[mdm_]

Anecdata here, but I owned an HP Spectre 360 laptop a few years ago and I would never buy another HP laptop again. It cost almost as much as a Macbook, and within ~2 years of gentle use, mostly around the house, it blew a speaker, the webcam developed a purple tint, the rubber strips on the base peeled off, and when I tried to open the case to check for a second M.2 slot, one of the Torx screws stripped and remains stuck.

[babypuncher]

Every HP I've used has needed repairs within two years of ownership. My first personal laptop, bought right after high school 15 years ago, had a flaky keyboard connector.

The next HP I ran into was provided by my employer. Within 9 months the battery started bulging and the trackpad stopped working. They replaced the battery, which turned into yet another spicy pillow after another 9 months.

Eventually, my employer provided me a newer HP, one of their $2,700 mobile workstations. This is my current work machine. It has had keyboard connector problems almost identical to those I had 15 years ago. But even without those problems, I'm shocked HP charges so much money for this machine. Despite the metal chassis, it feels flimsy. The 1080p screen has reasonable pixel density (not quite "retina", but serviceable). However, the quality of the panel itself is atrocious. It looks like the cheapest IPS panels you could buy in 2011; horrible color reproduction, awful contrast, atrocious panel uniformity, backlight bleed out the ass. Even the viewing angle is mediocre by IPS standards.

I will never willingly spend money on anything from HP.

[seabriez]

M1 Air (especially) has been having screen issues too, including tinting; I've personally witnessed it. I think HP did become really bad around 2012, but they've really picked up their game lately. I've seen some great HP laptops, but you don't need to go with HP. There are even cheaper laptops that are slightly less powerful but still great for what they are capable of.

[danudey]

A few years ago I bought my wife a 15" Spectre x360 as a present (and then upgraded it to 32 GB of RAM once she fell in love with it after a day or two). I went with the Ryzen model, because of how awesome their mobile processors are.

The screen is "nice enough", the battery life is probably fine but she uses it 99% plugged in, the keyboard seems nice enough but it has a numpad so everything is off-centre, etc. It plays the games she wants and runs the app she wants, and it was like $1100, the build quality is good, and it's way faster than anything else we had in the house at the time (with the possible exception of our iPhones).

The only real complaint I have is that it seems as though, by and large, HP and the retailer (CostCo) seem to not really know that this model exists, so when I search for information I have to find the closest model number I can and hope that it's basically the same laptop. Also, spare parts are ridiculous; I paid $50 plus shipping on eBay to a third party from the UK for replacement rubber feet, but it was only one foot. No other official HP parts resellers actually had the part in stock, even though it was only two years old and there were multiple identical (ish?) models.

At least when I want parts for a two (or eight) year old Macbook I can actually find them from someone sufficiently reputable on the same continent as I am.