I don't know about other product lines, but we are issued HP Zbooks at work, their crappy performance and quality made sure to stop me from ever buying an HP computer for myself

There are going to be horror stories for any brand. I personally have had nothing but bad experiences with Dell computers. But if there's one that checks all your boxes, has great reviews, and meets your price point, I say go for it.

That said, I do feel like I hear the worst and most frequent stories about HP.

I can't speak for the whole company, but their older business laptops have been good in my experience. I've worked for an airline, and a logistics company, and in both they had HP contracts. I know that Dell laptops felt more brittle, I saw more of them come back brokwn. Also getting them refurbished doesn't give them money, if you don't want to do that.