Remember that leak a few days ago about a new HP Pavilion notebook, Compaq netbook and four Pavilion Elite desktops from a retailer who sounded like they knew some stuff, but at the same time, were also putting in some guesswork of their own? Turns out they were right about the NUMBER of new products and product pictures, but they seem to be off about product names and were most likely, really half-guessing some of the specifications (and price, since HP as of now has no official pricing available).
Rightfully, the products announced today are the Pavilion Elite 110, 120, 130 and 170. They come in a variety of flavors: choose from AMD or Intel processors, with various quad core choices, up to 24 GB total DDR3 RAM, up to 2 TB of hard disk storage (though number of hard disk bays is unknown), and Nvidia or ATI graphics cards… take your pick! Other than that, details seem to be comparatively scarce compared to the netbooks/new Touchsmart tablet launched today. HP has also yet to decide on pricing and availability
Well, HP didn’t make any announcement or press release of the HP Mini 210 consumer netbook but it’s almost everywhere on the net already, even some online stores are taking orders. What’s funny is HP also has had a support page for the Mini 210 for a few days now. I wonder what’s up. Anyhow, here are the specifictions of HP’s Atom N450 running, buttonless trackpad sporting netbook for 2010:
- Intel Atom N450 AKA Pine Trail processor (Single core running at 1.66 GHz)
- Built in graphics (Integrated)
- 10.1 inch display
- 1 DDR2 RAM slot for either 1 GB or 2 GB sticks; model variations supporting DDR3 RAM unconfirmed
- 2.5 inch notebook hard disk with capacities up to 250 GB
- Chiclet keyboard first seen on the HP Mini 5101 business netbook; now with super-sized arrow keys
- Built-in front-facing stereo speakers
- Button-less trackpad ala HP Envy 13/Envy 15 and Apple’s Macbooks
The HP Mini 210 also has a variety of ports you’ll commonly find on netbooks: including a VGA port, 3 USB 2.0 ports (no powered USB like the Mini 5101 though), audio out port for your headphones/speakers, SD slot and LAN port.
I remember that it was just last year that I was using a HP iPAQ 600 and I installed like a gazillion apps into it and modded the heck out of its user interface. I’ve been using the iPAQ Data Messenger for about 6 months now and have been doing about the same. Today, I just tried to update my ancient v0.94 Throttle Launcher to the latest v1.0 RC3 version, at first rather unsuccessfully. But after a few reboots and file transfers later, things were working again. Sadly, the new Touch FLO 3D interface for Throttle Launcher displayed the fonts and formatting in a messed up manner… and frustrated, I uninstalled the whole package all together. Maybe I’ll put back the old v0.94 again one day (but I remember it wasn’t easy to set that one up either).
Over the last couple of weeks, my iPAQ Data Messenger hasn’t been too healthy – half of its storage memory disappeared for no reason (and I can’t seem to get it back), battery life isn’t as great anymore compared to when I first received it, using my own 3.5 mm headphones with an adapter is a hit or miss affair (sometimes the phone detects it, sometimes not) and the entire slide-out keyboard is feeling unresponsive – I now have to literally mash down at each key when typing out an SMS, it’s both frustrating and painful. I don’t know if I’m just fed up with Windows Mobile 6.1, the Data Messenger or both, but I’ve been using the iPAQ as ‘just a regular phone’ to make calls and text (painfully) these few days. I haven’t been typing anything, articles, reports, blog posts, etc except text messages and brief One Note files for the last few weeks thanks to the keyboard issue – strange, because every key is unresponsive, including those like the Symbol and Windows Start menu keys which I have almost never used.
Right now, I am impatiently waiting for iPAQ Season in October/November and having high hopes that HP will release some revolutionary iPAQ models (or at least models that are up-to-date with the competition) for 2010. I’m also looking forward to the day someone (Microsoft or not) comes out with a unified App Store for Windows Mobile to encourage developers to make more apps once again for the REAL business smartphone OS. I’m starting to find Windows Mobile apps rather stale as everyone gushes over to develop apps for Android and iPhone – isn’t that sad?
I’m feeling less enthusiastic using the Data Messengers these days but I guess I’m forced to hold out… until a better iPAQ comes along, whenever that may be.
On a more positive note, I managed to install the latest S2U2 AKA Slide to Unlock app for Windows Mobile, recommended by Luke, and it works flawlessly (See my home screen above!)
Windows 7 Quick Scan is super-fast even on a HP Pavilion dv2!
Updated with a screenshot from the Pavilion dv2′s Windows Action Center/Windows Defender
Me and a friend have been testing the HP Pavilion dv2 ultra-portable notebook PC (featuring AMD’s Athlon Neo single-core processor and 512 MB of ATI graphics) for several weeks now and honestly, it rocks. Despite having an anemic-sounding 1.6 GHz processor, this thing runs like a champ. HP dv2: A typical Windows Defender scan of its 250 GB hard disk on Windows 7 takes about two minutes! In contrast, my HP Mini running Windows Vista with a 160 GB disk takes 30 to 40 minutes for Windows Defender to do an equivalent scan.
And let’s not even get started on how the Pavilion dv2 can run modern games (like Left4Dead and Call of Duty 5) on 1280 x 800 resolution (albeit at low settings, but extremely smooth frame rates)… I’ll talk about that in a few days’ time once I get some benchmark numbers.
I’ve been running AVG Free alongside the built-in Windows firewall for Vista (and recently, Windows 7) since 2007 and my system is always clean. Yup, Windows is quite secure as long as you’re visiting ‘good’ websites!
