Ordered my new PC

[pmiles]

Well the day has finally come. I have purchased my first Windows-based PC since I left the platform for OSX in 2001.

For good or bad, my new PC is an HP ENVY 34 inch All-in-One Desktop, 12th gen I9, pretty much decked out. My last Mac was a Mid-2010 Mac Pro with a 27 inch LED Apple Cinema Display.

While I will miss my trusty beast, it just does not have the ability to do what I want it to do any more, so back to Windows full-time I go. I am not a fan of Windows, but then I have come to dislike the direction that OSX has gone. This'll be my first all-in-one ever... I have always been a desktop tower person. Since the Mac lineup has pretty much been reduced to non-upgradeable sealed systems, I would have had to go that route anyway if I stayed on the platform.

It is a custom build and is expected to arrive mid-October. The RAM and storage are user upgradeable, so it should have some shelf life to it like my old trusty beast had.

Funny this is my first HP computer since I bought a Packard-Bell 8088 back in the early 80's. Back then it was the vendor proprietary software that made brand-based computing so annoying. Hopefully HP is far less intrusive these days. We'll see.

Happy to hear any thoughts you all might have. Obviously I'm sold on the device so this isn't a should I or shouldn't I post. More of a how's life on the other side of the fence these days for a reverse switcher, LOL.

Going to be weird not seeing aluminum-cased hardware...

 

[steve217]

Despite the "Packard" in the name, Packard-Bell had no relation to HP.

Good luck with your new PC. Hope it serves you well.

 

[maflynn]

For good or bad, my new PC is an HP ENVY 34 inch All-in-One Desktop, 12th gen I9, pretty much decked out. My last Mac was a Mid-2010 Mac Pro with a 27 inch LED Apple Cinema Display.

Congrats and good luck

FWIW, HP makes solid computer and PC World rates it very high The one con it offers is the RTX 3060 GPU and truth be told, I think that might be bit an unfair criticism. My desktop is still rocking a RTX 2060 and its handling everything I throw at it. The 3060 is a more capable GPU, I think reviewers forget that so many people are not even on RTX class GPUs, never mind the 30 series.

 

[pmiles]

Despite the "Packard" in the name, Packard-Bell had no relation to HP.

Good luck with your new PC. Hope it serves you well.

Haha... thank you... always thought it was a subsidiary of sorts... perhaps a sneaky branding ploy

 

[pmiles]

Congrats and good luck

FWIW, HP makes solid computer and PC World rates it very high The one con it offers is the RTX 3060 GPU and truth be told, I think that might be bit an unfair criticism. My desktop is still rocking a RTX 2060 and its handling everything I throw at it. The 3060 is a more capable GPU, I think reviewers forget that so many people are not even on RTX class GPUs, never mind the 30 series.

Mine will have the RTX 3080 8 GB... this is there latest system configuration offered. Figure there will be some throttling, but I'm not really looking for bleeding edge here. Just some shelf life.

Thank you... a new adventure awaits.

 

[MajorFubar]

Nice, sounds like a good machine.
I think if I ever got a PC again though, I'd build my own. What put me off prepackaged PCs was all the bloatware they came with. I know that it (presumably) subsidised the price, but a lot of it was junk that strung itself all over your system like a cancer and was impossible to truly get rid of. For months i'd find stuff relating to trial-versions of apps I thought I'd long-since uninstalled, especially when going through the registry.

 

[TSE]

The HP all in ones are fantastic computers. Gets really good reviews and should be good for you for years to come. Congrats.

 

[ackmondual]

Nice, sounds like a good machine.
I think if I ever got a PC again though, I'd build my own. What put me off prepackaged PCs was all the bloatware they came with. I know that it (presumably) subsidised the price, but a lot of it was junk that strung itself all over your system like a cancer and was impossible to truly get rid of. For months i'd find stuff relating to trial-versions of apps I thought I'd long-since uninstalled, especially when going through the registry.

I'm really lazy, so I've been buying prebuilts all this time. The bloatware does bother me, but not enough to really get away from them (obviously :\ ). These days, they don't give you the Windows disc so if you need to reinstall the OS, there's something else you're supposed to do. A MR user put up a link in a post, but forgot what it was about (IIRC, you make your own win10 install files/disc?). Suffice to say, I think it's something that you can always do at any time, and it works despite your machine no longer having an OS anymore. If that were sorted out, I'd at least consider reinstalling Windows 10, on my own

 

[ratspg]

Well the day has finally come. I have purchased my first Windows-based PC since I left the platform for OSX in 2001.

