HP Veer to be available in Germany in May 2011

HP Veer to be available to O2 Germany in May 2011

Albert Fetsch of O2 Germany has just posted on Twitter earlier today that they expect to get the HP Veer in Germany this May, which is the first sign of an estimated “release date” for the much await HP WebOS-totting smartphone. It is expected the HP Veer will also be available in the US, and other parts of Asia and Europe at around this time, although we have yet to receive direct confirmation from HP.

For those who don’t know German/Deutsche, Albert Fetsch’s tweet reads “Next smartphone with WebOS: HP Veer expected in May to German service provider O2 (Successor to the Palm Pixi)”

Artsy shots of EliteBook 8740w

EliteBook 8740w backlit keyboard

I really think HP’s EliteBook 8440w/8540w/8740w notebooks are seriously the best looking business laptops HP has ever made, and one of the better looking designs in the market, right up there with those timeless ThinkPad designs.

2010 EliteBook models: Probably the best looking business notebooks HP has ever made?!

It kinda makes one wonder what the EliteBook 8760w of the future will look like, which is interesting. Rumors have hinted (and also deduction from common sense and the history of HP’s EliteBook lineup) the EliteBook 8460w and EliteBook 8560w models of the future will simply be the already-announced 8460p and 8560p models splashed with an all-black suit.

But so far, the EliteBook 8740w just looks amazing for what it is. And very stylish indeed. I had an opportunity to compare the EliteBook 8740w and the Dell Alienware M17x last week, and I’ll have something words on what I thought posted soon.

Living proof HP EliteBook laptops are durable

Can your laptop do this?! (But seriously, don't try this at home)

I’ve been meaning to do this for quite some time now (and I’ve been providing “live demonstrations” to enthusiastic people whom I know), but today I finally got down to recording a short film boasting the HP EliteBook’s durability.

What did I do? I stood on my EliteBook, literally.

But before we continue, there be a couple of disclaimers: One, this film is in no way endorsed by Hewlett Packard (though if you happen to be from HP or an advertising firm and want me to do a commercial, my email address is on the top right corner of this website ). Two, I would not recommend trying this at home (and especially on your laptop) but if you do and anything happens, I won’t be liable!

And on with the details about my little demonstration:

• About me: I’m a person of medium-build who weighs in at 175 lbs (approximately 80 kilograms).
• About the EliteBook: I got this 12 inch EliteBook 2530p used from someone I know in early 2010. It has an Intel Core 2 Duo low-voltage processor, 4 GB of RAM and… but those things are not important…
  What’s important now is the fact it’s survived a ton of bumps and knocks from everyday usage, several accidental drops onto surfaces from carpeted to concrete floors, spills (including a very major incident in October) and rain, and of course, various “standing” demonstrations.
• About the background music (because I know someone’s bound to ask this question): The name of the song is “No B.S.”  by Bodyrox, played directly from a friend’s Visio 5.1 “soundbar with satellites” speaker set, from the soundtrack of the Noel Clarke movie “4.3.2.1.“. I would go on to tell you that Tamsin Egerton from the movie has a lovely, posh British accent… but let’s get to the EliteBook demonstration now, shall we?!

I basically stood on the EliteBook’s lid with my full weight and without support, three times. The fact that this is a personally-owned laptop shows my confidence in free-standing on the EliteBook. With that, I present you with “175 lbs standing on an EliteBook”:

I would highly encourage you to check the video in its Full HD glory on YouTube and share it with people you know (Especially if you’ve got friends who like boasting about their Apple MacBook Pro’s!).

To share this video, here’s the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwuNaLpqSfM

And once again, if you’re from HP and would like to use this video or get me to do videos like this one, feel free to drop me an email!

Intel adds vPro to Sandy Bridge processors; gives 16:10 1920 x 1200 displays a chance?!

