HP Slate to be cheaper than Apple iPad equivalent

In a report today by the Wall Street Journal online, there’s news that HP plans to introduce their HP Slate at a price lower than the Apple iPad (3G connectivity version) of the same size (presumably built-in memory size, not physical size). Isn’t competition great?! Technically, the HP Slate (which I’d like to remind you, will run on full-fledge Windows 7) would still be a better deal than the iPad (which is just an oversized iPod Touch with iPhone OS plus a few additional features for the larger display), even if priced slightly higher, because of versatility of Windows 7 versus a mobile OS. But I suppose this move is even better, to prevent the dreaming ‘iSheep’ from just blindly buying the iPad because it’s “cheaper”…

Comparing the HP Slate and Apple iPad, of similar memory and price, the HP Slate is the obvious victor with Windows 7. Imagine all the things you could do with a full fledged OS (AKA the same things you currently do on your desktop/notebook, minus playing Crysis and running 3Ds MAX), compared to the mobile OS used by the iPad. Now imagine the HP Slate being even cheaper than the iPad, what a great deal that would be! For the record, the Apple iPad will sell for $629, $729 and $829 for 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB 3G-enabled versions. Oh remember to check out a comparison between the two slate form factor devices in the HP Slate vs Apple iPad article I posted last month!

Super HP belated Valentine’s day rumors roundup

Okay, fine, so this may have little to do with Valentine’s day… but let’s spread some love for the several HP notebooks that have been and continue to stay elusive.

Elitebook 8740w: So it seems a lot of people have a couple of grand lying around and are all set to drop it on this long-awaited Mobile Workstation on the precise millisecond it comes out. Question is WHEN?! There was a gap of roughly one month between when the Elitebook 6930p and 8530/8730w series were announced back in 2008. It’s been over a month since the Elitebook 8440 and 8540 models were announced at CES 2010, so where is the 8740w?! (And oh, before I forget 8740w, where are your smaller friends as well?). I suspect the Elitebook 8740w’s elusiveness has something to do with ATI launching FirePro mobile, HP launching DreamColor 2 displays or both. Most likely DreamColor 2 is the culprit. You see, DreamColor displays are a wonderful technology that you don’t see on notebooks everyday… so what a great party/bash it would be for HP to launch the flagship Elitebook 8740w FEATURING DreamColor 2?! It’s very, very, very likely that the 8740w and DreamColor 2 will debut hand-in-hand, at least that’s the way speculation seems to be pointing…

Envy 14 and Envy 17: Cooler than ever. Not that the Envy 13 and 15 aren’t cool enough, in the cool dude sense of the word, because they look awesome. Word is the Envy 14 and Envy 17 will not only LOOK awesome, but stay cool as well… as in, not burn up your palms and thighs as you work on an Office 2010 document or play Crysis 2 at high settings in the future.

Envy 17′s first sale?! Everyone rush out and check your local consumer electronics store(s) now! An enthusiastic reader claims (multiple times) that he’s bought an Envy 17 less than a week ago, from some place that he would’ve never gone to buy a computer from (he doesn’t mention where) and that he got a good deal on it. In another of his comments, he emphasizes that it has a “number pad”, though little else is mentioned. False alarm? Or could someone else really hit the jackpot and find a store selling the Envy 17? Pictures or it didn’t happen!

Shifting things around: If anyone has noticed, HP has shifted their new 8440 and 8540 forwards on their Elitebook page, and relegated the 6930p, 8530p and 8540w to the back seat (or right edge of the page). Perhaps this is a sign of the Elitebook 8740w to come? Or is this just HP doing some website spring cleaning, again?

Okay, I’m done shifting through rumors and whatnot for the day. Back to putting on the finishing touches to my Envy 15 + ATI Mobility Radeon 5830 review…

Windows Phone 7: HP’s chance at making a fresh start (iPAQ)

I make it a point to repeat myself about HP’s position as top Pocket PC/Windows Mobile device maker, once upon a time, and that they can do it again if they put enough effort into their iPAQ line. HP has made some “just” decent Windows Mobile phones over the past several years, but nothing that was nearly as inspiring or conversation-fueling as their original iPAQ h6310 series or hw65/69xx series phones. I don’t know what happened to HP during the period they remained quiet for about 18 solid months, before releasing the underwhelming iPAQ 600/900 series phones, which only became available another several months down the road (by which time, they had become seriously outdated). Then they came out with the iPAQ Voice and Data Messenger phones, which were already ‘outdated’/paled in comparison to other QWERTY side-slider phones at launch, yet they were pricey as ever (their long names that were a mouthful didn’t help either).

