Yup, they’re finally official… HP has taken the wraps off two new business notebooks, the long awaited EliteBook 2560p ultra-portable and EliteBook 2760p convertible tablet computer.
HP EliteBook 2560p officially announced
Here’s the scoop on the EliteBook 2560p, which has been redesigned to blend in with HP’s other professional business notebooks:
- Intel Sandy Bridge full-voltage Core i5 and Core i7 dual core processors: choices are 2.7 GHz Core i7-2620M, 2.6 GHz Core i5-2540M, 2.5 GHz Core i5-2520M and 2.3 GHz Core i5-2410M
Unlike previous EliteBook models, these are ‘full voltage’ Intel processors and HP has dropped the option to equip the notebooks with ‘low voltage’ (slower but less power hungry) processors
- Intel Integrated Graphics HD3000, no dedicated graphics options; no suprises here, HP’s 12 inch ultra-portable line has always featured Intel integrated graphics… they should be satisfactory enough to run some games at a mix of low/medium settings (see third point here)
- Two DDR3 1333 MHz RAM slots up to 16 GB memory (via two 8 GB RAM sticks)
- 2.5 inch storage bay gives you the option of configuring the EliteBook 2560p with 250 to 750 GB hard disks or a 128 GB or 160 GB solid state drive from HP
- Built-in DVD drive; still no word about the Upgrade Bay (found on previous models) which let you swap out the optical drive for ‘weight saver’ and ‘secondary hard disk’ trays
- 12.5 inch matte (anti-glare) LED backlit display (1366 x 768); 16:9 ‘widescreen’ ratio… well, apparently ‘consumers’ (I don’t know which ones!) want to watch movies on their ‘notebooks’ so give it up for a 16:9 widescreen… now movies can fit perfectly on the display of your business notebook [/sarcasm]!
- Port selection: Three USB 2.0 ports (one ‘standard’, one ‘always-on’ and one combo eSATA/USB port), Display Port, VGA connection, two-in-one combo headphone/microphone jack, RJ11 and RJ45 modem/LAN ports, SD/SDHC card slot, Smart Card reader, Express Card 34 slot
=The Smart Card reader and eSATA combo port are new to the EliteBook 2560p, while the 1394a Firewire port from the previous model has been dropped
- “SRS Premium Sound” branding for the notebook’s speakers
- Minor change in footprint dimensions (thanks to the aspect ratio of the display) which makes the notebook wider but shorter
As a result, there’s now sufficient room for a full-sized chiclet style keyboard
Slightly slimmer body versus EliteBook 2540p by 0.03 inches or 0.06 cm
- Slightly heftier weight of 1.67 kg or 3.68 pounds (Versus EliteBook 2540p’s starting weight of 1.53 kg or 3.38 pounds)
- Same battery options as preceding notebooks in the family: choose from a 3 cell, 6 cell or 9 cell battery
- Larger touchpad with pointing stick and dedicated set of mouse buttons
HP EliteBook 2760p officially announced
Next up, we have the EliteBook 2760p convertible tablet PC which looks a whole lot like its predecessors (EliteBook 2710p, 2730p and 2740p) in terms of design but is essentially akin to the EliteBook 2560p in terms of what’s under the hood. Oh, it also has a 16:10 ratio display (which we all love!)
