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HP sneaks out Mini 1104 (Mini 110-4100) netbook

Just as Intel announced an all-time low of Atom processor chips (mostly due to tablets competing with netbooks), HP quietly announced updated versions to their Mini 1100 series of netbooks. The netbook, known as the Mini 1104, has a 10.1 inch screen with a resolution of 1024 x 600 (I’m pretty sure we’ve been seeing this display for years now) and runs a 1.6 GHz dual core Intel Atom N2600 processor under the hood.

The Mini 1104 has a base memory of 2 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM and 320 GB hard disk running at 5400 RPM, though they are upgradable via HP’s web configurator (or by opening up the machine yourself). The netbook has the usual array of ports but USB 3.0 is not present.

The Mini 1104 comes by default with a 3 cell battery that will power it to up to a rated 4.5 hours, while an optional 6 cell battery will double battery life to a rated 9 hours. The Mini 1104 is available from now for a starting price of $399.

HP Envy 12 “Spectre”: 0.7 inch thin, 12.5 inch IPS display? (plus specifications)

HP has just released their second teaser of their upcoming Envy “Spectre” notebook this weekend, which is essentially the same video as the first one (so you don’t need to waste time to watch the first if you see the second) with an added view of the right side of the upcoming ultra-thin notebook (photo above). Now, the thing is I see everyone wondering with curiosity “wow, this might be an Ultrabook I would like to check out; wonder what the third teaser will show”.

Tip: Scroll down this page to the specifications summary section to see possible specifications of the notebook.

Well my friends, today I’m going to spoil you with my super in-depth analysis of this upcoming Ultrabook. First off, we will start off with the name: assuming HP does not choose to adopt a weird moniker or model name like phone manufacturers have been doing with their American phones, we can safely assume that this notebook will be called the HP Envy 12 (more on this later). But for the purpose of this article and seeing HP has not come up with an official name for it yet, we will continue to refer to it as the HP Envy Spectre. If you haven’t seen the teaser yet, here’s the full 30 second clip from HP (it sadly contains just 3-5 seconds of footage of the actual machine, shown in the two pictures in this post):

The HP Envy Spectre, as seen above, will have dedicated mute and Beats audio (brings up the Beats control panel in Windows) buttons as well as a volume dial just like the latest 2012 Envy 15 and 17 models. These controls sit towards the front of the Envy, which means that elevated area you see is the palmrest of the notebook. If you look carefully to the right of those audio controls, you will spot two ‘dots’, which are the drive status indicator and power indicator LED lights respectively. There could be a probable additional USB port on this side of the notebook that is unseen in this photo, but we cannot be sure yet (HP does have a habit of populating all the blank areas of their notebooks, hence the possibility).

The left side of the HP Envy Spectre houses just about all the ports of the notebook. From back to front, we have ports for the charger, HDMI, 2 USB ports, a combo headphone/microphone combo jack and full-sized SD card slot. Seeing this Envy will be essentially the luxurious cousin to the more business-esque Folio 13 launched two months ago, we will see at least one USB 3.0 port on the Envy here.

The lid of the notebook is all black, but rest assured it will likely have a backlit HP logo. There’s a slight ‘shine’ to the lid: that only leads me to believe it will still be made of metal but coated with the same matte finish on the outside as HP does with their Beats Edition notebooks. This is simply because just about all of HP’s 2011 laptops have had metal casings and lids, and HP is unlikely to take a step down to plastic on a premium product like the Envy Spectre. The smooth gloss and shine in the teaser video could be referring to a glossy and colorful display (which we shall talk about in the next section).

And now we get to the interesting part of the article, here’s my quick drawing of the bottom part of the HP Envy 12… I mean, the HP Envy Spectre. Pardon my not-so-aligned lines; as I said, it’s a quick sketch. This should give you a top-down view of the HP Envy Spectre and its ports. The Envy will have a large buttonless trackpad which will measure at least 2.7 inches diagonally. The large trackpad will cause the keyboard to be pushed all the way up to the maximum point bordering the display hinge (just like on the MacBook Air), which in turn will leave less room for the hinges. As a result, the smaller display hinges (smaller than on the Envy 15 at least!) paired with the very large lid scoop we’re seeing could mean a magnetic lid latch to hold the notebook together when closed.

