HP Elitebook 2540p ultra-portable notebook pictures leaked!

The new, upcoming HP Elitebook 2540p!

In another one of those obsessive visits to HP’s website, I’ve spotted that they seem to have slipped up (or maybe they’re updating the page) with the wrong set of pictures the Elitebook 2530p page. They’ve posted pictures of the unannounced 2010 Elitebook 2540p ultra-portable instead! Hurrah for the world! The HP Elitebook 2540p looks a whole lot like its predecessor with the silver + black aluminium/metal design…

But there are several cues that makes it definitely the upcoming Elitebook 2540p – check out those partial chiclet keys, that round HP logo (instead of square) and low-profile, “blended” fingerprint reader – these are design elements found on HP’s new 2010 Elitebook models (check out my review of the Elitebook 8440w and you’ll notice a striking similarity, save for color). Unfortunately, one thing HP didn’t slip up/update yet are the features: the specifications are still that of the old Elitebook 2530p.

For the record, here’s the picture of the 2008 Elitebook 2530p (that used to be in place of the leaked pictures). Compare it to the pictures of the 2010 Elitebook 2540p above and you CAN spot the differences between the two.

Assassin’s Creed 2 for PC, mark your calendars

As many of you may know, while I’m not busy with books, papers, friends or HP products, I also love, love, love PC gaming. Did I mention how I recently picked up Assassin’s Creed 1 for PC, played it on a borrowed HP Envy 15 and loved it? No? Well, now you know. After playing Batman Arkham Asylum for PC last December (and writing about its singleplayer experience earlier this month), I sort of went on a “third person action” gaming spree. My “latest” third person perspective game was 2007/2008’s Assassin’s Creed 1, which I started and finished within last week – strange how I missed picking it up when it first came out.

Since it’s an old game, I won’t be writing a full length review about it (though you should lookout for my reviews of Batman Arkham Asylum 1 and Left4Dead 2, as well as a few new HP notebooks, in the coming weeks). But simply put, it was a game with a great storyline, decent character development, lots of nice scenery and part-action, part-stealth gameplay. Though it had its fair share of issues such as missions that get slightly repetitive after awhile and jagged edges/below average image quality (due to either lack of anti-aliasing and/or upsampling from 720p to 1080p, not sure which one, because the PC version of Assassin’s Creed 1 was a direct console port), I still loved it as a whole… and I’ve been looking forward to Assassin’s Creed 2 for PC since.

Well, the release date of Assassin’s Creed 2 for PC, the direct sequel to the original game, was announced less than 12 hours ago – mark your calendars for March 16, 2010, if third person adventure games are your thing (or if you just like intriguing storylines). I hope that after all that waiting (and delay, compared to the console versions which were already out since November 2009), the developers have gotten their act together to go that extra mile to make Assassin’s Creed 2 less of a console port, and more PC optimized (real 1080p and anti-aliasing up to 16X CSAA please!).

While I’m all up for Assassin’s Creed 2, and really happy for the fact Ubisoft is including the full game (unlike consoles, whose players have to buy the two DLC’s which were supposed to be part of the story), they’re charging a whopping $60 for the game. For the record, the MSRP of new PC game titles has been and is usually $50. And I think we have that console game (which was lazily turned into a crippled, console-lified PC game) to blame for starting off the “$60 for PC games” trend. Yes, I’m sure with the launch of Assassin’s Creed 2 as the second ever PC game with a $60 price tag, many PC gamers are praying hard that the disgusting, plain horrid “$60 trend” set by Modern Warfare 2 will not become a norm as other developers release games in the future…

HP’s Phil McKinney talks more about the HP Slate

Hey, remember when Microsoft and HP showed off the new HP Slate during CES 2010 earlier this month/year? HP has just posted a video featuring Phil McKinney and the HP Slate… and they couldn’t have picked a better time, less than 48 hours before Apple’s “launch event” for 2010 (supposedly the Apple tablet is debut during then). I’m getting kinda sick of Apple tablet rumors; I usually click off/close windows when I see “Apple tablet rumors” being posted – normally it’s the same old speculation recycled over and over again to generate hype. But after checking out the (mostly positive) reaction across the net today towards the HP Slate, I think this is gonna be a very appealing, very competitive offering against the currently-vaporware competitor from Apple (and also other tablet form-factor devices). I mean, a full fledged Windows 7 in a relatively compact and slim design… and HP’s usual touch-optimized, Touchsmart-like user friendly add-on user interface – bring it on!

Here’s the YouTube video courtesy of HP (You can watch it in HD if you like)

Up to three storage/disk drives on flagship Elitebook 8740w?!

HP has put quite a bit of effort (but not to their full potential, apparently) to spice up this year’s Elitebook 8440 and 8540 models. After pondering things over, I think making the Elitebook 8740w merely a “17 inch version” of the 8540w would be risky for HP. With 2008’s Elitebook 8530w vs Elitebook 8730w, there was plenty to justify going for the 17 inch 8730w: numeric pad, more powerful graphics card, DreamColor display and optional Quad Core.

The same can’t be done with the 8740w as two original differentiating factors: numeric pad and quad core are already standard on the 8540w, leaving graphics and the optional DreamColor display as the only reasons to settle for a bulkier, less portable 17 inch model. More things have to be introduced in the Elitebook 8740w to differentiate it from the 8540w… coincidentally, one of the negative points some critics made about the original 8730w was the lack of a second built-in hard disk bay which manycompetitors had (and whose successors still have at the moment, like the Dell Precision M6500). You could have had two hard disks spinning in your 8730w, but you had to sacrifice the optical drive for that to happen. That is why I highly suspect HP’s 2010 Elitebook 8740w will have options for up to three hard disk drives (two standard notebook storage bays; option to replace optical drive with 3rd hard disk/solid state drive).

