Hardware
Giampaolo Goes Laptop Hunting, Passes On Mac Due to Need for Computing Power
Microsoft is at it again, this time unleashing Giampaolo on a laptop hunting trip. He’s given $1500, finds the Mac sexy, but passes on it due to a desire to pay for computing power – not “brand”. G comes away with a HP HDX. Great stuff, Microsoft – keep it coming.
Update: Loren Heiny notices that “G” tries out the HP tx2 Tablet PC as part of his buying process and gives some really good insight. It would have been nice to see “G” write on it rather than just type. It also appears the Sony Vaio P makes an appearance.
M@rc
04/04/2009 at 7:37 pm
I think these commercials are way better the the last ones, but is it me or they’re always coming out with an HP?
Rob Bushway
04/04/2009 at 7:41 pm
HP is likely paying some type of co-op advertising to be included. Would be nice to see some other brands, though. Where’s Lenovo, Fujitsu, Toshiba, etc? HP is highly focused on consumer and has tremendous facetime in the big box stores, so considering the focus of the commericials, it seems appropriate.
However – did you see the Sony Vaio P also shown?
Loren Heiny
04/04/2009 at 9:41 pm
Rob, the range of hardware that’s shown in the commercials depends on which retail stores they visit and what products are carried. This limits things quite a bit.
The other day Lora and I were pondering, in fact, what might a commercial be like where you’re picking out which product to buy soley over the Internet. You’d definitely have a greater range to pick from, see relevant reviews, probably get a better deal…and above all this would make for one boring commercial. :-)
Jake
04/05/2009 at 5:03 am
I think HP are probably a natural choice to partner with MS in these ads. They are instantly recognisable as a PC vendor but, unlike Dell, they’ve been better allies of Microsoft over the years. While Dell were more than happy to join in all the Vista bashing HP were getting down to business and making sure that their drivers and software integrated with the new OS as well as they could. My 2730p is a great example of a near perfect Vista build while Dell PCs that I buy for work generally have poor driver support, spotty x64 support, etc.
TFJ
04/05/2009 at 8:36 pm
These bizarre Microsoft ads will undoubtedly be discontinued, too (especially if the economy picks up any time soon) — they are selling cheap hardware, not Microsoft software. I doubt if you are going to hear the word VISTA mentioned anywhere in these ads.
seven_ups
04/06/2009 at 10:38 am
And don’t forget, seeing and touching it in person is very important. I recall many user complaints about not being able to see and touch brand X Tablet PC.