HP Unwraps New Desktops and Monitors

The company's new line-up includes a slew of media-oriented PCs tailored to different buyers, as well as two big-screen monitors with high contrast ratios.

Getting a jump-start on its Consumer Electronics Show unveilings, HP announced its latest line-up of desktop computers and monitors from Las Vegas on Thursday. New products include a performance-oriented slimline PC, home entertainment PCs, monitors up to 24 inches, and more.

The Pavilion Slimline s3330f is HP’s attempt to cram the performance of a full tower PC into a package one third the size. It comes equipped with a dual-format Blu-Ray and HD-DVD player, TV tuner, and Nvidia GeForce 8500 graphics card with HDMI out, making it capable of serving as both a media center and a gaming machine. It sells for $949.

A notch up on the price scale at $1,159, and without the slimline form factor, HP will offer the Pavilion Elite m9100. It will be powered by an Intel Quad CoreT processor, and come with 4GB of memory, room for up to a terabyte of storage in its two drive bays, and an “easy backup” button.

The Pavilion Media Center m8330f, priced at $959, is the company’s newest AMD-powered option, with a Phenom 9500 Quad Core processor under the hood and digital entertainment options to organize and play TV shows, movies, music and photos.

HP has specifically targeted photo enthusiasts with its $649 Pavilion a6330f. It comes with a 500GB drive for storing photos, HP’s Photosmart Essential for organizing and editing them, a pocket media drive bay for adding more storage, and a 15-in-1 card reader on the front for accepting flash cards from all types of cameras.

New monitors include the w2408h and w2207h, which measure up at 24 and 22 inches, respectively. Both sport exceptionally high 1000:1 contrast ratios and hit 5ms response times. The w2408h sells for $499, while the w2207h goes for $349.