Wow HP is the last company I would expect to get this right.
A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life
11–20 of 112 posts
Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life
#12HP is literally the company that will charge a laptop battery to 100% by default for a little bit more runtime on a random product test but exponentially less longevity. All the shitty HP office laptops at my last job would without fail have a bloated battery within 3 years, often taking the touchpad and other components with it.
Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have used laptops for much longer too, and for a lot of tasks performance does not matter. Desktops tend to be better when older though. There are already dealer who sell second hand machines in reasonably dependable condition. HP seems to be aiming to control (note the bits about preventing unauthorised access) rather than facilitating the market.
Whilst you may have used them, this is referring to an enterprise setting where devices are usually replaced at the end of the warranty. Indeed, this is the point. When that business is done with it you can buy it, know how well-used it is, and give it a second life.
Knowing how well-used a laptop is barely matters. And I still need to examine and test it.
Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life
#14Is there any value added here?
Carfax exists because of the possibility of buying a car with extensive damage that looks cosmetically ok. Additionally, the service records they collect indicate that a vehicle has undergone regular maintenance.
Computers, for the most part, aren't getting in major accidents and reentering the stream of commerce. Additionally, there's no significant mechanical maintenance required, except for blowing compressed air if the environment is dirty.
Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life
#15Is there any value added here? Carfax exists because of the possibility of buying a car with extensive damage that looks cosmetically ok. Additionally, the service records they collect indicate that a vehicle has undergone regular maintenance. Computers, for the most part, aren't getting in major accidents and reentering the stream of commerce. Additionally, there's no significant mechanical maintenance required, exc…
The other purpose of a CarFax is to validate or attempt to validate that the mileage reported is accurate or not. Is there an equivalent of mileage for a CPU or motherboard?
Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life
#16Is there any value added here? Carfax exists because of the possibility of buying a car with extensive damage that looks cosmetically ok. Additionally, the service records they collect indicate that a vehicle has undergone regular maintenance. Computers, for the most part, aren't getting in major accidents and reentering the stream of commerce. Additionally, there's no significant mechanical maintenance required, exc…
The other purpose of a CarFax is to validate or attempt to validate that the mileage reported is accurate or not. Is there an equivalent of mileage for a CPU or motherboard?
People aren't forging SMART drive diagnostics. These are <$100 components anyway.
Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life
#17For people outside the US (maybe?), CarFax has no meaning, so the analogy is a bit confusing. The whole thing make no sense. They plan to store the report on the SSD (but not just any SSD, an HP SSD), so that the telemetry is retained between operating system install. I'll give them points for doing on device data collection, but what if I replace the SSD? Maybe they don't plan on making that user replaceable, but th…
This reminds me of an old story about Hertz and Ford Mustangs.
Goes something like this:
- Ford makes the original Mustang (which everyone loves)
- Ford makes different versions of the Mustang (some more powerful than others e.g. the Shelby)
- Hertz had a special custom Shelby model made for them
- You could rent that special model from Hertz
- So, people would buy a lower end Mustang, rent the higher end Mustang from Hertz, swap out the engines and return the Hertz Mustang
There is actually a lot of extra detail in this article if people are interested: https://www.motorcities.org/story-of-the-week/2024/rememberi...
Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life
#18> By embedding telemetry capabilities directly within the firmware, we ensure that device health and usage data is captured the moment it is collected. This data is stored securely on HP SSD drives, leveraging hardware-based security measures to protect against unauthorized access or manipulation.
What I see are more technological affordances for closed firmware behavior of the device, increasing complexity, and providing additional opportunity for, and cover for, secret surveillance, backdoors, and other malware.
The used laptop market is very healthy already, and sellers already make money doing their own n-point tests before selling. Some use turn-key diagnostics software packages that work with the state of the laptop as it is (and drive SMART data). It's worked fine, AFAIK.
I've personally bought and used ~40 used laptops, mostly from random sellers on eBay, and not knowing the laptop's dating history hasn't been a barrier. The only significant, rare problems have been dirt and strange odors, which presumably aren't sensed and recorded in this "telemetry".
Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life
#19Seems like a horrible invasion of privacy for very little benefit. The logs are stored on an SSD , which is literally the only part you need to replace when donating or reselling a PC. Any enterprise company should have a policy ensuring SSD destruction. Most laptops will last a long time assuming they aren't abused. I guess the SSD wears out, but that's a 50$ part.
> Any enterprise company should have a policy ensuring SSD destruction.
Why? Drives should already be encrypted, at which point you just lose the key and it's unrecoverable.
Re: A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life
#20I think the main problem with old laptops being discarded is one of software & OS release cadence more than hardware relatability.
My accountant has used the same 4 apps since the turn of the century. Yet the industry has created a situation where they’ve needed to buy 10 new computers to keep up, even though they still just use email, spreadsheets, web, and a word processor. They’d happily be in XP if it were still on offer.
The only meaningful productivity boost from the hardware side of things for the overwhelming majority of knowledge workers over the period was the introduction of SSDs and wireless network cards.