This. I can already imagine it: "hey, my notebook was getting a bit sluggish, but I upgraded it over the internet with Software Defined Silicon(TM) and just spent $100 instead of $500 that a new one would've costed".
And everyone who knows the "extra" capabilities were already there to begin with would be screaming on the inside.
But it sounds like the pushback was strong enough that it was quickly killed off.
Old laptop would have cost $100 more if they optioned it in at purchase like we currently do.
That'd be a neat trick to be honest, buy a base CPU, and if it works for your usage you saved, if not, buy the upgrade.
Subscriptions getting non technical users are the only way this goes wrong, and not saying it won't, but that's not really where things are at.
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HP is doing that with ink, I was truly deeply horrified to find out my mother pays a subscription for her printer.
The printer won't work without internet, even for local printing.
And you pay per page, not for ink. So they send you ink whenever you're out for "free", but if you run out of pages you can't print anymore...
- IIRC the printer will work without internet for a while (a week?), eventually you'll have to hook it back up though. (Makes sense to me if you're paying by the page.)
- You can't run out of pages. If you overrun your subscription, you just pay a few cents per extra page. Also, you can carry over pages up to a few months (so if your subscription is for 100 pages/month, and you didn't print in the last 2 months, you can print 300 pages this month without having to pay extra).
- Cost-wise, the subscription is actually a pretty good value compared to buying cartridges outright.
> IIRC the printer will work without internet for a while (a week?), eventually you'll have to hook it back up though. (Makes sense to me if you're paying by the page.)
In other words printer doesn't work without Internet.
You know you have a bad point when the creators of the thing don't even agree with it:
https://instantink.hpconnected.com/us/en/terms
If Your printer is not connected to the Internet, then the Instant Ink-activated Cartridges will be disabled and You will not be able to use them to print;
A grace period doesn't change anything about this.
> You can't run out of pages. If you overrun your subscription, you just pay a few cents per extra page.
In other words... you can run out of pages.
When you out of pages you're automatically forced to buy more pages, and if you don't, the printer won't print, regardless of ink level.
And the rollover had me howling with laughter, by capping rollover HP figured out away to literally take ink out of your printer if you don't use it!
Except it's "pages" they claw back of course, and instead of taking ink out, they just require you to pay for an additional month if you plan to use it even though it's sitting in the printer :D
> Cost-wise, the subscription is actually a pretty good value compared to buying cartridges outright.
It's not unless you buy the $20 a month plan and print 4,000 pages a month and they're mostly color...
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/hp-officejet-pro-9015-all-in-o...
> If you buy the highest-yield XL ink cartridges (2,000 pages monochrome and 1,600 pages color) for this AIO, each monochrome page will cost you about 2.2 cents and each color print will run about 8.8 cents. Subscribing to the company’s highest-yield Instant Ink subscription (700 pages for $19.99 per month, with each additional 20 pages for $1), each page will cost you 2.9 cents… Hence, it is with colorful, content-heavy pages that Instant Ink delivers the best value…
God help you if you're one of the unfortunate souls suckered into an "occasional use plan"...
You pay 6 cents a page
At which point even color prints are more expensive!
And this is literally anything you print! Even a piece of paper that says "the" costs more than a full page full glossy color photo from a cartridge!
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C'mon, you really thought HP would literally lease you an ink cartridge and it'd be a good deal?
Because that's what Instant Ink is btw... they own that cartridge: https://support.hp.com/ee-en/product/hp-photosmart-microlab-...
It's genius really, they invented a program that mostly entices occasional users.
And charges them more than the ink would be worth even at first party prices (let's forget about 3rd party refills lol)
And then caps rollovers so that they can lose value which is an indirect way of... magically stretching ink.
Truly mind bendingly incredible but evil stuff. Kudos to whoever taught of it.
It's also cheaper by your own admission (6 < 8.8) (assuming color prints, because why else buy a color printer?).
Actually they try and predict when you will run out as opposed to waiting for you to run out.
Kind of like buy now, pay later. You can buy this cheap computer now but don't worry, you can always upgrade it later.
I think this is the most concerning possibility... people building servers or devs and gamers will be able to wise up to the shenanigans and then pick a competitor; but punters walking around a computer store are not going to appreciate the differences if Intel get away with making big claims on the sticker (possibly even spinning "software defined silicon" as a way for them to upgrade hardware over the wire) - for the average consumer this would making an already difficult to achieve informed comparisons hopeless.
Reality may be different though, it's easy to assume the worst with the blue chips - perhaps this is just an optimisation on their current practices rather than a squeeze on customers, the concern is of course if they will exploit this new capability to the full potential we are all speculating on.