Would any of you switch to HP Z1 over new iMac refresh?

[spacepower7]

OP. That looks like a very nice system HP has put out. If I were you I would take it for a test drive at the store and see what you think about it. You are in a Mac forum, so probably won't get much love when looking at a Windows based PC. As for me I have both Mac and Windows as many here do, and love Win7 and OSX as both are stable and very user friendly. I am not sure if that HP had an IPS display, but also keep that in mind on the hardware side.

I'd test drive it if I could find it anywhere? It's been a couple years since I seen local stores carry a $1900 PC. The most expensive I have seen in awhile is a loaded i7 quad tower including a 24" LCD for less than $1000. This HP is a workstation so I doubt it will be on display at bestbuy.

This HP looks nice, but it's too close in price to the iMac to consider, and I could get a nice quad i7 tower for around $600. If I'm going to be locked into an all-in-one, I'd prefer it be my platform of choice.

Props to HP for trying.

 

[talmy]

Ignoring the Windows issue. How long will HP make parts for it or will it get abandoned in a couple of years by them? It will probably require custom parts at HP's inflated prices. And even worse, it could've been designed by a Compaq engineer.

The parts concern is no more of an issue than it is for Apple. HP at least gives a 3 year warranty as standard, and since it is a business system it can probably be extended (my former Dell experience was that when their 3 year business system warranty ran out they would solicit to extend 2-3 more years.) Unlike their consumer gear I've had no problems in two decades use of HP, Compaq and Dell business systems.

 

[Bear]

The parts concern is no more of an issue than it is for Apple. HP at least gives a 3 year warranty as standard, and since it is a business system it can probably be extended (my former Dell experience was that when their 3 year business system warranty ran out they would solicit to extend 2-3 more years.) Unlike their consumer gear I've had no problems in two decades use of HP, Compaq and Dell business systems.

Ahh, I should've been clearer. The question I meant to ask was how long will HP continue to design upgrades for it.

 

[fa8362]

No, not a chance. I even hated looking at it.

 

[henry72]

NO WAY! Never ever look back now. Apple is just amazing, from the inside to outside, everything

 

[harcosparky]

So, would any of you consider this as an alternative to your iMac as a replacement?

I would say NO, but that would be a lie.




A more truthful answer would be .....




HELL NO !!!!






.

 

[HE15MAN]

Nope. Its still HP, and still running Windows.

 

[Mike Valmike]

So, would any of you consider this as an alternative to your iMac as a replacement?

If I couldn't refresh with a Mac, I would replace my iMac with an iPad 3. I just plain don't ever want to have to run Windows again. It's bad enough I have to use that crap at work. And Linux is for tech geeks, of which I am not one and do not find their interests compelling.

 

[cocky jeremy]

Short answer: Never.

 

[Wrathwitch]

Haha Thanks all for your replies. I was curious.

I agree with most of you with your love of Apple products. I just want the best of both world with the limited amount of gaming I do ( WoW / Diablo III) and the beauty of the Mac OSX. I am not sure if the graphics during the Diablo 3 Beta I have been playing are due to my hardware getting old, or the fact that it is a Beta.

I guess I will have to wait and see. Overall I am still very happy with my baby, but I don't want her to become antiquated when a few of my fave games come out. Ergo, I am really hoping that MBP will be coming out with some juicy upgrades in the 17" capacity (in the event that my iMac graphics card bites the bullet).

 

[Icaras]

Nah, I would never. As I've pointed out in my signature, I've been PC free since 2008, and lovin' it.

Besides the bootcamp partition that resides in my iMac (strictly for gaming), I will never go back to Windows as my fully functional OS.

Also, just speaking on an aesthetics level, I think the Z1 looks pretty awful.

 

[joshwithachance]

That is one UGLY machine. To answer your question though, HELL to the NO. iMacs have this sophistication about them that all other all-in-one machines lack.

 

[sphinx99]

It's nice hardware.

My own faith in OSX is clearly not as strong as others here. Given that I'm something of a child of Snow Leopard and Lion, my experience with OSX has been considerably worse than W7 SP1, bluntly speaking. The Genius Bar told me to reinstall Snow Leopard after the disk check tool somehow corrupted the drive. A few months later, they told me to reinstall Lion because apparently using some incremental updater for Lion instead of some manually downloaded full-install broke Wifi and other things on 2009 27" iMacs. So, OSX has been the OS that often doesn't work and periodically needs to be reinstalled, and Windows 7 has been the one that more or less just works. Funny how much things have changed in the last five or so years. I know it's just personal opinion but I think OSX has slid as iOS gained prominence, and I don't believe it's a coincidence.

