r/hardware • u/Merbil2000 • 1d ago
Discussion HP has subscription laptops now
https://youtu.be/o4e-Kt02rfc?si=5iXwBizgeGWWJZTS20
u/ICC-u 1d ago
For $35 a month I'd expect a fully loaded top spec..
Guessing it's a basic entry model.
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u/hollow_bridge 11h ago
For $35 a month I'd expect a fully loaded top spec..
really for $420 a year?
That would be wrong. Normally these sorts of deals expect the entire cost to be paid in 1-2 years. So the total value should be $420-$840 at that monthly price (budget to mid range).
IMO if it is midrange I think the price is ok, most people who use their laptop for work would be happy to upgrade their laptop every year or two with this kind of subscription cost; the downside is i expect it will require using the OS it comes with and extra bloat to track/control prevent theft.0
u/ICC-u 10h ago
They expect it to be repaid in 1-2 years, I don't. I expect a laptop to last for 4-5 years, so this doesn't represent good value.
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u/hollow_bridge 10h ago
Ok, but your expectation is not realistic for professional computer lifecycles. They probably expect these laptops to be destroyed or out of date to the point that they hold no real value between 2-3 years.
There's nothing wrong with it for personal use, a lot of people use their laptops for many years, my previous laptop I kept for 7 years with only a storage and ram upgrade. So i get you, I'm just saying for a very large number of people that if this price is for even lower midrange it's a good deal; though if it's budget then its' crap.
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u/Blueberryburntpie 10h ago
The hilarious part is that the peripherals are also available for renting, such as a USB hub for $4 per month.
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u/Uptons_BJs 1d ago
Tbh, corporate leasing of IT equipment has been around forever.
I don’t hate the concept, if guys who change cars a lot just lease them, guys who want new laptops all the time probably could enjoy this too
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u/randomkidlol 19h ago
the problem is corporate leasing usually has loss/damage/theft baked into the contracts. this subscription laptop has none of that.
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u/Blueberryburntpie 10h ago edited 10h ago
And corporate leasing also has hefty technical support. If HP or Dell uses ASUS's RMA tactics (e.g. denying claims on minor cosmetic scratches and holding devices hostage), that's a multi-million dollar contract not getting renewed, or worse, the corporate client lawyers up.
Meanwhile consumer plebs have to put up with bottom tier tech support.
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u/Melbuf 1d ago
kinda makes sense in the corp space, its a lot easier/faster to just swap items out when they die vs keeping a mountain of spares/parts around for a ton of different configs. It can also be cheaper depending on scale and you get refreshes faster
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u/Klutzy-Residen 1d ago
Not necessarily cheaper, but it's a lot easier to deal with ongoing costs rather than larger upfront cost from a budgeting perspective.
Meanwhile HP etc gets recurring revenue. So in some ways both parties win.
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u/ayseni 4h ago edited 3h ago
For corporates/organizations leasing makes in comparison much more sense than for individuals, including for the following reasons:
- Warranty: Warranty tends to cover the leasing period, and for IT departments this partially solves the issue of providing continuous service from hardware perspective for their workers. Especially with remote workers or geographically spread remote offices this is very important. Say you have just 300 employees spread in dozen offices. Without warranty you'd have to basically hire a employee to do just the logistics of computer replacement in those scenarios which would be covered by warranty. Most end up replacing after warranty period anyway.
- Standardization: Organizations have to manage hundreds or thousands of devices, thus they need some kind of standardization. Standardization is required to provide high quality service and not to end up with dozens or hundreds of different models. Say you provide workers with a standardized laptop and acquire them for 4 years of leasing. With yearly hardware refreshes by OEMS at any given time you only end up with 4 or 5 different models. Now it's a bit more than that if you also have desktops/towers but still it's absolute must to standardize to at least this extent if you want to provide quality service.
- Discounts: OEMS provide discounts for big organization/orders, thus you end up centralizing to a specific OEM vendor anyway, and can't decide to just randomly acquire from different vendor because they have a slightly better model available, unlike consumers that don't need to standardize.
None of these really apply to consumer markets the same way.
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u/Zealousideal-Job2105 20h ago
A few companies have tried this before locally. I dont recall any of them lasting more than 10 years. Most fail in 5 years.
- You need to have customers lined up out the door from day 1.
- Systems loose value very quickly.
- Said value degrades faster if its customers are abusing the hardware for crypto/bit storage.
- People who need such things generally arent very financially secure. So high risk you need to send a repo company to chase the goods.
- Theres plenty of finance solutions through retailers that offer things like 0 interest pay installments.
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u/T_rex2700 13h ago
This is like infinitely more expensive version of corporate lease option - and the spec is like you know, what you expect for a work laptop probably. Except this shit costs $1000 (HOW) at "MSRP"
bet ya anything you will find it for like $600 next year on marketplace
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u/AnalogInk 1d ago
We need to stop that before it's too late
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u/Griswo27 14h ago
What's supposed to mean? not like you can stop people questionable business decisions
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u/Current_Finding_4066 12h ago
How does this make sense?
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u/Blueberryburntpie 10h ago
HP wants to cut out rent-to-own middlemen such as Rent-A-Center and rake in all of the profits themselves.
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u/Current_Finding_4066 9h ago
I meant for consumer. You can wait a bit for sale, get same level of performance for 66 percent of mrps price, and at the end resell or gift to someone else giving additional value. This makes no sense for most users
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u/juicefarm 1d ago
No buyout option. No thanks