The sample photo above of my EliteBook is useful as a way of comparing size with the future Envy 12 Spectre, since I calculated that they will be similar in size. The HP Envy Spectre’s trackpad will reach around the 12.5 cm mark on the measuring tape above, while the keyboard will be pushed up to near the 1 to 1.5 cm mark. Do note the EliteBook models have a different ‘solid hinge’ design that allow the display to be pushed down 180 degrees flat, this takes up more room than the ‘sunken hinge’ design of the consumer Pavilion and Envy models, so there should be more breathing room above the keyboard on the Envy Spectre for a power on/off button.

The Envy Spectre will measure approximately 0.71 inches, or 1.8 cm thin which makes it, coincidentally, just as thin as the Folio 13. However, the rounded base will make it look slimmer than it really is, giving an impression of around 0.5 inches (1.27 cm) at its thinnest point. For the record, the Apple MacBook Air (both 11 and 13 inch versions) measure 0.11 to 0.68 inches thin (0.3 to 1.7 cm).

And based on all the information above, the HP Envy Spectre is calculated to have very similar dimensions to its business relative, the 12.5 inch EliteBook 2560p, around 12.2 by 8.2 inches in surface area (30.9 x 20.9 cm). There might be a slight offset in actual dimensions, but the Envy Spectre looks to be smaller than the Folio 13′s 12.6 x 8.7 inch (32 x 22 cm) surface area. Assuming this to be accurate (and there’s a very high chance it is), a 13 inch display will be difficult to squeeze in. Instead, they will have to settle for 12.5 inch display.

A 12.5 inch LED backlit display is already being used on the EliteBook 2560p. It has a 16:9 aspect ratio with resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, with around 300:1 contrast ratio and 200 nits brightness. However, we’re hoping HP will settle for the IPS variant of the 12.5 inch display, currently being used in the Lenovo ThinkPad X220. Resolution remains at 1366 x 768 but viewing angles are improved to 170 degrees all around, brightness is 1.5X higher at 300 nits and so is contrast ratio (500:1). This might come true as HP might offer display options with BrightView (traditional LCD) or a 12.5 inch Radiance display (IPS model) as they are doing with the new, bigger 2012 Envy models.

Seeing Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors won’t be coming out till April or May this year, there are two possibilities in regards to processor choices on the Envy Spectre. One, HP might announce the Envy Spectre soon and list an availability date sometime around May, or two, HP will announce it with existing low voltage Intel Sandy Bridge processors and do a refresh later this year around the holiday season of 2012 or early 2013. There’s a higher chance of the second situation occurring, if HP sticks to its release traditions.

Specs summary:

With all that said, here’s a specification summary of the upcoming Envy Spectre. They’re not official but most would agree they’re pretty darn accurate:

• 1.6 GHz Core i5-2467M or 1.7 GHz Core i5-2557M dual core processors
  Possible upgrade option to 1.8 GHz Intel Core i7-2677M dual core processor
• 12.5 inch display, 1366 x 768 resolution
  Possible IPS display option to be made available
• 4 GB fixed DDR3 RAM (single slot)
• Backlit full-sized chiclet keyboard (but no dedicated Page Up/down/home/end keys)
  Large multi-touch buttonless trackpad
• 128 GB solid state drive
  Possible upgrade option to 256 GB capacity
• No dedicated graphics; Intel Integrated Graphics 3000 series
• Beats audio stereo speakers
• 12.2 x 8.2 x 0.7 inches (30.9 x 20.9 x 1.8 cm)
• Approximately 3 lbs (1.36 kg)
• 2 USB ports, 3.5 mm audio jack, HDMI port, SD card slot
  Possible additional USB port on right hand side

As you can see, the HP Envy Spectre has similar specifications to other Ultrabooks in the market, with its advantage being the laptop’s premium construction/build quality, IPS display (if HP chooses to utilize it) and smaller footprint. To be more specific and straightforward, it makes a good ‘in between’ model between Apple’s 11 and 13 inch MacBook Air models, with being a little larger than the 11 inch model’s footprint but with the specifications of a 13 inch Ultrabook.

