yes, I'm not looking forward to my new HP work laptop with W10. I think I'll miss the W7 Thinkpad in a number of ways.
At least all my real work is done on a workstation that has W7 (and where most of us actually use a Linux VM...)
While most of the rest of this is just typical 'thinner means more innovative!' bullshit (thanks to Johnny Ive for teaching everyone to think that - we all foolishly used to believe faster and more stable was important), the X3 is an interesting case.
I suspect it's the first Windows Phone device to sell out... well, ever?
"cheap components that won't last 2 years"
The trouble with getting this sort of reputation is that even if you turn things round it takes years to get back to where you were. I'm currently on my 2nd HP laptop in the best part of 15 years with no troubles. I also have an all-in-one laser printer which is pretty substantial, has lasted with domestic use for many years and is still going strong. But having seen the HP printer my daughter's firm supplied her with (and looked at what's on the shelf in Staples) when I decided to get a colour laser there's no way I'd have bought it from HP.
I'd really like to see them regain their reputation but in order to do that they really need to face up to how they lost it in the first place. A puff-piece based on what seems to be a shininess comparison isn't convincing evidence that they've done this.
Plus HP gives you lot's of crapware for free (but nothing as useful as installation media if my one and definitely only HP computer purchase is anything to go by).
So a big minus point there
I really do not care how thin, light etc their laptops are
I don't need the slimmest, lightest laptop in the world (I'm not young & not a body builder / gym bunny but even a chunky several years old "heavy" laptop is no hassle to carry )
I do want a laptop with a decent amount of ports, good sized battery, DVD player, decent CPU & graphics power etc.
I suppose it depends on what line you're buying from;
I got a Desktop Workstation from them quite recently and it came with 4 separate Windows install disks (7 and 8.1, both in x86 and x86_64), and the installed windows version was rather light on the Gack. I wonder do the Workstation/Business Laptops come with installation media?
True story. GF was shopping for a laptop. Price was not the deciding factor, but does matter.
At Best Buy there were a handful of Apple notebooks, and a few dozen with Windows to choose from at much lower price.
The kicker though were two things she felt she would use (and does) - the ability to flip the screen and use the laptop as a tablet, and a touchscreen.
I was actually kind of surprised that Apple products didn't offer either feature.
I might agree with the feeling that Win10 is a mess, and with the piles of bloat ware, but in pure hardware terms HP felt like HP was five years ahead of Apple.
And yes, it's pretty thin too.
"The kicker though were two things she felt she would use (and does) - the ability to flip the screen and use the laptop as a tablet, and a touchscreen.
I was actually kind of surprised that Apple products didn't offer either feature."
I'm not, because both are terrible ideas. The ergonomics of using a vertical touchscreen on a laptop are horrible. It's actually much slower to constantly move hands from keyboard/trackpad/mouse to screen to cover it with greasy blobs in order to not quite be able to control the GUI. I've not yet encountered a Windows implementation that does touchscreen well. TBH I've not encountered an implementation that does it in a way that doesn't make me want to throw the laptop out of a high window to smash in the car park below.
If a touchscreen/tablet is what she wants she should get one.
Flip screens? Meh, just pointless bling for the pointless generation. Flip the screen and you have a vastly over-sized, unwieldy tablet with the rubbish interface referred to above. It's the worst of all worlds and it adds "fragile" and "heavy" to the mix. If that what you want then a tablet is still the best option. Get a Bluetooth keyboard and you can use the tablet for typing documents if that's your thing.
Bear in mind that Apple still puts a lot more work into ergonomics than Microsoft or any other PC manufacturer. Yes, they get it wrong (often) they just don't get it wrong as often as the others. The legacy that they inherited from Bruce Tognazzini is still putting them slightly ahead of the rest in usability, it's just a pity that Apple 2016 doesn't pay him as much attention as Apple 1984 did.
I've also spent a lot of money on HP kit over the years because I do need to use other operating systems than OSX and because HP used to make good, heavy-duty stuff. If I'm buying for me, I'll still take Apple kit thanks very much. I like the fact that it's BSD 4.2 under the hood, I can flip into the console and work with a UNIX variant I know. The HP laptops that I've bought to date have been bigger, clunkier and flimsier than the MBPs and HPs screens have been more than a bit fuzzy compared to Apple's. If HP have realised they need to make decent systems I'm very pleased to hear it.
Now, can they also strip out the bloatware and the awful, intrusive HP Support Assistant? Perhaps they could also find time to look at their pricing model? I'm considering an HP 800 G2 Mini for a project and it seems a fine thing. But it's about the same price as a Mac mini and when it comes down to it the Mac mini is nicer to use than Windows 7/10. Sure I can improve the HP vastly by installing a Linux distro, but I can use the Mac mini out of the box as-is.
I'm also left wondering just how the HP is better than any one of a number of Chinese boxen from Aliexpress. At least I don't have to spend a weekend clearing the bloatcrap off those before I can use them.