Intel Sandy Bridge Core i5 and Core i7 with vPro technology

Intel has put up a section on their website about their vPro technology now available in those new Sandy Bridge series Core i5 and Core i7 processors. Now we all know that vPro is useful to large enterprises to remotely manage, secure and maintain company machines, and it’s not anything new; it was available on the first generation of Core i series processors, it has been available since the Core 2 series processors have been around… but what’s interesting (and what some readers call speculation worthy) here is the ability to manage “at higher resolutions, up to 1920 x 1200″. Now I’m sure most of us know not long ago, some details surfaced on the internet about Dell’s new mobile workstations, the 15 inch Precision M4600 and 17 inch Precision M6600, and one thing that triggered a lot of unrest is the Precision M6600 has been rumored to have gone the route of 16:9 ratio displays, with a resolution of 1920 x 1080. And many have gone to speculate that HP and Lenovo (the two other “big players” that produce 17 inch Mobile Workstation notebooks and no, the 17 inch Apple MacBook Pro doesn’t count, theirs isn’t a workstation-class notebook) would also follow the suit.

But that’s just speculation, ain’t it? It appears that a new “camp” of users have recently spawned this week as a result of this Intel story – the counter-speculators who are now saying the 16:10 ratio display is not quite dead yet on 2011 models of 17 inch notebooks. So based on these grounds, the HP EliteBook 8760w, or whatever it will be called (and let’s drag in the rumored Lenovo ThinkPad W702 while we’re at this, okay?), may still sport a 16:10 ratio 1920 x 1200 display. Then again there’s always a possibility it might be 16:9 ratio instead (but won’t that be a waste of developing that 17 inch DreamColor 2 screen, the one that’s found on the current EliteBook 8740w?). Well, whatever the aspect ratio, I’m sure we’ll know for sure once an official announcement comes out one day.

Gaming on the EliteBook part 2… coming soon

Gaming on the EliteBook 8740w writeup... coming soon after Crysis 2, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and Shift 2 Unleashed come out

Exciting times lie ahead in the month of March for three reasons: Crysis 2, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed (what a mouthful). The first two are coming out on March 22 while Need for Speed is being released on March 29. Perfect! Because I don’t think there’s a better or more fitting way to give my EliteBook 8740w a break from code, CAD and graphics than a bunch of new high-resolution game titles!

Having used the EliteBook 8730w and written about its gaming performance in brief, I can say the EliteBook 8740w offers a nice leap in performance and heat dissipation that’s a whole lot more effective. On the EliteBook 8740w, the keyboard no longer becomes a “hand warmer” when running intensive applications, the fan is a lot quieter even under heavy load and the bottom of the notebook doesn’t burn your hands after running heavy programs and games. The fact that HP has improved cooling on the EliteBook 8740w bodes well for the next generation successor… EliteBook 8760w Mobile Workstation speculation anyone?

The EliteBook 8740w has played more game titles in the last three months than the EliteBook 8730w has seen in the past three years! Fine, not really, but if you count games in a single franchise as “one”, then yes… the games I ran on the old EliteBook 8730w include titles from the Left4Dead series, Call of Duty series, Assassin’s Creed series, Need for Speed series, Metro 2033 and Blur.

I will be playing those three new games coming out this month and, continuing HP Fansite’s tradition of covering the hottest high-profile game releases (to add a little spice and diversity to our usual HP news and reviews), will be reviewing them. And of course, we’ll be posting “gaming on the EliteBook: part 2″, AKA gaming on the EliteBook 8740w (a followup from gaming on the EliteBook 8730w in 2009 eh?) and rest assured it’ll be a lot more in-depth with performance numbers, frame rates, core temperatures, analysis and more, than my previous article in the series in 2009.

Games I’ve played on the HP EliteBook 8740w, from start to finish, so far include:

• Age of Empires II (1999, old, but a classic and highly noteworthy!)
• Left4Dead 1 and Left4 Dead 2 (2008 and 2009)
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2009)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010)
• Assassin’s Creed 2 (2010)
• Metro 2033 (2010)
• Mafia II (2010)
• Dead Rising 2 (2010)
• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010)
• Dead Space 2 (2011)
• Test Drive Unlimited 2 (2011)

I’ll have three new games to add to that list by the of March: Crysis 2, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood and Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed. And as a big time technology geek and gamer, I feel quite obliged to tell you about the “games to look out for” this year in 2011: Battlefield 3, Call of Duty (speculated to be Modern Warfare 3), “the next Assassin’s Creed”, Dirt 3 and Portal 2 are all big name, high profile game titles. 2011 is gonna be an exciting year in gaming, and especially PC gaming.