Now it boils down to battery life: the Envy Spectre could have 6 to 8 hours of realistic battery life with a HP quoted figure of 10 hours (the Folio 13 had roughly 6-7 hours of realistic battery life; HP’s ‘quoted’ figure was 9 hours). The uncertainty here is that the Envy Spectre will be physically smaller than the Folio 13 (possibly smaller battery) but if it uses a 12.5 inch display, IPS or not, those things have been proven to be extremely power efficient on the HP EliteBook 2560p and Lenovo ThinkPad X220 (possible offsetting a smaller battery).

Price-wise, we’re guessing a starting base price of $999 for marketing and competitive reasons, though HP could set that minimum at $1099 or $1299 if they’re feeling gutsy (the cheapest 13 inch MacBook Air is $1299).

Tell us what you think of the HP Envy 12 in the comments section below. Would you want to get one with the specifications above? And at what price? Do you think it will be a success? Discuss. (Disclaimer, again the specifications above are based on in-depth analysis and extremely intelligent guesswork, they are not official)

Custom modified EliteBook spotted with eye-tracking sensor

Well hello everyone, hope you had a good holiday season and happy new year 2012. CES is coming and we’ll be sure to get busy around here. I spotted something very interesting two days ago when Tobii Technology showed off a video with their new hardware for mouse-free interaction with Windows 8. This was made possible via eye-tracking, whose hardware was incorporated into a modified HP EliteBook (specifically the 14 inch EliteBook 8440p).

It’s an interesting concept, though practicality of everyday usage is questionable (I can certainly see this being used on public interactive displays/advertising panels, but not at home), and you can check out the full two and a half minute long video below… be warned though, I’m pretty sure chopping your EliteBook in half and piecing it back together with your Xbox Kinect cameras or future Tobii hardware will be certain to void your HP warranty!

Good job HP: webOS goes open source, might come back from the dead?

Well played HP, looks like the big white-and-blue is coming back to its senses. HP announced over the weekends that webOS will be going open source, and there’s a slight chance of HP themselves coming back to make webOS hardware (though CEO Meg Whitman’s words point towards more tablets but no smartphones). At least that’s some good news for webOS fans… we were all gloomy and pessimistic about webOS before HP’s change in CEO, but now we’re thinking webOS might just get another shot in adoption life and success, probably not as early 2012, but in the long run.

I’m just glad HP has been making some well-made decisions lately, such as choosing to stay in the PC making business! It’s that time of year again…and I’m not just talking about the holiday season, the new year is coming… time for a 2012 EliteBook update?!

HP post Cyber Monday sales

It’s the day after a Cyber Monday and a week closer to Christmas. The folks at Dealzon have a bunch of deals they’ve found on HP’s website (prices are after coupon):

• HP Envy 17 3D with a full HD 1080p display, Intel Core i7-2670QM quad core processor, Blu-ray drive and 3D glasses are included in the box at $1349.99
• HP dv6t with Intel Core i7-2670QM quad core processor and 8 GB of RAM at $699.99
• HP G6z laptop with AMD A6-3400M processor and 6 GB of RAM at $439.99

 

They’ve also found some other deals for those inclined to buy Lenovo laptops:

• 14 inch Lenovo IdeaPad U400 with Intel i3-2330M processor, 4 GB of RAM and AMD Radeon 6470M graphics for $719.20
• 12.5 inch Lenovo IdeaPad U260 with Intel Core i5-470M (last year’s processor) and 4 GB of RAM