The current chutzpah reminds me of HP's attempt to compete with the iPad by releasing the TouchPad. That went well (not). I worked for HP at the time and I was puzzled why anyone would think that attempting to compete by launching a more expensive product with no support and a complete absence of applications would be a good idea. Considering the TouchPad lasted just a few weeks and then was remaindered I seems that HP realised then that there's more to competing with Apple than just selling a device.
BTW, I do laugh occasionally at the Windows fan bhois who rattle on about Apple supplying "closed" boxes. my various Macs run all sorts of software from generic UNIX/Linux code through applications that are common to Windows and OSX and even Windows itself in a VM or two or three. It's an odd sort of "closed" that supports open source directly in the OS and another outfit's proprietary (licenced) OS/Code when needed. Windows has a much harder job of being as all-round usable.
Copying Apple is not innovation. But it doesn't matter. Look at Sony - they made some great PC laptops but could not compete - why? WINDOWS. After 25 years of telling consumers that WINDOWS is all you need to know, buy the cheapest possible has sunk in - it doesn't help that for most of the past 25 years, WINDOWS has been a clunky, virus, malware and trojan ridden mess with expensive OS upgrades thato cost the same as buying a new PC, not to mention tech support that starts with - it's the OS and MS saying it's the hardware. So unless HP can build a macbook knockoff that costs 35% at retail, it's dead. It also doesn't help that MS killed the high end PC by selling a $299/$399 Xbox as a non malware ridden Windows gaming machine. WIN PC's are for jiffy lube kiosks and wedding registries.
What will HP say when Apple gets that market share back once they refresh their product line? They'll probably stay silent, wait for Apple's gear to get long in the tooth a year or two from now, and then crow about clawing back that same share :)
That's IF Apple bother to refresh their line at all. They seem to have lost all will to do so in the last few years... MacBooks of any kind still have horribly large bezels, no attempt to make a machine at less than 2lbs / 900g, the Mac Pro is using completely outdated hardware, there's really nothing of any interest apart from the OS.
I agree Windows is what will prevent any Mac user from buying outside the Apple sphere. HP are large enough to do something about that but never choose to... As if adding a decent GUI to a UNIX variant was completely beyond their means!
I think it is almost certain they have been waiting for Kaby Lake, since Skylake was such a small improvement and its chipset had tons of issues on mobile that took many months for Intel to resolve.
Intel is supposed to announce the mobile Kaby Lake CPUs in January, but Apple has had early access to Intel CPUs before so I wouldn't be shocked if Apple made some deal to pay for a big pile of them up front in exchange for getting them early so they can be the only ones selling Kaby Lake laptops for the holidays.
"MacBooks of any kind still have horribly large bezels, no attempt to make a machine at less than 2lbs / 900g"
Hmmm, the PC laptops that I see may have glass that goes to the edge of the lid, but there's still a huge black area of screen that has no pixels. I'm also interested to know which other laptops you are thinking of that are lighter than 900g?
Dell XPS 13 - 1.2kg
Asus ZenBook UX305 - 1.2kg
Surface Book - 1.5kg
Lenovo Yoga 900 - 1.3kg
Samsung Notebook 9 - 1.4kg
HP Spectre - 1.1kg (+)
Dell Latitude 13 7000 - 1.2kg
Acer Aspire S7 - 1.3kg
Toshiba Kirabook - 1.3kg
Toshiba Satellite Radius 12 - 1.32kg
By all means damn Apple with facts, but complaining about weight and bezel that other manufacturers pay no attention to is a bit rich.
I can't see any huge advantage over the Apple range. On price the HPs seem slightly more expensive (£1200 vs £1049). They have faster processors, the same RAM, the same capacity SSDs, the screen is lower resolution, the battery life is shorter and the HP weighs 1.44kg against the MacBook's 900g. buy the MacBook at the same price as the HP Spectre and you get a 512GB rather than a 256Gb SSD.
There are losses and gains to be had going for either. The Apple is sleeker, lighter, has much better graphics and is slower. The HP has more ports, is much heavier and has shorter battery life and the graphics are tending towards "poor" for a laptop at this price. You can bend the HP in half to get a rather awful fondleslab that weighs almost 1.5kg vs say an iPad Pro with much better display, the same storage and weighing less than half the weight of the Spectre. You'll also get many more apps that make use of the capabilities of the iPad than you will for the Spectre and the iPad will save you £300 or £200 if you want cellular data with the iPad (not included with the Spectre).
I'd say that as with all things it's horses for courses. If you want tablet then the iPad Pro looks better value by miles. If you want a laptop the Spectre just seems wrong and compromised on many levels as well as expensive for what it is. if you want one device to be a tablet and a laptop when I think that the Spectre still looks too compromised. A tablet + keyboard seems a better solution.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
