HP has Subscription Laptops Now

How is it that everything is a subscription these days? At work, I spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on software. And then in my personal life, I'm expected to subscribe to everything from cloud storage to healthy junk food to toothbrushes to get the aforementioned junk food out of my braces. Do you guys remember the one for coins for laundry? Just $14.99 a month for $10 in quarters. And if you want my two bits, that right there is the problem. I'm always paying way more than if I just bought the stuff outright in the first place. This whole you'll own nothing and you'll like it philosophy has infected everything. And now HP, not content with subscription printer ink, wants me to subscribe to my gaming laptop, TOO. IS NOTHING SACRED? I mean, I shouldn't be too surprised, though. We were already in the middle of a video on HP's subscription program for non-gaming laptops when we got this ad for the Omen gaming subscription program. So, of course, now we've got to take a look at what they're offering. Even though we've only got hands-on with one of the consumer subscription laptops. To be clear, not all subscriptions are inherently bad or evil. I get a ton of value out of YouTube Premium, for instance, and I fully recognize why services that have ongoing costs need to have ongoing fees. And in fact, on the surface, HP's program here doesn't look like that bad of a deal. But I've been burned before, and I can't help but feel like there must be something hiding under the surface. like this segue to our sponsors. So far, looks like a totally normal laptop, sir. HP currently includes four different options in their consumer subscription program, ranging from about $35 to $85 a month for the unit we've got here. And you know what? It's a nice little machine. The Elite Book 6 G1 Q14 AI has an 8 core ARM Snapdragon X plus 32 gigs of RAM, a 512 gig SSD, and a 14inch 1920 x 1200 display. Let's just see how much crap they've preloaded on it. Oh, good lord, the taskbar. With HP's addition of their AI companion, three of the eight items down here are AI tools. That's three too many. And even worse, HP's AI companion app will pop up periodically telling me how much it respects my privacy. HP, you can right off with that. To their credit, though, the system tray is refreshingly empty. HP Wolf Security is in here. Uh, that's their endpoint security offering, which I don't know a ton about, but they make all the right noises in their marketing materials, and it seems to be pretty light on system resources. Then the script says to ask if y'all have any experience with it to share, but I'm actually going to jump in here. Jordan, I tried to remove it from my Daily Driver HP laptop. And what I discovered is that if you uninstall its various pieces in the wrong order, it falls into a circular dependency death spiral where every component of it claims that another component needs to be uninstalled first. And poor Easy Rider 750 here was only able to resolve a similar issue with a full system reformat. So, uh, Let's see what else we got here. Office 365 trial. Um, that's probably fine. The heck is mobile plans and operators. Oh, that's right. This thing has 5G. And the data plan is actually included in our monthly subscription fee. That totally makes sense then. So, overall, as far as major brands go, not great, but not terrible. Still, there's got to be a gotcha, right? Let's have a look at the terms and conditions. Overall, the program seems pretty straightforward. You pick your laptop, you add your optional peripherals for a modest additional monthly fee, of course, and you consent to a soft credit check, which I believe means that HP does not see your score or personal credit information and that it shouldn't impact your credit score. But then again, I'm Canadian and our financial system is based on maple syrup, so your mileage may vary. Assuming you pass the check, you pay your first monthly fee and then a few days later, your machine shows up in the mail. Then you start your 30-day money back trial, which was a pretty pleasant surprise for me. It's exactly what it sounds like. Don't like the machine in the first month? You send it back on HP's dime and get a refund. However, if you keep it longer than a month, you are locked in for at least one year. So, let's take a quick look at the math on that. MSRP on this model is $3,000. And at $85 a month, we're going to pay about a third of that MSRP during our one-year lockin period. That's not terrible, especially when we consider that it includes the data plan for this model, but it's not amazing either. What happens after a year? Well, that's where things get a little bit more interesting. You can cancel without any penalty and return the laptop. You can carry on paying monthly to use it, which is probably what they're hoping you'll do, or you can upgrade to a new laptop. That's where things get pretty interesting. Also, as part of the subscription, HP provides 24/7 live support with next-day replacement if something can't be fixed over the phone, and they give you assistance with data transfers and secure data removal if you move to a different machine or you need to send one back to them. All of this makes for what is honestly a pretty appealing sales pitch. for the right kind of customer. If for instance you are a frequent upgrader, this is kind of like having an extended warranty, a service plan, a data plan, and a device rental all rolled into one. As long as you continue paying your fee and you take advantage of those periodic upgrades, you'll have a modern working computer at a price that is about the same as rolling a 2 to threeyear upgrade cycle on your own. On the other hand, you will never own this machine regardless of how long you pay for it. This was another surprise and this time not a pleasant one. I kind of figured that like a lease, there might be an option to buy it out at the end of the term, but no, it must go back to HP when you're