HP: The Crapware Con

Posted on 29 Oct 2009 at 14:32

HP’s heavyweight package of pre-bundled software landed a fairly hefty punch on its PC’s performance. The Pavilion dv6’s 2D benchmark score dropped from 1.06 to 1.00 when preinstalled software was activated.

The crapware had a significant impact on boot times, too: our machine took almost a minute to boot with no additional software installed and 2mins 28secs fresh out of the box – a time that’s only marginally better than the sluggish Acer and Sony machines.

As well as giving the hardware a hammering, the software wasn’t intuitive or helpful. A dock at the top of the screen, for instance, opens up security options as well as HP’s Total Care Advisor, but it’s smaller and isn’t as well-equipped as Dell’s dock.

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EasyBits Magic Desktop provides a stripped-down desktop for kids and even more games than the 19 on the Acer – but once again, they’re only trial editions.

The HP also surrendered 2.18GB of hard disk space to its installed software, with CyberLink products occupying 894MB of space and HP’s software using 724MB.

Overall, there’s little to recommend the HP’s crapware: slow boot times, poor performance and bloated, ineffective software make for a sluggish machine.