But we can’t change the past; we only can put it aside and learn from mistakes. The announcement of the new Windows Phone 7 Series mobile operating system by Microsoft no more than 12 hours ago has sparked quite a lot of interest (in all senses of the word: positive, negative, speculative, etc) on the net. And I think this is the perfect chance for HP to get a fresh start. New year, new mobile OS, changed products.

Staying with Windows

I do believe that HP should stick to Windows on their iPAQ phones, instead of going the Android route of some manufacturers, or worse, come up with their own mobile OS (please, no!). Why? HP has a long-standing relationship with Microsoft, in the PC manufacturing, phone making business and other areas; even to the extent of Microsoft making limited edition HP co-branded Microsoft Arc mice (yes, I have one!) and Microsoft recently ‘sharing’ CES stage-time to introduce the new HP Slate. If there was one company that could ‘persuade’ Microsoft to support a tight-fitting Touchsmart UI/application in their new mobile OS, it would probably be HP.

As of this week, it appears that Windows Phone 7 is the new black. Plenty of people are excited and have high hopes that Microsoft will work things out with Adobe (regarding Flash), clarify the sort of multitasking their OS can/will do and further refine the wonderful interface before Windows Phone 7 phones start coming out later this year. If the iPhone with its iPhone OS could rise to insane popularity just because of ‘pretty looks’ and ‘user friendly interface’, despite lacking multitasking, plenty of business-oriented features, hardware keyboard and various restrictions imposed by Apple themselves; then imagine what sort of following/response the new Windows Phone 7 OS could generate. Everyone loved/loves the Microsoft Zune HD interface (even more than the iPhone interface), and Windows Phone 7 is just like the ‘phone’ version of that – only difference is that Microsoft is letting other manufacturers do up the hardware side.

Besides, there are already many Android phones from various brands out there – it would be unwise to step into an arena filled with ‘heavyweight’ phone makers making Android phones, complete with their own Android-skins and all. Perhaps HP still could release several Android offerings themselves, but I think their main concentration should be on making Windows phones. In today’s market (and as proven by Apple with their iPhone), it’s not how well features sell, but how well you sell your features.

The Windows Phone 7 iPAQ

Microsoft has already imposed a small set of ‘minimum hardware requirements’ for Windows Phone 7 phones to ensure a smooth-flowing, lag-free experience on the user interface part. So it’s kinda “Captain Obvious” that HP’s Windows Phone 7 iPAQ will have at least a WVGA screen with multitouch and hardware that can run Microsoft’s latest mobile OS.

I’m talking about design and aesthetics here – granted that phones nowadays have a pretty generic “big screen, 1/2 inch thin profile, few to no buttons”, there’s still a bit of room here for HP’s design team to tinger with. I kinda liked the industrial-look of HP’s original iPAQ h6310 phone (you know, the phone which had a massive 3.5 inch touchscreen looooong before the iPhone came out?!), so it’ll be great if they could make a sleeker, modernized version of that. HP should move back to using huge touchscreens (ie 3 to 3.5 inches) instead of the sub-3 inch displays they’re using on current iPAQs.

The thing I like about the original iPAQs is that they were dock-able (aww, come on HP, bring back that old dock connector of the original iPAQs!), had uniquely-placed front-facing “on/off” buttons and nice two-toned color schemes (instead of the glossy all-black iPAQs we’re seeing now). Perhaps now HP can use the same 3D Imprint/metal etched surface design features in their Envy/Mini notebooks, and backlit/flashing HP logo for phone status indication?

Release date and delivery

This is the most crucial factor that HP has to consider, besides design and specifications. The Windows Phone 7 iPAQ needs to be one of the first few (if not, the first) Windows phone to be announced and made available to the masses. In order to gain a larger marketshare (on the consumer user side, especially) for their iPAQs, an early availability date is important, because this will be the time where buyers and early adopters won’t have much choice if they were to buy a “Windows Phone 7″ phone. Paired with a good experience with the (new) iPAQ, users will be spreading the word around – fast – leading to more sales. The idea here is to grab as many new users as possible at launch (seeing this is a mobile OS re-built from the ground up), giving them a good impression and experience of things, and letting them do the rest – be  it spreading the word and/or become repeat buyers when the time comes for their ‘next’ Windows Phone.

There’s also more that can be done by HP to rise once again in the mobile phone arena – how about giving a special discount on the new Windows Phone 7 iPAQ with the purchase of every new HP notebook, or bundling an iPAQ (or Voodoo phone?!) with every Envy sold?! Ah, and this reminds me of the Voodoo phone. I would think the Voodoo phone will depend very much on the success of new 2010 iPAQ phones, because once they (iPAQs) become a hit, HP can expand from there and tack on a premium phone line (ie Nokia’s 8800 series).

Ready. Set. iPAQ.

Well, I wish the best of luck to HP in making the iPAQ line succeed this year and the years to come. Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 OS is really a window of opportunity of HP and I sure hope they take advantage of that fact!