done. That means no gifting your old laptop to granny, no repurposing it as a media server, no selling it for a few extra bucks on marketplace, and on top of that, while HP does seem to expect normal wear and tear on these units, there's no coverage for accidental damage. So, it's you break it, you buy it rules, and HP reserves the right to lock down the unit remotely in the event of non-payment. That makes the math we did before a little bit more complicated and a little less favorable. What if you just spent the $3,000 upfront? Sure, in the first couple of years, you will have overpaid compared to your friend who subscribed, but then you are the master of your destiny. You decide when to upgrade, and when you do, you get to sell the unit you own and recoup some of your costs. The question is, how much? Well, we found this model on Facebook Marketplace for about a,000 Canadian or $750, which oh well, that's a bit of a double whammy, isn't it? First, it means that the catchup point to your friend who subscribed is actually even sooner than the initial math would suggest. And second, it means that at $3,000 MSRP, this laptop is probably a pretty bad deal. maybe even intentionally so to make renting it look like a more appealing option. To really drive this point home, if I wanted this laptop for three years, it would actually cost me less to subscribe for one year, then cancel my subscription, send the unit back, and then buy the one that I saw on marketplace. Now, in theory, the counterpoint to this is that I could just trade in and upgrade, and then I wouldn't have this laptop. I'd have a better one. But that assumes that HP is going to be on top of updating the models that they include in the program. And it assumes that they have a new one that I actually like. They have made no promises about that. But to their credit, we have seen at least one update cycle in the consumer program in the eight or so months that we've had our eye on it. Man, this is ending up pretty complicated, isn't it? But wait, there's more. This subscription program is limited to the US and limited to one laptop or household. So, no, you can't kit out your medium-sized business on the cheap or even your duggarized family. Okay, Whale Land, our old school all weekend gaming event is back and it's just around the corner. If you want to play games with your friends, not to mention some members of the LMG team, grab your tickets now at the link down below. We'll be hanging out on February 21st and 22nd. Just head over to whaland.com to get your tickets or click the link down below. How about the gaming program then? Well, we haven't got our hands on a demo for this one, but it appears that it's been quietly running for several months now. Obviously, you get more powerful hardware. I'm talking Ryzen 7 and Core Ultra CPUs as standard along with discrete Nvidia graphics up to a 16 gig RTX 5080 and up to 32 gigs of RAM, a terabyte of storage, and large screens with faster refresh rates. But equally obviously, you pay more for it. Somewhere between $50 up to $130 a month. The terms of the program all look pretty similar, but it looks like HP has masked their math a little bit differently on these ones because the gaming models have you paying just shy of half of the MSRP in the first year, no matter which model you pick. I'm not completely sure what that means. Did they find the three-year payback wasn't profitable enough? Do they expect gamers to be harder on these machines, making the betock returns worth less? Do they expect the usable life cycles to be shorter for performance reasons? It's hard for us to know for sure, but what's clear is that they're after a faster return on their hardware investment. With all that said, they're still not a terrible deal if you would be a frequent upgrader anyway and you're on the ball about getting a new machine on your subscription the moment that you're able to. Doing some quick math, the second best gaming laptop is $80 a month. You go ahead and throw in a Game Pass subscription for what is it? 20 bucks a month. That's $1,200 a year for solid performance in hundreds of games. You'll own nothing, but you might at least have the perception of being happy about it. And if we're being honest, it's not like buying these games means you own them anymore. Anyway, with that said, with that 2-year payoff period, the gaming models will turn into a bad deal a lot faster than the consumer models if you aren't the kind of person who would be upgrading every single time that new hardware comes up. and especially if you get lazy and you don't upgrade your subscription. Also, I just straight up cannot recommend this one to anyone who typically resells or reuses their old hardware. A 2-year-old gaming laptop is still a very capable little piece of kit, and it would be nice to still have around when you start paying for your new one. Bottom line, subscriptions like this, they don't seem quite so crazy anymore. Have we all just been Stockholm syndrome into acceptance? I'm not sure. But as long as we don't end up with abusive cancellation policies and we maintain the ability to buy the same hardware outright if we want to, I don't mind having the choice to have a subscription. By the way, HP, those last two things, those were dystopian. Those were not suggestions. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go renew the subscription to the heated seats in my car. Uh, while I'm gone, by the way, feel free to check out this message from our sponsor. Now, here's a time for shoe. It's called Bessie. It stops your little socks from getting messy. Your toes ain't cozy, not a frosty froz. The shoe is waterproof, so it stops the osmos. Well, bestie is the name. It's better for when the weather treats you with disdain. From rain to snow to puddles of sludge to keep your little guys dry so you can make it to brunch. You tired of switching shoes every time you decide to fight the climate and lose. 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