I worked at HP in the early 2000s and it was such a miserable experience I can't even describe it. I honestly felt like my spirit was being snuffed out every time I walked through the door. I didn't even make it a month.

And at this point I can't even recommend their laptops because they have basically locked the bios menus. In the past f10-a would give you more than the 8-10 options they put in there. The latest machines have problems in linux that could be fixed with bios settings changes but they refuse to publish the information, and depending on whether you get a good support person you will hear differing stories about it (mostly "we don't support linux on that machine"). The one common thing though is that they want to charge people $ in order to have a tech modify the bios settings.

AKA, put a password the menu, charge $60 not to give people the password, but to have a HP person change the setting for you.

Le Creuset is an example of a brand that advertises and makes good on lifetime guarantees.

In their case its pretty central to their position as a brand. I'd imagine changing their position would meet significant resistance inside and out of the company.

HP however, I wouldn't be surprised if many of those working on the new adverts after tossing the lifetime ink didnt even know of the lifetime ink.

For some reason I trust long standing european companies warranties much more than I do US public corps. Also trust these private outdoor gear outfitters more as well. Their is a different corporate culture at these places. They dont try to eat the golden goose.

I trust a cast iron pot to have fewer bugs than some software/hardware though.

The pot has a significantly wider daily stress range though. Some GPUs might come close but their guarantees are usually less than two years.

That's like saying granite doesn't rust.

A GPU has material tolerances measured in NM that is needs to hold to work. A cast iron pan is free to mostly do whatever so long as it doesn't crack.

I gave up on HP after a properly applied firmware update bricked a very expensive piece of server hardware and they refused to replace it.

This is essentially similar to the death of QuarkXPress. When one company abuses customers for long enough, the first viable competitor to show up will eat their lunch.

Some years ago I took the decision to never, ever buy a HP printer again in my life. It gave me o strong feeling of relief.

> I also feel like it's really informed me that I don't trust products with long warranties. It seems from my personal experience, the longer the warranty the more questionable the quality, and the harder to get the warranty honored. And of course if the product is terrible, the company will go out of business leaving you high and dry anyway.

I mean, fwiw, I've had the opposite experience in many cases. And I'd hate for the outcome to be that companies are actually incentivized to offer shorter warranties so that customers believe they're real.

There are some great products out there with great warranties (some are legendary, and often abused) and usually they say how long their product will last. Like the costco return policy, or the craftsman tool replacement.

I found that home depot had an interesting replacement policy - bring in a broken tool and you get the free Husky brand (now HD's store brand) tool as a replacement. Now I've personally had quality issues with Husky tools, but I have to admit, that's a good way of doing it!

I'm mostly afraid of cheap + long / forever warranty.

Don't get me started on Craftsman. They should have gone under with Sears instead of lingering to capitalize on their past glory.

Part of my job involves repairing power tools, and I've started lumping Craftsman (and also the once-great Delta) in with "throwaway" brands like Harbor Freight and Tool Shop where I have to turn customers away or at least warn them that I probably can't get parts for them. So many parts for fairly recent models have already been discontinued, if they were ever available at all. I see a lot of older customers to whom Craftsman has always meant quality and service, and they often leave frustrated in my inability to deliver on that legacy.

I don't have a problem with their hand tools which, while maybe made more cheaply than before, can still be replaced at any Craftsman retailer that carries a replacement. But their power tool parts support is just abysmal IME.