>But now they're in the consumer staple industry. I don't think it's quite that simple, like almost all large manufacturers HP have different tiers of quality/

>But now they're in the consumer staple industry. I don't think it's quite that simple, like almost all large manufacturers HP have different tiers of quality/prices to address different markets. Just as you say they have price sensitive models but they also have "price is not the main thing" models. That's not to say that any of HP's laptops are a good buy in the first place but it true for every manufacturer that there are a range of qualities and prices. The exception to this is Apple because they have distinctive approach to marketing which, in the laptop field, is unique (or if it's not unique I can't think of any other 'single tier' manufacturers).