For good or bad, my new PC is an HP ENVY 34 inch All-in-One Desktop, 12th gen I9, pretty much decked out. My last Mac was a Mid-2010 Mac Pro with a 27 inch LED Apple Cinema Display.

While I will miss my trusty beast, it just does not have the ability to do what I want it to do any more, so back to Windows full-time I go. I am not a fan of Windows, but then I have come to dislike the direction that OSX has gone. This'll be my first all-in-one ever... I have always been a desktop tower person. Since the Mac lineup has pretty much been reduced to non-upgradeable sealed systems, I would have had to go that route anyway if I stayed on the platform.

It is a custom build and is expected to arrive mid-October. The RAM and storage are user upgradeable, so it should have some shelf life to it like my old trusty beast had.

Funny this is my first HP computer since I bought a Packard-Bell 8088 back in the early 80's. Back then it was the vendor proprietary software that made brand-based computing so annoying. Hopefully HP is far less intrusive these days. We'll see.

Happy to hear any thoughts you all might have. Obviously I'm sold on the device so this isn't a should I or shouldn't I post. More of a how's life on the other side of the fence these days for a reverse switcher, LOL.

Going to be weird not seeing aluminum-cased hardware...

Congrats on your new purchase and a big change! Curious to what it is that you require it to do that Macs don't anymore? Is it mostly having upgradeability? Or some other things as well?

 

[1BadManVan]

Congrats! We have an hp aero 13 here for my son and its been a fantastic little machine. Goes in and out of his back pack all day long and puts up with the abuse of a 14 year old so far lol

 

[pmiles]

Congrats on your new purchase and a big change! Curious to what it is that you require it to do that Macs don't anymore? Is it mostly having upgradeability? Or some other things as well?

Inability to run Windows natively. A big plus for me switching over to the Mac platform back in the day was bootcamp. My first Mac was a PowerPC which ran OSX. I had a custom PC and used a KVM switchbox to share peripherals between them. When the first INTEL model shipped, I dumped the clutter and dual booted into bootcamp. Was the best of both worlds. While I could return to a KVM switch box setup again, I like the idea of not having all that clutter on (or under) my desk.

Being able to upgrade the storage and RAM on MY TIMELINE. Granted little else is upgradeable but at least it's more than what you can do with a Mac these days. No one should be forced to decide how much storage or RAM they need down the road at the time of purchase. Nor should they be forced to replace a computer because they chose "unwisely" at the point of sale.

As mentioned earlier, no more desktop clutter. Macs literally require desktop clutter these days, with all the add-ons necessary just to give you enough ports to support additional storage et al. It's one thing to have a need for such clutter due to one's usage choice (i.e. video editing, et al), it's quite another to have all that clutter thrust upon you because they chose not to give you just the basics.

And lastly, I don't like the direction that the MacOS has gone. I have no interest in Ventura and beyond. In fact, Mojave is probably the last OS version I even cared to run. Call me old, but I don't live with an iOS device surgically attached to my hand 24/7... I don't need my desktop computer to look like my phone in order to function.

 

[pmiles]

Nice, sounds like a good machine.
I think if I ever got a PC again though, I'd build my own. What put me off prepackaged PCs was all the bloatware they came with. I know that it (presumably) subsidised the price, but a lot of it was junk that strung itself all over your system like a cancer and was impossible to truly get rid of. For months i'd find stuff relating to trial-versions of apps I thought I'd long-since uninstalled, especially when going through the registry.

Yeah I'm a little concerned by that. The system comes with Adobe and McAfee Livesafe trial ware. I remember the old Packard-Bell having a custom OEM version of the OS as well. Literally couldn't replace certain components in the device because of it. Since this is an All-In-One with little upgradeability, it shouldn't be as much of a show stopper for me. The trial ware, I hope, can be removed as I have no interest in either.

 

[maflynn]

Yeah I'm a little concerned by that.

HP is typically one of the worst offender for bloatware. I don't mean stuff like McAfee (which will probably be there) but a ton of HP type software you really don't need.

You can uninstall it one at a time I found this powershell script to uninstall it all at once.

If it were me, I'd just download Windows 11 from Microsoft and reformat the drive.

 

[dumastudetto]

Intel inside scares me.

 

[steve217]

@maflynn is right on - download Win 11 and wipe all the bloat.

