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HP Mini 210 Vivienne Tam edition announced

HP Mini 210 Vivienne Tam edition

Get this, less than five days after HP announced their new Elitebook 2540p, 2740p and new ProBooks, they made another separate announcement today! This time it’s the successor to the Mini 1000 Vivienne Tam consumer-designer netbook – introducing the HP Mini 210 Vivienne Tam edition. This new designer netbook features a special Butterfly design(one of those love-hate things) on the lid and all-gold (just paint of course, not real gold) casing, and will be available for $600 in the near future. Other specifications like that Atom N450 processor, 1 RAM slot and other things are exactly the same as you would find on a regular HP Mini 210. Like butterflies and gold? Then the HP Mini 210 Vivienne Tam edition is probably your dream come true (at a small price premium over a conventional Mini 210 of course!)

Spotted: Next-gen HP Elitebook 8440w/8540w in real life and online

Photo sent by reader Michael K; next-gen Elitebook using HP's 'round' logo

One of our readers, Michael K, recently sent in two pictures of what seems to be one of HP’s next generation Elitebook models. Clad in a dark gray, and what seems to be metal/magnesium alloy, casing – this mysterious machine seems to be either the 14 inch Elitebook 8440w model or 15 inch Elitebook 8540w (judging by the amount of real estate on the palm rest area, it’s unlikely that this is the 17 inch Elitebook 8740w). UPDATE: Fellow Tweeter and owner of 8510w/8530w notebooks, Nicholas C, notes that the picture below is indeed the 14 inch Elitebook 8440w because of its mouse buttons – the larger 15 inch Elitebook 8540w would have an additional ‘center’ mouse button like its predecessors. Thanks Nicholas! =)

This ties in with the yet-to-be-announced ‘Elitebook 8440w, 8540w and 8740w’ models, which are strangely listed on HP’s own website. There’s also some blurry-looking text inscribed on the left palmrest area but knowing several people who own Elitebook 8530w and 8730w notebooks, I’m pretty sure it says “Mobile Workstation”.

Photo sent by reader Michael K; next-gen Elitebook (pretty sure that text on the left says 'Mobile Workstation')

This Elitebook is HP’s latest – because any HP fan (such as myself) would know that HP has been using their ’round’ logo on Winter 2008-onwards models (HP started replacing their ’square’ logo with the ’round’ one with the Mini 1000, if I’m not mistaken). All of HP’s current 2008 Elitebook models feature silver bodies and their ’square’ logo.

HP's OLD 'square' logo on a friend's 2008 Elitebook 2530p

He also goes on to mention a few juicy details on what “standard features” to expect from HP’s next-gen, 2009 Elitebooks:

• Core i7 “will be available for all models”
• “New” Nvidia Quadro FX Mobile workstation graphics for “w”-variants
• HP DuraCase, DuraKeys, 3D Drive Guard
• 7200 RPM hard disks standard
• Single HP Night Light (no backlit keyboard)
• VGA and Display Port output ports; no HDMI
• HP Power Assistant power management software
• Same batteries from current generation Elitebook models; 2nd extended battery available

Michael also points out that the new Elitebooks will feature yet-to-be-announced Nvidia workstation-class graphics cards for notebooks.

Core i7 will be available as an option for “all models”, I wonder if that includes the 8440p/w 14 inch model? Will this year’s generation of Elitebooks feature incremental upgrades or will they be ‘category crushers’ that blow away the competition?

Screenshot of HP's official website showing Elitebook 8440w (click for larger)

In other news, another one of our readers, Dana, has just pointed out that driver and support pages along with profile pictures (!!!) for the HP Elitebook 8440w and Elitebook 8540w Mobile Workstation models are already online on HP’s OFFICIAL website! Check them out here for the Elitebook 8440w and here for the Elitebook 8540w. No news on announcement date but seeing those pages are already up on HP’s website, I would imagine that it won’t take long before they become official. I would also infer from the tip about Nvidia’s new graphics cards that HP’s announcement of their 2nd generation Elitebook models will come after or at the same time Nvidia makes their announcements, I guess?

Elitebook 8440p, 8440w, 8540p, 8540w and 8740w models listed on HP's official site (Click for larger)

Either way, I can’t wait for official news (and an official announcement date?). Do YOU know something that we all don’t? Post tips in the comments section.

HP Elitebook 8730w and HP Mini 1000

Here we go again, sitting on the Elitebook 8730w’s lap. On Saturday it was the Elitebook 8730w and the Mini Note 2133. This time it’s the HP Mini 1000, pretty much the same as the comparison last week except the 2133 looked like a “mini-me” of the Elitebook 8730w in that picture – the aluminum design of the Mini Note is a whole lot like the 8730w’s magnesium alloy construction. The HP Mini 1000 isn’t switched on in the picture above; the battery was out of juice after roughly 2.5 hours of usage.

8.9 inch vs 10 inch netbook LCD displays

Phew I just came up from taking pictures of two of HP’s netbooks aka mini notebooks side-by-side (namely the new HP Mini 1000 and HP Mini Note 2133), and snapping the HP Mini 1000 all over. So this picture actually demonstrates the difference between the common LCD screen sizes available for netbooks; which are 8.9 inch and 10.2 inch displays. The ten inch display has a fairly noticeable size difference compared to the 8.9 inch one, even if they weren’t placed side-by-side as in this comparison.

The HP Mini 1000 (the black notebook on the left) features a 10.2 inch LCD display while the HP Mini Note 2133 (the silver notebook on the right) has an 8.9 inch LCD display. Although its screen is smaller, the HP Mini Note 2133 has a high-resolution display, so the icons appear smaller.

Also, in case you haven’t noticed, that’s the very smexy Voodoo theme with background I’m using there on the HP Mini Note 2133.