HP is exiting the consumer electronics business! What does this mean to you?

Based on the headline I assumed it was just the TV business (which they had already mostly exited), Ditching PCs (and printers?) is a huge change for them.  WebOs getting kicked to the curb is probably good for Microsoft though assuming they can get Win8 out and into tablets soon.

WebOS demise was just a mater time. No developer support no product. HP leaving the PC business could be a much bigger thing. If you look at all the problems Acer has had and now HP it is showing the PC business has never been a profitable endeavor. I built and sold PCs back in the 486 days and I never made much. Profits for hardware are just not there.

I've owned HP in the past and to be honest, maybe a long time ago (think over a decade) they may have made some pretty solid stuff, but everything since then has been pretty mediocre at best. The only HP I own is a printer and to be honest I regret buying it because it just blows through ink and the print quality for photos is clearly lower than my friend's comparably priced Canon printer. If they stop making ink (which I'm not sure if they will or not since it's such a cash cow for them) it will be bittersweet. Bad because I'll soon have a 10lbs paperweight that looks like a printer. But good because then I'll spring for a nice new Canon photo printer.

Had a friend who was laid off from HP (her entire division was eliminated) a few years ago and she saw something like this coming down the pike even then. Their consumer electronics business has been hemorrhaging money for some time.

For those who go back a LONG way this announcement also means something else: Compaq, one of the original clones, will now be completely no more.

Ordinarily I don't follow these things and they rarely faze me anymore, and I know nothing at all of WebOS, Tablets, or any of this other trendy stuff.  What I do know is that I just happen to have had several HP products that were more solid and dependable than many others.  My own first ever PC was an HP 386sx back in 1993 or so, which I believe survived several lives, for me and a couple of people it got passed on to.  My first laptop in 2006 was heavy and built like the proverbial brick shithouse, which was exactly what I wanted -- a solid computer that was "portable" rather than some lightweight thing.  (That's just me, or it was then.)  Its one physical weakness was a screen hinge design that was destined to break, one side at a time.  I'm still delighted with the L7650 all-in-one printer (which is sitting right behind me or I wouldn't have remembered the model number), but I'm still grateful I was able to have my company pay for it instead of opening my own wallet.  I forget what else.  But with their few faults, all of these things served me well.  RIP.

Argh! Both of my primary computers are HP products (one HP, one Compaq). I, too, use an HP flat wireless keyboard as my primary writing tool. I am completely astonished by this news!

The article I just read from my CompTIA feed indicated that HP is looking to sell or spin-off their PC division, much like IBM did with Lenovo. So, the HP "brand" may live on....

Butbutbut who will make low quality shiny computers for soccermoms now? =p

Seriously tho, I was shocked to hear about this but I think their reasoning is sound. The difference between them and IBM is that Big Blue didn't make that big a deal about it and slid out and onto different things and HP isn't going to have that luxury. They are doing the right thing now, before it's too late, getting out of the PC bus, but it remains to be seen if they can be relevant with something else.

God, word is already out that Acer is a suitor for their marketspace.  The problem is, when Acer bought Gateway and eMachine, they bought them whole and marketed under their brand name.   Buying HPs division buys.. what?  Pavilion?

Both of my current home computers are HP laptops ... but our family also has *two* iPads (one first-gen and one iPad 2) -- and I have to admit that we rarely turn the laptops on anymore.
My daughter seems quite happy pairing a Bluetooth keyboard to her iPad2 and doing all of her homework via iWorks. And she can simultaneously Facebook, Skype, run Pandora, read books, and view TV shows and Movies. She's completely happy with the machine.
For my part, about the only time I turn the HP laptop on is when I need to do some video editing work .. and to sync the iPads. Once the iCloud-enabled iOS 5 hits, the latter chore will apparently no longer be required. To tell you the truth, if I could purchase an iPad with a "Thunderport" so I could dock it to a large hard drive and monitor my PC days would be done.

So I suppose HP is doing the right thing here. But I *will* miss the "good ole" PC days. My first portable computer was a Compaq -- and now the company that purchased them is getting out of the business. Changing times, indeed!!

Tablets, yes. PCs, maybe. But I bet they're not looking to get rid of the part of their consumer electronics business that has to do with that high-margin inkjet ink.

You mean the one where they fill up the ink tanks only 1/3 or 1/2 way? Yes my friend who used to work at HP admitted that to me.

An article I read had mentioned Samsung, which has been trying to break into this marketplace for several years, but unsuccessfully.
 

 

 

I agree, HP is better known for consumer printers than computers and laptops.
 

 

 

Hitler learns HP is abandoning WebOS:

 

I used to work for HP's IPG division and this statement is total bullshit.

All manufacturing processes are subject to some product not being manufactured to design specs but the idea that HP is deliberately shorting the ink is laughable. Third parties test that cartridges all the time and if it became apparent that HP was consistently overstating the page yields (which would be the result if they were shorting the ink) the class action law suits would be piling up.