In fact, I would prep a Windows 11 install disc before you open the carton. Windows 11 installs are very device friendly; you shouldn’t have any weird hardware issues between Windows and an HP.

 

[okkibs]

Since you did ask for thoughts:

The HP marketing material and info for this device is both incomplete and partly wrong. The reviews don't even seem to pick up on the fact that HP claims it's got a 5k panel when the resolution is in fact 4k ultrawide (5120x2160px is not 5k): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_display_resolution#5120_×_2160

Furthermore, AIOs are usually restricted in terms of maximum performance which is the case here as well. The 3080 is the laptop model, maximum TDP 150W. This is not a regular 3080 which has a 320W TDP. Performance will be greatly reduced compared to a regular 3080. HP does not mention this fact on their advertising/website as far as I can see.

AIOs use a proprietary design that makes upgrading and replacing components nearly impossible - in particular, the 3080 is soldered onto the main board. Also, the display cannot be used separately (I think the ports on the back are display outputs from the GPU, not usable as inputs), so if either the display or the other components break the entire device is unusable and has to be sent in for service...

...unless you were able to get the on-site warranty option for it which HP does offer for many devices - but for this device it does say that no on-site options are available. Not too reassuring for such an expensive model.

Lastly, HP does not give us the display specs beyond saying it's a IPS 5k display that covers most of P3. Where we have already established that this is a lie since it is 4k not 5k. As they do not advertise anything beyond that, you should assume it's limited to 60Hz and does not support adaptive refresh rate. No HDR either. This isn't an issue per se since I don't think there is any monitor available with these specs yet. What bothers me is again that HP neglects to mention such basic information.

And I just see it comes with the cheapest 11 Home license, that I find outright unusable - you cannot create a local user account and the PC needs to be connected to the internet in order for you to create and sign in with a Microsoft account. And it doesn't support encrypting the SSD, which isn't such a big deal with a desktop device but I haven't had a single device, be it desktop computer, laptop, tablet or phone that wasn't fully encrypted, in many years.

Oh and due to the big amount of bloatware that comes with HP devices you'll need a fresh Windows installation right from the start if you want the best possible performance.

So personally I don't like AIOs and I am obviously not a fan of HP, I am sure it's plenty fast but at what cost. Not just the issues mentioned, the asking price is also pretty high. For around the same money you could get a monitor with a similar panel, a desktop-class 3080 and all that in a standardized form factor where individual components (that come with individual 3 year or 5 year warranties) can be replaced, or sent in for repairs, or upgraded, at a later point in time.

Unfortunately my experience such devices is that a couple years down the road there is an issue, such as intermittent bluescreens that point to a mainboard hardware defect, support ends up being useless, repairs for the proprietary components are too expensive to be financially viable and the nice display also becomes trash due to that. I hope yours lasts long and that you have a better experience. Thankfully I never purchased any myself and only had to deal with them as technical support.

 

[maflynn]

Unfortunately my experience

Wow,
Way to rain on his parade, why not add constructive advice instead of saying HP is horrible.

I've owned HP computers in the past and its been a positive experience.

 

[laptech]

Inability to run Windows natively. A big plus for me switching over to the Mac platform back in the day was bootcamp. My first Mac was a PowerPC which ran OSX. I had a custom PC and used a KVM switchbox to share peripherals between them. When the first INTEL model shipped, I dumped the clutter and dual booted into bootcamp. Was the best of both worlds. While I could return to a KVM switch box setup again, I like the idea of not having all that clutter on (or under) my desk.

I am curious, if you liked the ability to run windown natively why didn't you buy a more upto date intel based mac that supported bootcamp? I have a 2010 imac i3 and it is something that I am looking at because my machine is setup to use bootcamp and thus am looking at an newer intel mac that supports bootcamp. I thought someone in the same position would have bought a more upto date intel mac rather than go out and buy a windows machine.

I do have a windows based machine but it is primarliy used for gaming because my Apple imac does not have a gaming quality GPU.

 

[MajorFubar]

Since you did ask for thoughts:

The HP marketing material and info for this device is both incomplete and partly wrong. The reviews don't even seem to pick up on the fact that HP claims it's got a 5k panel when the resolution is in fact 4k ultrawide (5120x2160px is not 5k): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_display_resolution#5120_×_2160

Furthermore, AIOs are usually restricted in terms of maximum performance which is the case here as well. The 3080 is the laptop model, maximum TDP 150W. This is not a regular 3080 which has a 320W TDP. Performance will be greatly reduced compared to a regular 3080. HP does not mention this fact on their advertising/website as far as I can see.

