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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)

HP to continue making computers as they are now

Whew, after much confusion as to what HP was thinking and what would happen to HP Fansite if they did, and a sprinkle of hope when they swapped out CEO’s, the verdict is in this week. According to HP’s new CEO Meg Whitman, they’ve looked at the idea of spinning PSG (HP’s computer division, essentially) off, but have decided against it, saying it was the right thing to do for just about everyone (from customers to employees) if they just kept things as they were right now.

To add a little disco ball for us party-goers who are going out to celebrate not having to buy a Dell or Lenovo as their next machine (or icing on the cake if you will), HP will also be making Windows 8 PC when Microsoft’s revolutionary operating system (versus the Vista to 7 jump) debuts next year, along with the fact they’re gonna be making Windows 8 tablets to keep costs under control (yup, if you’re still hopeful about WebOS, you should really stop now).

Alright HP, now that you guys have ironed things out, how about finally launching them Ultrabooks soon after missing the initial rumored due date? And updated Pavilions and Envy’s sporting Intel’s very latest Sandy Bridge processors (those seen in the recent MacBooks and stuff)? And perhaps updating the rest of the Z-workstation line after just doing the Z210 updates earlier this year? How about an EliteBook refresh for those of us who like stepping on our notebook screens or have been using those reliable old-school models for too long?

But we’re just happy that HP has decided to make this decision, probably one of their smarter moves since making blunders with WebOS and such. Hopefully a sign of better things to come for HP indeed!

Rumor: HP to make Ultrabooks before September

Digitimes, a reliable Asian news source for upcoming products based on outsourcing of companies to Chinese manufacturers, has reported today that HP is planning “two or more” Ultrabooks (Intel’s fancy speak for super-thin notebooks; think the Apple MacBook Air), with these new low-voltage Sandy Bridge processors announced two weeks ago, for a launch ahead of Asus’ 11.6 and 13 inch UX21 Ultrabooks debut in September.

That’s a pretty hasty move right there, and frankly quite unexpected. In that case, folks, you might want to be on the lookout, from now till September, for a Pavilion dv1 or new Pavilion dm3 from HP, that will be under an inch thick. And perhaps you might also want to keep your eyes peeled for an updated Touchsmart tm2 convertible tablet too. Or maybe HP might call them something completely different… Envy 11 and 2011 Envy 13, perhaps?! Big news indeed!

If anything, we might just see these new Ultrabooks (I can see lots of people hoping for an Envy 13 revival already) announced alongside that mythical 7 inch TouchPad webOS tablet, hopefully!

HP updates Pavilion dv4, Mini 210 and Envy 14 for 2011

HP has just announced three new consumer-level notebooks: An all new HP Pavilion dv4 laptop, HP Mini 210 netbook (updated for 2011) and evolved Envy 14 with Intel Sandy Bridge processors.

First off we have the HP Pavilion dv4 (Note the “v” in the name; don’t confuse it with the HP Pavilion dm4 series) which acts as a more affordable alternative to the recently announced (last week), slightly more upscale Pavilion dm4x. It sports a plastic casing (versus metal on HP’s two other 14 inch laptops; the Pavilion dm4x and Envy 14) which comes in your choice of blue or black, has a 14 inch LED backlit display (1366 x 768 resolution), Intel Core i3 and Core i5 “Sandy Bridge” processors (naturally) and weighs less than 5 pounds. The HP Pavilion dv4 has a starting price of $600 and will be yours to configure and order starting next week.

Next up we have the 2011 HP Envy 14 which features the most minor of updates of the three new HP laptops (and another three business laptop models) announced today. Three months after its big brother Envy 17 was updated, the Envy 14 has finally been refreshed with Intel Sandy Bridge processors (up to the top-end dual-core Core i7-2620M option) and USB 3.0 ports. Everything else remains the same as the original 2010 HP Envy 14.

While it’s slim, it’s no MacBook Air killer, but the Envy 14 will now retain its competitive position as a viable alternative to Apple’s 13 and 15 inch MacBook Pro models with its similar design, superior specifications (most notably a better graphics card, more ports and USB 3.0) and more affordable price tag… at least when it starts to become configurable with said Sandy Bridge options on June 15, at a starting price of $1000 (still lower than the 13 inch aluminum MacBook Pro’s starting price!)

And finally, hot on the heels of the successful 2010 HP Mini 210 netbook comes the… you’ve guessed it… 2011 HP Mini 210! The Mini 210 this year adds a bunch of new colors for your choosing (black, blue, turquoise, red, blue, pink and purple!), Beats Audio branding for its speakers, redesigned 6-cell battery that fits flush with the notebook and powers it for “up to 9.5 hours” and HP QuickWeb, which is a separate web browser that starts up within seconds and without starting up Windows 7.

To the delight of some (and the dread and disappointment of the “I like my laptop to look as much like a Mac as possible” part of society), the HP Mini 210 brings back physical left and right click buttons this year; those disappeared into a single buttonless trackpad on last year’s model. Well, if you’re planning to pick one of these updated HP Mini 210 netbooks up, you’d better mark June 15th on your calendar and set aside $300 for the black model, or $330 for the other colors.

HP quietly launches new Envy 17/Envy 17 3D with Sandy Bridge and AMD 6000-series graphics

HP has quietly brought out their next generation Envy 17 3D, updated with Intel’s Sandy Bridge Core i7 quad core processors and 1 GB of GDDR5 AMD Radeon 6850M graphics. You get to choose between the 2.0 GHz quad core Intel Core i7-2630QM or 2.3 GHz quad core Intel Core i7-2820QM processor. So far, those appear to be the only changes versus the first Envy 17 3D. And the good news is that you can actually configure and order one right now on the HP USA website, with a starting price of $1599!

Other not-new but noteworthy highlights of the Envy 17 3D include: two DDR3 RAM slots (HP allows you to configure up to 8 GB of RAM), dual hard disk bays (configurable up to 2 TB of storage total using two 1 TB hard disks, you can use SSDs too of course!) and the notebook comes standard with a 1080p Full HD (1920 x 1080) 3D display and active shutter glasses needed to view the screen in 3D, backlit keyboard and Blu-ray drive.

If you live in Switzerland and know German, then you can check out HP Switzerland’s website which shows off das HP Envy 17 ohne 3D… HP Envy 17 (the non-3D version) with the Core i7-2630QM and 1 GB of GDDR5 AMD Radeon 6830M for 1899 Swiss francs. That also hints that the regular Envy 17 models might come with slightly less powerful AMD Radeon 6830M graphics, while the Envy 17 3D notebooks come with the higher clocked AMD Radeon 6850M series graphics cards.

Thanks to one of our readers who tipped us off =) .