As to the Z1, I don't see it as competition for the iMac. Build quality will probably be similar. It's far more upgradeable, and I think the display is going to be much better; my Dreamcolor display is a definite step up from the iMac 27" LED display, although the latter is still incredible. I don't see parts availability being an issue at all; this is an HP workstation. Parts are going to be available forever, and if there's a problem they're not going to make you cart it to your local mall Apple store; they'll send a tech out to fix or replace it. (I manage among other things quite a few Z400/600/800s, their xw predecessors and Elitebook-Ws... their support is quite good.) Aside from personal opinions about the OS, I expect this to be a better product at a higher price.

I think it's exciting. Most of my engineers frankly don't need workstation expandability these days. The GPU lasts for the life of the workstation in professional applications (more or less) and in enterprise environments you really don't want too much local storage for your users anyway. Workstations already have so much on-board I/O that you're not going to be jonesing to throw in a SATA card or something either. So, as long as the ventilation is well-designed and the unit is reliable, the all-in-one approach can work for this sort of target market.

As cube walls get lower and asset tracking gets harder, all-in-one definitely has its appeal.

Apple's hit this target with the iMac but their approach doesn't work well for everyone; they handled the ventilation/thermal issue by using (frankly) less powerful components, and they handled the reliability issue by reducing the amount of serviceability options so that they could construct a single harder shell. The Z1 needs more powerful components that are field replaceable, so I'm guessing it'll truly be a more powerful iMac but one that compromises a bit on fan noise/thermal and on weight. I think that people who prize the iMac for its silence and for its slim proportions in spite of the huge screen aren't going to like the Z1. People in a cube using this for modeling or ECAD aren't going to be as concerned with noise and will probably like the Z1 hardware flexibility more.

 

[iSayuSay]

Apart from the awful look, Z1 is a brilliant idea. It's not as sleek or thin as an iMac, but I think it's a reasonable trade off for upgradeability aspect.

The other aspect is the price. If you see more carefully, HP Z1 is actually more expensive than an iMac. Don't be fooled by $1899 base model. Check out what you get with that!! Base model only get you a measly i3 CPU, Intel HD2000 GPU, 500GB HDD and 4GB Unbuffered non ECC RAM. All for $1899?!!! Why would you get that over a hi end 27" iMac?

The boasted Xeon, nVidia Quadro and ECC RAM on Z1 is high end model only and will cost you from $2400 - $2900.

Nice concept from HP, but actually iMac has a better value, and it is cheaper. Xeon is nothing to boast about when you can get an i7 which has identical performance from a single CPU.

 

[aCuria]

I wont buy it...

I won't get the iMac either, I think AIOs are a terrible idea

 

[azurehi]

I am SO done with administrating Windows.. I made my parents buy an iMac so I could stop fixing their Windows install every visit!

Otherwise.. I tried to find some benchmarks on that Nvidia Q4000M, but didn't come up with anything. Curious how well it does on serious 3D games.

OMG that is so funny!! I did the same with my parents!!!

Although I think it looks like an amazing machine, I REALLY hate doctoring to Windoes myself! I think of this 2008 iMac and realize that in the 4 years I have been heavily using it, not ONCE have I had any problems, nor have I had to do a system wipe and restore etc.....

I am 73. No One makes me do anything, lol. I Change when presented with valid evidence that there is a Need to. I have used windows for 16 years, linux for 11. While I admire the design of apple products, I have never bought an apple product because my PCs have always worked and because of the higher cost of apple products. I follow computer technology in it's Many forms. When the new iMac is released, I will evaluate it, as I have done with every release.

Perhaps the new iMac will impress me enough to change.

 

[Chippy99]

I guess this is a Mac forum, but even so, I am surprised at the anti-Windows PC bigotry on here. Anyone who thinks a Mac is better than a Windows PC in every respect, is - to be completely frank about it - a fool.

I have both a PC and a Mac and there's pro's and cons of each. Neither is perfect and whereas there are things I like about Macs, some things are plain crap. The lack of upgradeability is lamentable, and yes, this does matter. Likewise the dearth of software, compared to a PC. Where is Sopcast, Axcrypt, Tmpgenc, Badaboom, dbpoweramp and god knows how many other pieces of software I use regularly on a PC.

And what is this Thunderbolt nonsense with like 2 peripherals and not being able to use your new screen with your old laptop. Utter tripe.

On the other hand, my Mac is nice to use and looks nice, which is great. Is it perfect? God no.

The HP Z1 seems to offer a different but very viable set of compromises and I will certainly consider one instead of a new iMac.

