Event Coverage

Nothing but HP for me - HP's Regional Media Event

By Vincent Chang - 16 Sep 2009

HP Unveils Ultra-Slim Notebooks

HP Unveils Ultra-Slim Notebooks

Thin and light notebooks are the latest buzzword category that the industry has created and while they have not taken off as rapidly as vendors would have liked, there's no denying the attraction of these new relatively affordable ultra-portable notebooks. HP announced three such models which fit the definition, including two consumer oriented Pavilions and a business class ProBook.

Dubbed by HP as the world's thinnest full-performance notebook, the 13.3-inch HP ProBook 5310m measures 0.93-inch thin with a weight starting from 1.72kg. It comes in two flavors, either with an Intel Core 2 Duo SP9300 processor or an Intel Celeron Dual-Core ultra low-voltage processor. Battery life is expected to vary depending on the processor but even with the SP9300 Core 2 Duo, HP claims to deliver up to eight hours of usage.

Light enough to be almost an ultra-portable and yet affordable for a business oriented notebook. The HP ProBook 5310m is a thin yet very competent notebook.

These specs are encased in an aluminum chassis with a magnesium chassis and comes in a design similar to HP's more expensive, business class EliteBooks. Think of the ProBooks as budget business notebooks. In fact the HP ProBook 5310m is available now (with Windows XP or Vista only) and prices starts at US$699 for the Celeron Dual-Core model and goes up to US$899 for the Core 2 Duo version.

For the consumer crowd, HP has two Pavilions on display. The smaller 1.36kg HP Pavilion dm1 further blurs the boundaries between netbooks and notebooks. At 11.6 inches wide, it has the same dimensions as HP's own Mini 311 and many other recently released netbooks. Yet, it features a choice of an Intel Celeron Dual-Core CPU or an Intel Pentium processor. For sale from Oct 22 for US$699 with Windows 7 the OS, the dm1 can easily be confused for a high-end netbook, especially at that price.

A very powerful netbook or a very small notebook? You decide.

Finally, the last consumer notebook on show, the Pavilion dm3 continues the thin look with its one-inch thickness. However, it's slightly more heavy than most of the notebooks featured today at 1.91kg despite having a brushed aluminum chassis. HP offers multiple processor options, with both Intel's Core 2 Duo and AMD's Neo in the running. The same too for the discrete graphics, with both ATI and NVIDIA offered. There's no internal DVD writer however, though an optional one is available from HP. The dm3 goes for US$799 from Oct 22 with Windows 7 installed.

With a very polished aluminum chassis, the dm3 is a shiny consumer notebook with an interesting blend of features and performance.

For those who can't do without the processing power that only a desktop can produce, HP has a HP Pavilion Elite High Performance Edition desktop that fits the bill. With Core i7/i5 processors inside and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 graphics, this is one machine that's sure to handle all your gaming and HD content, especially since it has an option for an internal Blu-ray drive. Paired with a 25-inch full HD LCD monitor, the HP 2509p, this high-end system starts at US$999.

It may look like any other HP Pavilion desktop but the internal specs have been updated for Intel's latest Nehalem microarchitecture.

And that's all from HP for now. Most of these models are not available till Oct 22, when they will be found in retail with Windows 7 pre-installed. Look out for them if you're aiming for a Windows 7 notebook. There's more to come though from HP in October so watch this space for updates!

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