- Intel Sandy Bridge full-voltage Core i5 and Core i7 dual core processors; same options as the EliteBook 2560p above
- Intel Integrated Graphics HD3000 and two DDR3 1333 MHz RAM slots; up to 16 GB memory
- 1.8 inch drive bay lets you configure the EliteBook 2760p tablet with a 250 or 320 GB hard disk (7200 RPM) or a 128 GB or 160 GB solid state drive when ordering from HP
- No built-in optical drive
The EliteBook 2760p is compatible with the ultra-slim expansion base (which has an optical drive) which can double as a notebook dock and secondary six-cell ‘slim slate’ battery, seen on preceding models
- 12.1 inch matte (anti-glare) LED backlit display with 16:10 aspect ratio and 1280 x 800 resolution; display can be rotated (but not detached!) for using it like a traditional notebook or swiveled-and-folded around tablet
Same three display options as EliteBook 2740p: A stylus only display, a stylus + finger multi-touch display and outdoor display (supports stylus and finger input, but is much brighter so, as the name implies, it can be easily used and viewed outdoors)
- Port selection: Three USB 2.0 ports (two ‘standard’, one ‘always-on’), Display Port, VGA connection, two-in-one combo headphone/microphone jack, RJ11 and RJ45 modem/LAN ports, SD/SDHC card slot, Smart Card reader, Express Card 34 slot, 1394a Firewire port
=Firewire port is still present here but no eSATA connectivity
- “SRS Premium Sound” branding for the built-in stereo speakers
- Weight: 1.8 kg or 4 pounds (Versus EliteBook 2740p’s weight of 1.72 kg or 3.8 pounds)
- No changes in keyboard layout, style or touchpad size
- Stylus comes standard and there’s a slot built into the notebook for it
Both the EliteBook 2560p and EliteBook 2760p share several features in common: business-rugged casing, spill-resistant keyboard, 720p HD webcam option and the classic HP Night Light (which allows you to easily see the keyboard or read documents in the dark). They also both omit one big feature of 2011: that is the availability of USB 3.0, come on, most notebooks these days have at least ONE USB 3.0 port! Starting price of the HP EliteBook 2560p is $1100 while the HP EliteBook 2760p convertible tablet will come in at a slightly heftier $1500 starting price tag. Both notebooks are expected to be available for order later this month.
Intel Ivy Bridge in 2012 please!
If you’ve been keeping up with the super-fast moving tech news and development out there, you’ll know that Intel recently announced a revolutionary new “3D” way of creating transistors for their processors. First off, the term “3D” Intel has chosen to use has ignited an uproar among some users and regular Joes who seem to misunderstand and misinterpret this as a move from Intel to force ’3D viewing’ on everyone. Cool down everybody, that’s not what Intel has in mind! What the 3D refers to has nothing to do with objects flying out of your display at you while you’re wearing those wacky, overpriced special glasses! 3D here refers to how the Intel chips under the hood of your computer will be made. This ‘stacking’ will enable Intel to continue Moore’s law; further increasing performance and efficiency.
And here are three reasons to continue to be patient if you’ve already begun holding your breath and staying in to your seat for Ivy Bridge:
- 3D Ivy Bridge for everyone! Intel has mentioned that the new fabrication process will not be exclusive to the upper-end ‘Enthusiast’ or ‘Extreme’ series processors, but will be made mainstream into all of their future products. This is arguably the biggest reason of the three listed, because you won’t have to stand in line and scowl in envy as high-end machine buyers, the uber rich and gamers get their 3D processors first before they trickle the technology down to mainstream (car manufacturers and camera makers take note!)
- More power for more hours. As a person who uses a 12 inch ultra-portable laptop to do some serious heavy-lifting (Photoshop, video processing and such), Intel’s new processors excite me a lot. They’re saying performance can be up to 37% higher while power consumption gets cut down to 50% compared to Sandy Bridge products. Having seen the huge leaps from 2nd generation Core-series processors versus their 1st generation counterparts, I can’t wait to see what 3rd generation Core i-series will look like. In theory, a laptop running a Sandy Bridge 2.7 GHz dual core processor with 8 hours of battery life could be outfitted with a 3.6 GHz dual core Ivy Bridge processor and still have 16 hours of battery life! Alternatively, manufacturers can outfit notebooks with smaller batteries and slap in a dedicated graphics card with switchable graphics with the space gain, endless possibilities when one dreams, right?
Desktop users won’t be left out as the power efficiency improvements would mean a pleasant surprise (in a non-sarcastic manner) for you guys when you receive your next electricity bill!
- Better Intel integrated graphics. Well, this will probably benefit mobile users (and people who cheap-out on getting a dedicated graphics card for their desktop) the most because of what I’ve seen in the first two generations of Intel’s Core i-series processors: The first-gen Core i7-620M could play Left4Dead 2 at native resolution (1280 x 800) on a laptop at low settings and borderline acceptable frame rates (20 to 30 FPS range), the second generation Core i7-2620M can do the same with a mix of medium graphics settings thrown into the mix. The 3rd generation (Ivy Bridge) of processors with their integrated graphics is expected to bring a 30% increase versus the 2nd generation chips we have now, along with DirectX 11 and OpenCL 1.1 support, so imagine that! With Intel Ivy Bridge IGP supporting DX11, we might just see more PC games that take advantage of DirectX 11 too!