 

[harcosparky]

I guess this is a Mac forum, but even so, I am surprised at the anti-Windows PC bigotry on here. Anyone who thinks a Mac is better than a Windows PC in every respect, is - to be completely frank about it - a fool.

You can say what you want, and be wrong ... you have that right.

I have been involved in IT in some form or other for over 20 years. I am certified on Novell and Windows networking OS's. I've been an MCSE for way longer than I care to remember.

Here's a true situation ----

I have 3 children and 1 wife, when I was actively working in the field each one of them had a WINDOWS PC, they were all networked and on the net.

I would come home from work and have to spend 1-2 hours working on various problems with the Windows boxes.

Then one day I bought a new laptop, a Powerbook G4. Took me a few months to complete the migration to Apple for myself. A year later I bought a Powermac G5.

Now I looked at the computers my family had on the network. Over time I swapped out the Windows machines for older Apple G4 Powermacs.

WOW .... What an amazing change for the better.

Now when I got home for work I was no longer being deluged with problems on the family computers because they were NO LONGER USING WINDOWS!!!!

You can say what you want, and you can be wrong.

I speak from experience when I say Macs are much much less troublesome then Windows machines?

Is Windows better today then it was 3 years ago? 5 years ago? 10 years ago?

Maybe so but I'll be damned if I am going to bring Windows back into this house to find out!

 

[nomanstool]

I wouldn't consider it. When I switched to OSX, and its a breath of fresh air. However, Microsoft is starting to win me over, I recently switched to windows phone 7, and I can tell you, its not anything you've seen in a smart phone.

Even Woz said, its like Steve Jobs reincarnated over Microsoft to build the phone. To Windows defense, it took a long time before they had stable and solid OS. If you guys tried windows 7, its way faster than any of the previous windows ever build. And now windows 8, its even faster and more efficient. Heck it can run on a 1ghz single core cpu.

But if ever I switch to windows 8, it will be for tablets, not desktop. Microsoft always had a problem that during an accumulation of apps, you'r pc will become slow. I think its a fundamental problem with the OS architecture itself. But they said they'll rectified it with windows 8, I've yet to see.

I'm pretty handy with computers myself, 90% of the problems of windows are faulty hardware, virus and memory resident programs that's bogging down the system. So its not directly the OS fault, but fundamentally if your OS allows shortcomings that's allowing these scenario for even happening.

Good thing, Microsoft been reaching out and hearing the customers, on what they want, before they were OEM centric, with the recent drive they had for windows phone 7 and windows 8, they are more like consumer-centric, basically taking cues from Apple.

Having this got out my system, I like the conclude the Z1 is ugly in my opinion, and as much as OS is concern, I believe OSX is far more superior, and will cater my needs

 

[Occamsrazr]

Really curious - what do you think are the ways that windows is better than mac? I'm sure there is something... Can't think of it on my own though, lol.

 

[talmy]

Being a user of Macs, Windows PCs (XP at work and Win 7 in a VM on my personal Mac), and Linux (mostly Ubuntu), I much prefer the Apple hardware and OS X. But I can't badmouth the other systems (although low end PC laptops are garbage).

However I see real issues looming ahead in software that will definitely keep me majorly in the Mac camp. While Mac users here seem very much against the "iOSification" of OS X (I am too) apparent in Lion, this is NOTHING compared to where Microsoft is going with Windows 8 and what I've seen already happening to Ubuntu Linux (if you aren't a Linux user then just Google "Ubuntu Unity sucks") which is currently the most popular Linux distribution. Imagine OS X Lion with only Launchpad to start programs. And Windows 8 seems to be returning to a one app at a time environment. Forget the advancement of overlapping windows 28+ years ago! These OSes are designed for tablets and are terrible on the desktop. Apple still realizes the need for two user interfaces -- touch and keyboard/mouse.

 

[nomanstool]

I know its out of topic, but just to reply to the post above me, on windows 8, you get a hybrid experience, you can opt for touch / metro interface or you can go back to desktop mode. Frankly though, I only see myself using it as a tablet not a major workstation.

 

[boy-better-know]

I have waited 6 moths for a new iMac, so I will wait a little longer. But the only windows PC that I would consider buying is the Dell Alienware Aurora, that thing is badass.
I prefer the iMac's looks, but the Aurora is the best looking Windows machine imo.

 

[noisycats]

Good god!!

It's hideous AND doesn't run OSX.

No.

 

[Taz Mangus]

There are three reason I would not buy that thing. One it runs Windows. Two it is ugly. And three it is an HP. HP can't even build a printer that is worth a damn. Actually, there is a fourth reason. Resale value or lack there of.