Business or Consumer?

I currently have one of those HP consumer laptops. A few days ago, I got to use one of the business ones, and I'm starting to feel jealous. It felt so much better built, and the design is plain enough that it wouldn't get old after a few weeks. And, it seems like my laptop has sub-par hardware (audio and DVD). I'm assuming that the hardware for the business line would be significantly better since they have to impress the business IT departments, whereas many consumers would not even know the difference.

I'm considering returning it and forking out a few more hundred to get a business one.


What type do you have? And let's discuss the pros and cons of each.

 

college and for my business so both

 

HP's business range usually don't garner much attention beyond enthusiast forums like these because unlike Thinkpads, consumers don't really associate HP beyond the models they find sold at retail shops, i.e. the Pavillion and Presario range. The lack of a product line brand name also doesn't help. Hence, a lot of consumers are not aware of these business models, which has been carved to compete directly with Lenovo's Thinkpad. Over here, when people hear Thinkpad, they go "OOOOH,AHHH!", but when they hear HP, they go "Cheap, crap PC". I definitely disagree to such claims since I believe HP has improved a lot since the early days of the merger.

I have the business types only and will not even consider the consumer lines. The pros are better build quality, more reliable components, better support and the use of tried and tested technologies. The cons are the higher price, lower specifications as it trades having the greatest latest feature with having a more stable configuration and a plain-looking design (which imo looks better than any Thinkpads or Latitudes out there). People don't complement on the looks of my notebook because they're not as attractive as the consumer models, which is fine by me. I have experienced better support for my business models compared to the consumer ones in that they took 3 days as guaranteed to fix a business notebook, but takes up to 2 weeks for consumer ones because they provide no guarantees on when they can get it fixed.

I once spoke to a friend who supervised HP's production line and he claims that the business models undergo a lot of stress testing procedures to ensure that the notebooks don't fail as easily.

 

Last month I replaced a four-year-old HP Pavilion with a Pavilion dv6000t, both, obviously, consumer models.

I carry my new HP, as I did my old one, back and forth to the office daily. It's on for at least seven or eight hours a day, at least six days a week. Knock on wood, but I've never had a hardware failure. BTW, before my earlier HP, I had a Toshiba Satellite Pro (Pentium 100, remember when?) and used it in a similar manner for some five years.

If you take care of them, I think consumer models will suit most folks fine. I do admit that the business models are more sturdily built. However, when I was shopping for a new lappy, I found that the business models cost more for less features. Everything is a trade-off, I realize, and what suits one person won't another. Still, for me, I think HP makes really fine consumer models that easily handle my needs.

Best,
Bill

 

I have an HP dv9000z (with Vista-U) on order right now. It will be replacing my beloved (but getting just too problematic) IBM A31p.

My laptops are typically on about 130 hours per week, often going into hibernation just long enough to be transported between work and home. If this new machine doesn't like being transported (via my german military surplus backpack) or isn't reliable, I'm going to be an unhappy camper since I literally live with it day and night and hate using loaners (as I'm doing right now).

I'm getting the impression that the dv9000z is one of those love/hate machines - either it works as advertised and people think its great, or there are hardware problems and people spit on it.

 

Consumer with Business apps for me...

 

(This is a personal opinion from System64. No offense intended. )
My case is the total opposite. When i got my HP buisness notebook (a nx6115) the build quality was horrible. The case felt like it was going to crack apart any moment. Performace was worse then sub-par.So i changed over to my current one, a consumer entertainment notebook.