- Bonus point: 16:10 ratio displays might make a comeback (Viva la 1920 x 1200!!) or we might see a support for high resolutions beyond ‘full HD’, such as 2K resolution (2048 x 1080)! Sony showing off a concept glasses-free 3D television with 2K resolution four months ago at CES might be a tiny hint of ‘the next big thing’ after Full HD!
So if Intel announces Ivy Bridge processors in January at CES 2012 (like they announced Sandy Bridge at CES 2011), I think we can expect the first cycle of computers and laptops sporting their 3rd generation Core i-series processors to become available by February or March 2012, and swamp the market by June or July 2012. One can barely wait because exciting times lie ahead (nothing to do with Harry Potter!), folks! Hopefully Intel plays their part and 3D Ivy Bridge processors will be as good as they say.
HP Veer 4G on AT&T
The latest word is the HP Veer, called the Veer 4G by AT&T, is headed to the AT&T on May 15th and will be available in two colors: Black or white. The phone has an 800 MHz Snapdragon processor, sliding QWERTY keyboard, 2.6 inch 320 x 400 display and a 5 megapixel camera. The biggest news about this tiny WebOS-running smartphone is that it will support AT&T’s 4G protocol (one of many 4G protocols in the 4G identity crisis and marketing madness).
HP ProBook 5330m listed on HP's website
It’s been quite a while since the ultra-thin HP ProBook 5320m made its silent debut on HP Singapore’s website. And many have been curious about the fate of the ultra-thin ProBook 5000-series line after seemingly no news earlier this year with the debut of mainstream ProBook models and the EliteBook 8460p and 8560p. But fear not, because one of our readers Sam has just sent us a little something he found off a Google search: a page detailing the HP ProBook 5310m’s successor, the HP ProBook 5330m!
This lean and mean 1 inch thin machine looks like it could possibly go head to head against the upcoming, rumored Lenovo ThinkPad X1… with its full voltage Sandy Bridge Core i5 processor, 13.3 inch matte display, backlit keyboard, metal casing and Beats audio. Oh, it also appears that HP took some clothes out of the EliteBook wardrobe for the ProBook 5330m since it looks a lot more like its expensive and high-end EliteBook cousins rather than the conventional ProBook it’s meant to be. Check out HP’s word on the ProBook 5330m here.
Call of Duty Black Ops new map pack
I was just reading through emails the other day and I saw something that caught my eye “Call of the Dead”. I was excited for a split second, thinking either Treyarch or somebody at Activision had finally decided they would come up with a zombie game of their own, a little late to the ‘hey zombie games are fun’ trend revived by Valve’s Left4Dead but not too shabby considering the other horror themed titles coming out this year; Silent Hill: Downpour and possibly the next Resident Evil. But so much for getting all excited about that… turns out Call of the Dead is nothing more than a DLC/map pack for Treyarch’s 2010 Call of Duty: Black Ops.
This new map pack taps on the ‘zombie survival mode’ in the multiplayer section of COD: Black Ops, which is nothing too exciting. But am I the only one who thinks someone making this map pack was a little too over-inspired by Valve’s Left4Dead? The characters say it all: Robert Englund bears an uncanny resemblance to Bill, Michael Rooker looks like he was inspired by Francis (complete with the leather jacket), Sarah Michelle Gellar is the mandatory ‘we must have a female character somewhere’ like Zoey, except with tighter and less clothes and well Danny Trejo, he doesn’t look like anybody from Left4Dead so I guess that’s kinda original.
Well, in my opinion, what Activision needs isn’t a map pack for a ‘last year title’ game but better support for the PC platform! Let’s hope for a better Call of Duty (I can see gamers going “oh gosh not ANOTHER Call of Duty” already) this November! And just a heads up, Activision, since you already have the thought of a ‘people vs zombies’ map pack in mind, how about making a full-blown zombie horror game instead? I’d love to see a competitor to the ever-replayable and awesome Left4Dead series… either that or I’ll wait till Valve comes out with Left4Dead 3 in something like 2014!
