For 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 that would work against what they are trying to do here.
Honestly if HP cared they would make the device more easily serviceable by the end users, and upgradable. Even that doesn't matter a great deal, beyond having companies slow down their upgrade cycle slightly, there's no real gain. Right now I'm looking at used laptops, but the local refurb place have apparently scraped all their laptops that are unable to run Windows 11. Without the software companies putting in a bigger effort to keep old devices viable for longer I don't really see who's suppose to buy all these old HP computers.
Is 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.
This feels to me like HP is trying to formalize a whole new business around second-hand hardware — not just selling off returns, but really building a controlled ecosystem for trade-ins, refurb, and resale. My guess is they want to keep that value in-house rather than letting third-party refurbishers or resellers capture it.
The Carfax reference stood out to me. It seems more like a feel-good marketing move than anything with real substance — just enough to trigger that association of “trusted, inspected, certified.” Not necessarily bad, but definitely more about perception than transparency.
Overall, I think they’re trying to rebrand “used hardware” into something safe, premium, and profitable — under the HP umbrella, of course.
Seems 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.
"CarFax for used PCs" is a silly analogy; a used machine can quickly be assessed for its current condition, and a log of past repairs isn't really relevant, particularly when most repairs these days are just replacing the entire motherboard.
Old laptops are not particularly valuable because (a) they might be a lot slower than a new, base-model laptop at a quite affordable price, and (b) much of modern electronics has a design life of 3-5 years, and a used laptop will generally be at the end of that design life. Nobody really likes laptops which have random components fail and need replaced.
With that said, we happily use used laptops, some much older than 5 years. HP supplying a "Carfax" would have zero utility to us.
I 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.
Having access to fine-grained usage and health information for each device in their fleet can help IT managers decide which devices are sent to which users, as well as when maintenance is scheduled
Based only my own experience in large enterprises, the usual process is to EOL new laptops after about three years, regardless of condition. There's a whole sandwich of business and financial agreements built around this, so this 'fine-grained data' doesn't seem very useful (or necessary).
If HP really wanted to make an environmental impact, why not start an HP recycling/refurbishment program?
> When buying a used car, dealerships and individual buyers can access each car’s particular CarFax report, detailing the vehicle’s usage and maintenance history. Armed with this information, dealerships can perform the necessary fixes or upgrades before re-selling the car.
Dealerships in no way use those reports for that reason, nor do they contain the information that would be necessary to do so. They inspect the car to determine its mechanical condition, and query manufacturer databases to determine if recall repairs are necessary. CarFax reports are a marketing tool to assuage concerns that used-car buyers have about inadvertently purchasing a lemon.
HP has 0 incentive to give old laptops new life if they don't profit from it. People who buy used laptops are already doing so. Yes, there are somes risks but if the computer boots up, perhaps run a few performance tests, then it's good. A used laptop is $100 - $500, not $2000 - $10000 and it most likely is not sold multiple times because after teh second owner, it's likely already too old, too slow, and not supported (Microsoft). I was a seller of used laptops.
Just imagine for a moment what this would look like in reality...
"I was going to take your original offer of $220 for this here used HP laptop, but after looking at the high number of writes to the SSD on PCFax, I can't do better than $180."
What a bizarre initiative. CarFax was started in the 80's to combat odometer fraud. Cars need CarFax because they're expensive and have thousands of moving parts
Another reason HP is irrelevant. They pour money into stupid ideas no one is interested in. I'm curious what HP would think about the Acer C740 I recently reformatted and reflashed so I could directly into Linux. Would they "restore" it to its EOL state, undoing that work I did? My money is on yes because corporations don't know shit about PC building or optimal settings.
What exactly would this report reveal? Laptops that have some sort gremlin in them resulting in lots of repairs over time?
If I worked for an organization that deployed or sold large numbers of used PCs -- and that problem cropped up frequently enough to matter, I think my take away would be: "let's stop deploying/selling used HP laptops and switch to a more reliable brand," not "let's try to use this fancy reporting to identify them before they get deployed."
HP laptops don't last 3 years these days. You're lucky to get past 1.
They haven't made anything good for years now.
I'll trust that this is genuine when HP lets me connect 3rd party ink cartridges to their printers.
100% of the companies I work(ed) with have either a "destroy laptop" or "destroy data storage media" policy. I know 0 companies reselling their used computers with storage media included.
Wow HP is the last company I would expect to get this right.
HP is circling the drain! if they have to resort to rentseeking crap like this then they are already out of high ROI revenue streams.
HP 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.
The images contain date of the example report - 2023. Can we assume that the current HP laptops already gather all that information and store them, and the new "feature" is just a new way of extracting money from something they are already doing
This is the sort of thing that gets developed for benevolent reasons, and then deployed as an excuse to outlaw any third-party servicing as dishonest log manipulation.
The images contain date of the example report - 2023. Can we assume that the current HP laptops already gather all that information and store them, and the new "feature" is just a new way of extracting money from something they are already doing?
Isn't that caller eBay?
> 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".