There’s a reason Hewlett-Packard is the world’s top-selling PC manufacturer, and one of them is that the company is big enough to roll out a very broad range of products that appeal to almost every key market in the computing industry, from techno-wary consumers to folks running data centers and server farms. HP has a bevy of new systems on show at this year’s CES show in Las Vegas; a few of the highlights include these new portable systems:
The HP TouchSmart tm2 is a touch-enabled convertible notebook that functions as both a notebook computer and a touch-enabled tablet—and its the first to offer multitouch technology aimed at consumers rather than professional vertical markets. The tablet supports gestures to zoom, rotate, and scroll the display, and handwriting recognition enables users to enter text with a stylus rather than converting the system back to show the keyboard. The TouchSmart tm2 features Intel Core 2 Duo processors with ATI Radeon graphics and offers up to nine hour of battery life on a six-cell battery…plus the tm2 will come with a touch-enabled Netflix application that enables Netflix subscribers to instantly stream television and movies via the Internet. (Plus, users can tap into Hulu with a custom app). The TouchSmart tm2 should land at retailers on January 17 with a starting price of $949.
Not enough power for you? HP has also updated its EliteBook lineup with the Elitebook 8540w and EliteBook 8440w, featuring workstation-caliber Nvidia graphics systems in notebooks with 15- and 14-inch displays, respectively—plus, the notebooks meet MIL-STD 810G military ruggedness tests. Need horsepower? The EliteBooks roll in Intel Core i7 processors, and HP is already saying they’ll support future high-performance Intel CPUs. The 8440w aims more at entry-level workstation users, while the 8540w can beef things up with ample storage and up to 16 GB of RAM. Prices start at $1,299 and $1,499 respectively, and the systems should be available later this month.
Looking for something smaller? The HP Mini 5102 is built around Intel’s Atom N450 processor—so it’s a netbook—but features a 95 percent full-size keyboard along with a 10.1-inch display in either WSVGA or HD resolutions—when combined with optional Broadcom HD video technology it can handle 720 and 1080p high-def content. Users can choose between 4- and 6-cell batteries for up to 10 hours of use, and HP offers an optional handle for carting the Mini around. Expect to see the Mini 5102 later this month with starting prices around $399.
