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A4ET8a8uTh0_v2yesterday at 6:33 PM2 repliesview on HN

This, I think, is the part that confuses me. While there is a level of uncertainty, when buying used computer, the cost tends to magnitude smaller than a new car and even for fancish lappies likely sub 1k ( maybe that changes when we start accounting for gaming laptops, but those are unlikely to be corporate fleet, which I assume is the consideration here? ).

I initially though HP found some new way to fleece data out of its users, but looking at what is proposed, I don't see anything that obviously bad so I am lost here too.

And this is all before we get to how difficult HP has gotten to repair. My last HP ( consumer grade after which I swore no personal HP machines ever ) did everything short of soldering hdd to the board ( ridiculous placement, non-standard screws ).

The idea has some, limited merit, but I just don't see it being useful.


Replies

cosmic_cheeseyesterday at 7:04 PM

There’s plenty of models of business notebooks and thin and lights, many of which are preferred by a certain customer segment over cheaper options due to higher grade design, materials, etc that can breach the $1k mark in the used market if sold within the first year or two of manufacture.

I don’t know how much value it’d add, though it would be pretty interesting to see exactly how much of a Ship of Theseus that used laptop you just bought is, if this system tracks part serials and such. Could also be useful for sniffing out use of substandard/knockoff third party parts, which could be of legitimate interest to buyers (I wouldn’t necessarily trust a third party power handling module from AliExpress for example).

lawlessoneyesterday at 9:09 PM

smaller consequences too.

There are lots of ways a dodgy car could kill me or someone else.