HP announces new back-to-school and ultraportable business laptops

 

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Posted on 10 Jun 2008 at 16:06

HP has announced a new ultraportable laptop as well as a stylish new range of laptops today at a press conference in Berlin.

The EliteBook 6930p is an ultraportable laptop aimed at business users. It has a 14.1in widescreen display with a resolution of 1,280x800 pixels yet weighs only 2.1kg.

The EliteBook has a sturdy and classy looking aluminium design that is supposed to be rugged enough to meet US military standards for resistance to dust, vibration, high temperatures, and humidity. Unlike an increasing number of laptops, the EliteBook has a latching mechanism in its lid instead of a spring-mounted system. This is supposed to be much more damage-resistant when dropped.

The display unit we saw at HP's launch venue in Berlin felt well-made but heavier than its 2.1kg weight.

As with previous HP business laptops, the EliteBook has both a touch pad and a touch stick. The keyboard felt very similar to previous HP laptop keyboards, with large and responsive keys. According to HP's Dan Forlenza, up to an ounce of water can be spilled onto the keyboard with no ill effect.

The EliteBook comes with a DVD writer but this can be swapped out for a Blu-ray drive or a second hard disk. An EliteBook with two hard disks can be used in either RAID 0 or RAID 1 mode, which is unusual for a laptop. Another hard disk would undoubtedly increase the EliteBook's weight and possibly decrease battery life.

An interesting feature is HP'sQuickLook2 which allows access to Outlook emails, calendar and address book without booting into Windows. The integrated 2-megapixel webcam has a macro function which can be used with the bundled optical character recognition (OCR) software to digitise business cards.

Business users will undoubtedly be concerned with security. The EliteBook comes bundled with an utility for securely deleting files. The EliteBook's hard disk can be secured with a customisable three-question security system that is set in the EFI, where the user sets a series of questions that only he or she would know the answer to, instead of a normal password system.

The EliteBook will be available worldwide from Friday 1st of August and will cost around £1,150 including VAT. Exact UK specifications have yet to be confirmed.

HP's other announcement - the dv4, dv5 and dv7 laptops - have 14.1in, 15.4in and 17in widescreen displays respectively. All three new lines share the same glossy metallic design which looks striking and feels robust.

We took a look at a pre-release dv4 unit which was equipped with one of Intel's soon-to-be-released P8600 Core 2 Duo processors. It was also fitted with 4GB of RAM, a 250GB hard disk and Nvidia's upcoming GeForce 9200M graphics card. Optional extras include a Blu-ray drive, a built-in 3G modem and an integrated TV tuner.

The keyboard and touch pad buttons felt firm yet responsive while the touch pad felt accurate and smooth. The base of the laptop felt rigid and sturdy, but the hinges of the screen were a little wobbly. Having an integrated TV tuner and 3G modem frees up the ExpressCard/54 slot and USB ports for other peripherals.

The dv4, and the rest of HP's new line of laptops, will be available from late August. The dv4 should cost around £770 including VAT.

Author: Alan Lu