HP’s 13 inch consumer MacBook Pro/ fighter

If you were considering getting a 13 inch notebook, you probably should hold off for a bit. News from an EXTREMELY reliable source has pointed to a revolutionary upgrade to one of HP’s consumer-level notebooks. Word is that it’ll feature Envy-like styling, Envy-like keyboard and multi-touch trackpad, “something” you wouldn’t expect in a 13 inch notebook that will beat the competition to the punch and Pavilion-like pricetag (ie affordable!). More info as it comes.

SLI/CrossFire, GPU dock for Elitebooks, other HP notebooks

So there’s been a lot of talk about GPU docks since Gigabyte showcased one of their notebooks recently, which has integrated Intel graphics but allows users to park their notebook to a dock which holds an external Nvidia desktop graphics card. Besides feasibility and potential demand (how many people need/want such an accessory?), there’s no reason why HP can’t do the same for their Elitebook series, and perhaps their other notebooks in the future.

SLI/CrossFire GPU dock for Elitebooks

Let’s split things up into two sections – first, I’ll talk about the Elitebook side of things. The Elitebook series are already prepared to support such an accessory – via the dedicated connector for existing docking stations (small/large) at the bottom of the notebook. Since HP’s Elitebooks (14 inches and up) already come with built-in dedicated graphics solutions, an external graphics dock can house a secondary graphics card which the notebook can make use of. So when docked, your Elitebook can become an SLI/Crossfire dual graphics card powerhouse! This might pose a bit of a problem for Nvidia’s graphics cards, as SLI only works with two of the same cards and, correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t think Nvidia’s Quadro mobile cards can bind to work as one (Quadro Plex seems to be only for desktop cards?) – seeing each Elitebook model uses different Nvidia graphics, I’d say it’ll also be too expensive for HP to create ‘GPU docks’ unique to each notebook/graphics card combination.

But wait, we have ATI’s FirePro mobile cards coming to 2010 HP Elitebooks. Could GPU docking/cross-firing be one of the reasons why HP is bringing ATI graphics to their ex-Nvidia exclusive Elitebooks? I’m not quite sure… but seeing existing CrossFire (ATI’s version of SLI) implementations allow use of two different graphics cards, then HP could make a one-size-fits-all GPU dock – stuffing in something like an ATI Mobility Radeon 5870 or FirePro equivalent of that – as an optional add-on. If you’ve ever seen the performance increase in CAD work using 1 vs 2 graphics cards, then you’d know why such an accessory (CrossFire GPU dock) has the potential to sell like hotcakes to the market of mobile power-users, artists and designers.

Dedicated graphics GPU dock for Pavilion/Compaq notebooks

The thing which makes me think such an accessory can sell is because of real life experience with some people I know. Most recently, I “converted” one of my friends from ‘game spectator’ to ‘player’. All it took was watching me play Left4Dead 2 on an Elitebook 8440w I was testing, and she was sold on the idea of ‘PC gaming’ – she had never expected that a 14 inch notebook could play games so well (versus consoles), and also because a game about chopping up zombies somehow seems to appeal to many people (huh?!). She initially installed Left4Dead 2 on her Dell notebook (I think it’s either an XPS or Studio 14) and was disappointed by the choppy frame rates because of Intel integrated graphics. Long story short, she now has to temporarily play her newly acquired PC games on her sister’s notebook which has a Nvidia GT200-series mobile card while she shops for a new one with discrete graphics.

There is an untapped market of users who want to ‘game’ with their notebooks but don’t know that they can’t game for peanuts with Intel integrated graphics, either that, or the psychology is that ‘no laptop is powerful enough for games, I will need a desktop but in that case, I’d rather buy a PS3/XBOX instead’. Including a desktop graphics card in a notebook dock can not only help in performance (dekstop graphics typically have better performance per dollar than mobile equivalents), but also might help computer makers earn more per customer. Why? Traditionally, the average consumer and/or student would not pay more than $500-$900 for a ‘laptop’ due to their ‘budgets’… and for games, they go out there and buy a gaming console instead; since the common false perception is that PS3/XBox 360 consoles are superior compared to PC’s for gaming (Personally: To hell with that statement, how do you explain things like the HP Envy 15 and Alienware M11x?!). An external graphics card dock for ‘gaming’ would psychologically fall under the “accessories I should buy” list in consumers’ minds, for which they have separate budget allocations for. Yup, I’ve seen it happen before: Most people aren’t willing to pay a few more bucks for the discrete graphics option so they can game, yet they’re willing to pay something ridiculous like a hundred bucks for a ‘color/pattern matching notebook case’ or notebook cooler.

Coincidentally, HP has this port called “Expansion Port 3″ for an external dock for some of their Pavilion notebooks. I wonder what other things they could do with it…