As for IPG, I would be really surprised if they were to sell that division. It makes a lot of money and they are still the market leader in terms of units placed in the enterprise market.

Sorry I'm going to call you on this one (and on your insulting language). What's more, I have first-hand proof. I bought an HP printer from Best Buy before my friend told me this (I still own it) and despite coming with sealed cartridges, I got *maybe* 20-25 pages worth of color printouts before certain ink colors started to run out. Not full color photo prints either (though I may have printed a couple of 5X7 photos, but mostly normal text with some colored graphics.


Edited by Carlo Medina - 8/20/11 at 10:52pm

Looks like I'm not the only one with this experience (this is my exact cartridge model that I use):
http://freedomtoprint.com/2010/02/05/cartridges-hp-hewlett-packard-564-and-564xl-ink-cartridges/ I noted that the XL cartridge sizes for the photo black and colors are the same size as the non-XL 564. Yet the yield is supposedly higher. The regular black XL cartridge though is bigger than its non-XL counterpart.

Ok I have a better idea where you are coming from but really it's a non-issue.

Your original statement is accurate but it is also meaningless. So the regular cartridges are not filled all the way to that top. They don't have to be to meet the stated yields. HP also charges you less for them and when you buy the XL model that is filled to the top it costs you more. There is nothing wrong, deceptive or dishonest with this business practice.

Of course it would be an issue if HP stated that a cartridge will yield x amount of pages and then filled the cartridges so no one could ever meet the stated yield. If anyone thinks HP is doing that they simply do not have a clue about what they are talking about.

Patrick - this the last I'm going to talk about this because I really have no vetted interest for/against HP. My next printer will be a Canon so I'm washing my hands of this HP business.

You say my point is meaningless and how it would really be something if HP's amounts didn't meet their stated yield. Read that link I posted again. They state: And as I said, I got maybe 2 5x7 photos (which I know take up more ink) and maybe 25 (at the most) text with light graphics in my initial yield before the color ink tanks were requesting to be replaced. There's no way that was anywhere near non-XL rated yields of 300 pages.

Contrast that with some of the experiences the Canon Pixmas are getting, especially the Pro9000 Mark II. Many sites are reporting that the yields they get with it are surprisingly high. Given that Canon gets most of their revenue from their other businesses it seems their business model isn't to bleed consumers dry with refillable ink costs. HPs other businesses were clearly failures given their recent move. And things have been sour for HP for a while. As I said, my friend's entire R&D dept was eliminated, but they'd seen plenty of their colleagues let go in the 12-18 months prior to their elimination. And this was right before and leading up to the Great Recession.

I am typing this from a HP PC at home, so this news is rather surprising to me. If Acer does end up buying HP's personal computer business, it will be the last HP I ever own. I had a horrible experience with a Gateway PC that I purchased about 18 months ago, leading me to return to HP, where I've had much better luck.

I've also had a workhorse HP laser printer for many years, but like Carlo, I have avoided their ink jet printers like the plague due to their ridiculous cartridge costs.

I guess my next home PC will have to be from Dell -- assuming they stick around.

I guess my experience has been the reverse.   HP has really been a plague for me the last few years.   The HP Laptops had at least four seperate recalls that I know of.. the DV6000 and DV9000 were amongst the worst laptops ever released; they cut the damn vent holes wrong and almost every single one of them I've ever seen died in a hurry.  (You can check good for "DV9000 or DV6000 and about the first thing that pops up is video failure)

 

Even the G60 series etc. were poor; lately, I see a lot of the HP consumer desktops that were sold cheap (ala Walmart) die of early motherboard failure... almost like Dell with issues with caps.

Their laser printers, however have always been high quality stuff.   I would recommend an HP laserprinter to anyone.   But I'd pass on all the other stuff.

 

A few years back I was helping a friend of the family with some computer issues. Some component or another needed to be replaced in their HP laptop. Popped it open, and I was shocked to find masking tape used in a few places where screws should have been. Seeing them cheap out in such a basic way convinced me never to buy HP hardware going forward. Even though Dell has gone downhill in recent years -- and their tech support is famously atrocious -- I've stuck with their hardware because when I go under the hood, everything looks how it's supposed to.

The bigger problem will be printers. I've used HP printers for years. I recently switched to a Canon multifunction that I love, but I can't find the ink for it anywhere. Everyplace sells HP ink.

My last HP product was the marvelous 28S RPN calculator, bought about 20 years ago for college. But I've not used it over 15 years and the battery case is broken. I don't think they support it anymore. (And I've got pCalc on my iPhone now.)

Forgot about that. I married into an HP laser printer; ethernet capable and everything! It's unstoppable.

Yep that's one thing we can agree on, HP laser printers = rock solid.

Yep.  One of the best buys I've ever had is an HP4000TN.    That laserprinter is like a truck.  I've had it years, never a hiccup, it saves me a crazy amount of money as a toner will last me months.. then again, designing a product that means I'm not buying a new one soon may backfire for them ;)