Hey, here’s a two-in-one news story about HP tablet/slate devices. The first, fairly solid rumor/announcement is that the recently released HP Touchsmart tm2 will be packed with the latest, but currently unannounced, Intel low-voltage Core i3 and Core i5 processors in a few months’ time, most likely somewhere during summer, towards the July/August period where Intel has had some history in announcing new stuff. Well, that’s great news for ‘back to school’ goers and people who can wait for a while before buying their new notebook… but probably not so great for people like me – you know, the type who wants the ‘latest and greatest’ but at the same time needs to get a new notebook pretty soon (I’m looking for an ultra-portable to replace my current HP Mini this year).
In other news, there’s whispers of a HP Slate like slate in development that will run WebOS (courtesy of buying Palm not two weeks ago). Sources are saying that mobile processors will definitely be used in this latest “Slate” (compared to the original HP Slate that will run on Intel Atom ‘netbook’ processors), though the topic as to which mobile processor is up for speculation (I’m betting some upgraded/future Snapdragon processor/Nvidia Tegra 2). Rumors from the web (which usually are less reliable, like the time that the speculated ‘HP iPaq K3 Obsidian’ turned out to be called the ‘HP iPaq Glisten’ instead) label this upcoming HP slate, the HP Hurricane. Seeing we haven’t quite gotten any names from sources yet, I guess we’ll stick to that for now – look out for further news about the HP Hurricane in the future (which will be listed under our existing HP Slate news category)
So the Elitebook 8740w didn’t exactly appear to the hungry masses last week as rumored… but there’s word that orders have already been placed for this elusive notebook, from those who know the right people.
On the consumer side of things, there have been sightings over the past week of a certain notebook melding together Envy with Touchsmart tm2 style, plus some sort of “3D” imprint and is rumored to boast the title “smallest powerful notebook”. More on that to come…
Today is the premiere day of Lady Gaga’s new music video + mini-drama (is that the word?) combo for her single “Telephone” featuring Beyonce, as you might have already noticed if you saw “Lady Gaga” and “Telephone” popping up as two of Twitter’s top trending topics several hours ago, or around the net. I would’ve posted this earlier had I not been busy completing my review of the HP Elitebook 8440p and another notebook.
And look what we have here… the HP Envy 15 Beats Edition (which, oddly, seems to have disappeared from HP’s website… hmmmm? I wonder why) makes another appearance in yet another Lady Gaga music video (a troop of Envy 15′s first appeared in “Bad Romance“)!
HP Envy 15 Beats Edition seen in Lady Gaga and Beyonce's Telephone music video
In “Telephone”, the HP Envy 15 Beats Edition appears for roughly 5 seconds in between 4:23 and 4:28 when Lady Gaga is bailed out of jail and a police officer, slacking on the job, is seen using the notebook to surf the net. See that big red Beats logo in the center… and also the small silver HP logo to the bottom left side of the notebook?
HP Envy 15 Beats Edition shown running Windows 7 and Firefox in Gaga's "Telephone" music video
The camera zooms into the screen of the HP Envy 15 Beats Edition at around 4:27, showing some dating website the old lady is visiting. Okay… Moving on… While the “dating website” is obviously some fictional site oops, turns out even the dating website is real and part of product placement in this almost-ad-filled music video (thanks, Robert!)… we can also spot other things in the HP Envy 15′s screen in Lady Gaga’s music video; notably using Windows 7 (and the default Windows 7 background) and Mozilla Firefox!
HP Envy 15 Beats Edition product picture
Oh, and before you skip off to watch “Telephone” by Lady Gaga, and featuring Beyonce, two things you have to keep in mind are… One, not recommended for kids to watch it (if you read gossip and celebrity tabloids and the news in general, you’d probably understand why Lady Gaga is a somewhat controversial woman) and two, the music video is filled with product placements from various companies/brands scattered throughout its nine-and-a-half minute length… which might actually scare people because of the sheer amount of product placement in the video is the most I’ve ever seen in a music video.
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!
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.