But one of the issues would be space. The Elitebook 8730w was/is the slimmest 17 inch Mobile Workstation available (Apple MacBook Pro 17 doesn’t count because it has consumer graphics), and I get a feeling the 8740w will inherit that title from its predecessor. While some two and a half inch thick 17 inch laptops can pack two hard disks above each other or tuck them under other components, you’d have to place the hard disk bays side on the Elitebook 8740w (which is gonna be a little over an inch thin). I’ve seen what’s inside the old Elitebook 8730w before (after dissection) and if we were to assume components in the 8740w to be about the same proportions and take up a similar amount of space, HP could fit in a second hard disk bay under the left side of the palmrest. Some reshuffling would have to be done, however – relocating the Smart Card reader to above the optical drive (ala their other non-17 inch Elitebook models) is a must. The Express Card slot can remain – there is sufficient room to have the hard disk sit directly below the EC slot.

It’s good to see HP working their way “up” the model range when designing their Elitebooks. I see some manufacturers are doing the opposite, creating higher end models and then “crippling” certain features in them to create lower end variaties – I personally think this isn’t the way to go if one was to bring innovation to the table. I get a gut feeling multi-hard disk bays will be one of the many surprises HP will introduce in the Elitebook 8740w….

Next-gen 17 inch mobile workstation

It’s big. It’s bad (in a kick-butt way). It already exists. And it’s coming soon. What is it?

Here is what’s currently known about HP’s next-generation flagship Elitebook 8740w:

• Intel Core i7 standard
• 17 inch display (16:10 aspect ratio, up to 1920 x 1200 resolution)
• DreamColor display available (same as 8730w?? very likely)
• 4 DDR3 RAM slots
• 2 storage drive bays
• Reshuffled port layout
• Nvidia Quadro FX3800M graphics; 1 GB memory

What our super reliable source says about the part about the drive bays is very interesting. I wonder if it’s dual SSD or dual HDD as in two real HDD slots (ala HP Pavilion dv7, dv8, HDX18) or one HDD slot, removable optical drive for second slot (ala previous Elitebook models). Time will tell.

Dear readers: As of now, my hands have touched nothing. But if an 8740w happens to parachute down from the sky and land in my lawn, I’ll be sure to keep you all informed =)

Mobile phones – Dual to quad microSD/microSDHC slots

You know, I’ve always wondered with today’s kind of technology, why nobody has come out with such an implementation yet… with the availability of high capacity microSD/microSDHC memory cards, why not have two to four individual slots for them in a single phone (I think just about all phones currently have only one memory card slot or just a big chunk of internal memory with no expansion slot). This way, consumers and users can decide how much memory they want for their phone and, at the same time, will be able to ‘upgrade’ memory in the future as they see fit. No more dilemmas whether to buy the 16 GB or 32 GB variant of X Phone from Company A, no more having to buy the highest capacity variant of a phone in case “# GB isn’t enough”. And best of all, no more worries whether the repair guy will take a sneak peak at your phone’s contents, or if you’re the paranoid type, having to empty out your entire phone before sending it in.

I have a friend who sent in her Apple iPhone 3G last weekend (for repair) because the speakers malfunctioned and couldn’t work. Besides ranting about how she can’t survive without her iPhone (facepalm), she’s also been worried for all her personal stuff and data she keeps in there. Sure, she has the phone password-protected (which makes me wonder how the Apple repair guy is gonna diagnose the problem and test if the replacement speakers function), but the thought of having all your data in a device in someone else’s hands, away from you, would make anyone shudder, no?

From the side of a manufacturer, having multiple memory card slots in a phone along with perhaps a measly 512 MB or 1 GB (by today’s standards) of built-in memory for the phone’s core; OS and applications, would eliminate the need to market and sell multiple memory variants of a single phone (not to bring them up again, but the biggest example is what Apple is doing with their 8 GB, 16 GB and 32 GB various iPhones). Essentially having a one phone fits all solution, no pun intended. First-time/casual users can “choose” to put just a single 4 GB microSDHC card in one slot, while power users can stuff in something like 16 GB microSDHCs into all available slots.

Sure, probably the most lucrative things about having phones with built-in memory and no expansion is that manufacturers can charge whatever they like for their 8 GB phone, 16 GB phone, etc. because THEY decide the capacity and price, you only get to choose which size you’d like to purchase. But not everyone can pull off such a trick and having big profit margins pouring in. By NOT having a large amount of built-in memory, a manufacturer can probably lower the price of a phone significantly and let consumers outfit their phones with whatever amount of memory (from microSD/SDHC) they feel that they need. Now, you’ll probably be wondering why, why would a company let go of something with high profit margins like overcharging for internal memory? Simple – Market share. By making a phone more affordable to the masses, you get more users. More users mean more chatter about your brand and product, even if it’s just “average”, and if they become satisfied with your product and the user experience it brings, you might just be getting an additional sale from a repeat customer during the next round of phone announcements.

I personally think this is one of many great ways Windows Mobile phone makers (especially HP with their so-so iPAQs lately) can pull up their sales and market share once Windows Mobile 6.6 or 7.0 hits the streets. Make a good mobile phone that offers an intuitive, hassle free user experience along with versatility and expandability… while bringing “memory wars” to a totally new level, among other things (imagine a phone with four microSDHC slots; users can outfit them with 16 GB cards far cheaper than a manufacturer who builds in their own 64 GB module). Not everyone would want or need so much memory, but sometimes the features that sell are those that people think they need but don’t really use in reality.