HP Envy 15 Beats Edition in Lady Gaga's music video
So I had meant to post this ages ago but due to a combination of Christmas, lots of HP notebook rumors this month and other things that take precedence in terms of priority, I’m only posting this now. Four HP Envy 15 Beats edition notebooks were recently featured in Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance single video.
Camera zooms into two Envy's at 2:45
The Core i7 Mobile packing, ATI Mobility Radeon 4830 blazing luxury/premium notebooks had about three seconds (2:44 to 2:46) of screen time. The Beats by Dr Dre headphones also made its appearance, draped on the third Envy 15 Beats notebook in the video at 2:44. This same pair of headphones is part of the “limited edition” HP Envy 15 Beats package.
Another better view of the HP Envy 15 Beats in the Bad Romance video
Compared to the “regular” HP Envy 15, the Envy 15 Beats Edition is essentially the same notebook inside with “Beats” branding, black casing design (regular Envy is silver/beige-ish) and includes the mentioned Beats by Dr Dre headphones and Traktor DJ software for… well, DJ’s to do their thing with music tracks.
HP Envy 15 Beats Edition product picture
Oh, before you rush out there to place your order for one “just because Lady Gaga has four”, the Envy 15 Beats Edition also gets a $500 price premium slapped on top of the price of a regular Envy. Food for thought. Okay, given not everyone’s a fan of Lady Gaga, at least you can relate to playing games like Left4Dead on full HD/max everything at 60 FPS on HP’s slimmest Core i7 notebook. Right? Have a great New Year’s eve folks!
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!)
HP iPAQ K3, the picture that's been floating around the net for the past 24 hours
Remember when details about the HP iPAQ K3 ‘Obsidian’ first came out precisely two months ago? Well, apparently someone got their hands on an ACTUAL iPAQ K3 with AT&T branding (instead of the computer-rendered images we first saw) and now pictures, like the one you see above, are flying around the net like crazy. Ignore the old details in the post in May, and check out the latest details over here – it’s now clearer that the iPAQ K3 will succeed the old iPAQ 900 Business Messenger, with the main changes being a swap from a touchscreen LCD to a new OLED touchscreen on the K3 (though the 2.46 inch diagonal still remains), upgrade to a 528 MHz processor, two separate ports for micro USB and 3.5 mm headphone jack respectively (replaces the yucky, old combo mini USB port) and of course, it’ll be HP’s first iPAQ to feature Windows Mobile 6.5. The iPAQ K3 will also feature a new, classier design, which looks like a gazillion times better than the all-gloss black plastic design of the old iPAQ 900.
In other areas, the iPAQ K3 will have WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, a microSD expansion slot, 3.2 megapixel camera – things you’d expect in a typical business-oriented Pocket PC device. It’ll also have 256 MB RAM and 512 MB ROM, but strangely, there’s no mention of HP’s own ‘Windows Mobile interface’… maybe later as K3′s release in November approaches.
Word about the new HP iPAQ K3 “Obsidian” came out today (courtesy of AT&T) and it looks like another step towards the better, I think. On paper and pictures, the new iPAQ K3 looks like the middle child of the iPAQ 912 Business Messenger and the recent iPAQ Data Messenger. There’s the iPAQ 912′s form factor here (if you’ve never seen one, think Nokia E71) along with a QWERTY keyboard… and from the Data Messenger’s genes come a 2.8 inch (supposedly touchscreen) LCD, microSD/microSDHC support and proximity + ambient light sensor. There are the usual culprits you’d expect to find on a smartphone – WiFi, Bluetooth, A-GPS, data syncing, etc.
The two key changes here are: Windows Mobile 6.5 and a 3.5 mm headphone jack (whew, thought I’d never see it again since the days of the iPAQ h6310). Congratulations HP, that’s a step in the right direction – bring back the standard 3.5 mm headphone jack!! It seems just about every phone nowadays has one, and I’m glad HP actually listens and is not ignorant to change (the reason why Sony Ericsson/Motorola = Fail). The only not-so-good item on paper I see here is a 2 megapixel fixed focus camera (Why oh why?!).
No, I won’t be surrendering my Data Messenger for the iPAQ K3 – I’ll be holding out until HP releases a full WVGA touchscreen, Windows Mobile 6.5 phone, when someone loans it to me, whenever that may be…
Based on my extensive usage and testing of the HP Elitebook 8730w (2.53 GHz dual core, 4 GB RAM, 17 inch DreamColor screen, Windows Vista Business, Nvidia Quadro FX3700M 1GB workstation graphics) since November, I’ve come up with a list of battery life numbers that can be achieved using this Mobile Workstation notebook PC. Using the included primary battery:
- Gaming – 1 hour (Display at the brightest setting, high performance mode)
- Graphics rendering – 1 hour 30 minutes
- Adobe Photoshop CS4 continuous use – 1 hour 40 minutes
- High-definition movie playback – 1 hour 40 minutes (Display at the brightest setting)
- Documents, excel and casual web surfing – 2 hours 30 minutes
- Combined usage (Some documents and typing, music through headphones and Photoshop CS4) – 2 hours (Display at medium brightness, balanced power mode)
These numbers were recorded when the battery ran down to 3% and Windows went into sleep mode. The battery life numbers have also been rounded down to the nearest 10 minutes.
So there you have it; now you know what to expect from the HP Elitebook 8730w when performing specific tasks. Adding on a secondary battery, that is HP’s Extended Battery option, will effectively double those numbers listed above.
