[dangrossman]

They once made a great consumer PC. It was the initial HP Envy 14.

All aluminum/magnesium alloy case, oversized multitouch trackpad, island style backlit keyboard, edge to edge glass over a very bright, very dense 1600x900 screen... You couldn't get a better display in a similar size from any brand, even Apple. Compared to the dull, sparse 1366x768 panels every other PC offered, it was amazing. There was true attention to detail and build quality there. I think it was easily the best laptop on the market, and Wired named it PC of the Year at the end of 2010.

A few short months later they stopped building it with that display, and put the same cheap 1366x768 panel in it as everything else, then started incorporating its design features into the rest of its lineup... but without the build quality rivaling a MacBook Pro the Envy briefly had. They came close to doing laptops really really well, but gave up on it for unfathomable reasons...

[pseudonym]

I'm not complaining. Me, my fiance, and her friend have gone through probably 5 total HP Laptops over the last 5 years. All 5 were different models and had the power switch connection to the system board go bad after 1-2 years.

I ended up cracking and getting a Macbook, but I still have a 6-year-old Thinkpad that runs like new. Those things were, in my opinion, far better quality than anything HP put out.

Your mileage may vary, of course; I only have my experiences to go off of.

[nrp]

I wonder if that was related to their acquisition of Voodoo. Perhaps the original Envy was a case of putting an HP badge on a Voodoo design, whereas the later designs were from HP Personal Systems Group.