AIOs use a proprietary design that makes upgrading and replacing components nearly impossible - in particular, the 3080 is soldered onto the main board. Also, the display cannot be used separately (I think the ports on the back are display outputs from the GPU, not usable as inputs), so if either the display or the other components break the entire device is unusable and has to be sent in for service...

...unless you were able to get the on-site warranty option for it which HP does offer for many devices - but for this device it does say that no on-site options are available. Not too reassuring for such an expensive model.

Lastly, HP does not give us the display specs beyond saying it's a IPS 5k display that covers most of P3. Where we have already established that this is a lie since it is 4k not 5k. As they do not advertise anything beyond that, you should assume it's limited to 60Hz and does not support adaptive refresh rate. No HDR either. This isn't an issue per se since I don't think there is any monitor available with these specs yet. What bothers me is again that HP neglects to mention such basic information.

And I just see it comes with the cheapest 11 Home license, that I find outright unusable - you cannot create a local user account and the PC needs to be connected to the internet in order for you to create and sign in with a Microsoft account. And it doesn't support encrypting the SSD, which isn't such a big deal with a desktop device but I haven't had a single device, be it desktop computer, laptop, tablet or phone that wasn't fully encrypted, in many years.

Oh and due to the big amount of bloatware that comes with HP devices you'll need a fresh Windows installation right from the start if you want the best possible performance.

So personally I don't like AIOs and I am obviously not a fan of HP, I am sure it's plenty fast but at what cost. Not just the issues mentioned, the asking price is also pretty high. For around the same money you could get a monitor with a similar panel, a desktop-class 3080 and all that in a standardized form factor where individual components (that come with individual 3 year or 5 year warranties) can be replaced, or sent in for repairs, or upgraded, at a later point in time.

Unfortunately my experience such devices is that a couple years down the road there is an issue, such as intermittent bluescreens that point to a mainboard hardware defect, support ends up being useless, repairs for the proprietary components are too expensive to be financially viable and the nice display also becomes trash due to that. I hope yours lasts long and that you have a better experience. Thankfully I never purchased any myself and only had to deal with them as technical support.

Your post is a really detailed concise summary of all the things that could go wrong, and personally I think it's really useful to make potential buyers aware of problems. But, in HP's defence (I can't believe I even typed that), you being in a position where I presume you mainly got summoned only to deal with the lemons means that your experience has been potentially very biased, and not in a pro-HP way.

Still, a very useful post

 

[okkibs]

why didn't you buy a more upto date intel based mac that supported bootcamp?

Apple stopped selling both the Intel iMac as well as the iMac Pro. The Pro isn't really available anymore from retailers either, some do have a bit stock left but only for few very expensive configurations. The iMac is still available with 10th gen from retailers, but then at the full price despite the old hardware and only with the standard glass (maybe the special coating was only available directly from Apple, I am not sure). To put the final nail in the Intel iMac coffin, the Apple drivers for Windows were always lackluster and support in general pretty limited (Windows Updates would regularly fail for example).

And then you wouldn't be able to use MacOS anyways unless you dealt with the constant dual-booting issue, I did that for a while and the constant saving all work, closing apps, then later reconfiguring everything back to how it was - that really sucked the life out of me.

Way to rain on his parade, why not add constructive advice instead of saying HP is horrible.

Many of my points apply to all AIOs including the iMac. OP asked for thoughts, what other constructive advice could be given? After all the purchase is already completed. And I do want OP to know that he isn't actually getting the 3080 or the 5k panel that was advertised. That "3080" with non-misleading advertising would be called 3080 mobile instead. It's comparable to a 3070 Ti, it literally does not have the 3080 chip, instead uses the GA104 of the 3070 Ti.

This is essential information - if OP needs the 5k resolution or the 3080 performance, then it's better we tell them about it while still within the return window.

 

[pmiles]

I am curious, if you liked the ability to run windown natively why didn't you buy a more upto date intel based mac that supported bootcamp? I have a 2010 imac i3 and it is something that I am looking at because my machine is setup to use bootcamp and thus am looking at an newer intel mac that supports bootcamp. I thought someone in the same position would have bought a more upto date intel mac rather than go out and buy a windows machine.

