Just got a new one from work. It's literally in front of me right now.

Granted the laptop's build quality is questionable (the right hinge's case bulges higher than the left) and the trackpoint has a tendency to get stuck to one direction.

I don't have your hinge issue. But, as you open the display, the hinge gets below the laptop's feet. So now it slides around on the table. Which is so stupid, because this laptop doesn't have 4 feet, but 2 large ones, than run the width of the laptop. Which is fantastic if you want to use it on the corner of a table since it won't wobble!

Then there's the screen. I swear someone at HP wanted to see how shitty a screen they could get away with in a 2000 euro laptop (which is just a middle of the road config, mind you). On basic models, you have a 6 bit screen. On higher-end ones, they have this security screen thingy that massacres the viewing angles even when it's off. If you move your head around the tiniest bit (say while listening to music) the colors will perceptibly change. The colors are atrocious. And they don't even hide it! The specs say 72% NTSC (not sRGB, which is much wider).

Then you have your usual suspects with cheap laptops: the cooler is an absolute joke, the fan developed a horrible noise in a few months. There's coil whine that drives you up a wall when connecting a USB-C monitor + power.

On the plus side, the analog headphone out is surprisingly good. I don't hear any background noise, there's no whine when moving the mouse, and the sound is similar to my Retina MBP on relatively high-end headphones.

It also works very well on Linux, I'd say it's even better than Windows: I've installed a fresh copy of Windows 11 and I can't get the camera to work. It works perfectly on Linux.

There is always a model or two in every laptop manufacturer's mobile workstation lineups with a pointing stick, for that reason. Not often is in consumer or non-workstation business laptops, and I was never impressed with one, but there always is one.