I do have a windows based machine but it is primarliy used for gaming because my Apple imac does not have a gaming quality GPU.

Apple basically abandoned bootcamp, which means whether it's a newer INTEL based Mac or an older one, it really has come to the end of the road in terms of support on that front. I was at a point where the MacOS was too old and the Windows OS was also too old. Eventually the hardware or software that you use forces you to move along.

 

[pmiles]

Since you did ask for thoughts:

Didn't want to capture the whole post to save on the eyes. Yes, I already knew about much of what you noted already from the reviews that I have already read/watched.

So I am not going into this blind... I know the shortcomings of this build versus a true desktop in both price/configurability/et al. For me, less clutter is important, bleeding edge isn't a selling point to someone in my age group, and I have a long history with PCs while they were considerably less reliable than they are today. I started out in DOS with Windows 7 being the last flavor of the month that I have used. Worked on Silicon Graphics workstations, Sun SPARCstations... even dabbled with the TRS-80 back in the day.

Like I said, not a fan of Windows... but no longer a fan of MacOS either (later incarnations). It's a wash on that front. As for reliability... I have had Mac hardware issues over the years as well... nothing is perfect. As for soldered on the board... what isn't soldered on the board in a modern Mac these days? Might as well be an AIO regardless of form factor.

I agree with all your comments, believe me... but my days of building a custom PC are over. I leave that to the youth who can actually see the difference between 4K and 1080p or whether the display is running at 60Hz versus 144Hz. No matter how you look at it, this new system is a massive upgrade whether it throttles down or not. As for price, no one ever bought a Mac because of it's price.

Not downplaying your comments, by any means.

 

[Technerd108]

Congrats on the new PC! HP is a solid brand. You might want to get the extended warranty since it is an all in one. I had an HP Spectre laptop and just after the one year warranty was over the motherboard died. I had been very careful with this machine and had not traveled outside my home with it. It was babied. At first since I was out of warranty HP was going to charge me to fix it. I escalated to a customer service supervisor and they then paid for a repair. They sent me a loaner laptop to use while the device was getting fixed. So HP took care of me with a little nudge.

Bloatware is bad for all OEM's across the board unless you get a Surface device from Microsoft-which I highly recommend but I don't think they make an all in one desktop.

You can remove most of the bloatware. You can ask HP to send you a bootable recovery usb so if you ever have an issue you can use the usb stick to recover windows.

Search for disable telemetry on Windows 11. You will need a Pro installation but if you disable the telemetry then it will further reduce bloatware coming back from the dead as some have said happened to them on this thread. You can also get a Windows Pro license from 3rd parties relatively cheap.

This PC should be a big upgrade from what you have and unless you are gamer which you saying you are a little older then I doubt the RTX 3080 is a mute point. You probably don't even need a discrete graphics card as most integrated graphics are decent these days for most tasks other than gaming or 3d rendering.

Enjoy your new PC and let us know what your impressions are once you get it running!

 

[1BadManVan]

Even if he is a gamer, a laptop 3080 is still a very capable card and probably still has better thermals then most laptops with a 3080

 

[MacCheetah3]

If it were me, I'd just download Windows 11 from Microsoft and reformat the drive.

@maflynn is right on - download Win 11 and wipe all the bloat.

In fact, I would prep a Windows 11 install disc before you open the carton. Windows 11 installs are very device friendly; you shouldn’t have any weird hardware issues between Windows and an HP.

I’d be very Leary of this approach. Windows activation has always been hot garbage but the digital license stuff can actually be worse — I would have never bet that was possible.

Sure, you can hope it goes as intended:

Redirecting

However, the process could easily become a pointless and frustrating endeavor, forcing you to use HP recovery or purchase a traditional product key.

I have a 2018 HP Envy laptop and it worked out fine just going through the programs list and uninstalling all of the extras you have no interest in.

As an added note, the hardware quality seems solid.

Lastly, if you have not yet used Windows 11, prepare for at least a bit of a jarring UX adjustment. I’m not a Windows fan anyway — duh! — but, thankfully, my PCs are just old enough the hardware has no need/benefit from Windows 11. Thus I’ll be sticking with 10 for the foreseeable future.

P.S. Speaking of resource hogging software: With Windows Defender, modern browsers having advanced blocking features, and user sensibility, a third-party anti-virus scanning every file accessed is just not necessary. For a little extra protection, I do recommend using the immunization feature of Spybot S&D.