HP Pavilion dv2, ultra-portable that’s powerful
What’s about as thin as a HP iPAQ, has the surface area of a text book yet still can play modern games and 1080p HD movies? More stuff on the HP Pavilion dv2 coming soon…
Posts tagged: portable
HP Pavilion dv7 featured in Microsoft’s latest ad
The HP Pavilion dv7 was recently featured in Microsoft’s latest “Lauren and the under-$1000 17 inch laptop ad“. As usual, many Apple/Mac fanboys are screaming and trying to enforce “Windows PCs are rubbish”, yet again. Is that not surprising? Somebody actually said the $699 HP Pavilion dv7 is a, quote, “crappy budget notebook”… excuse me? The HP Pavilion dv7 is a very capable notebook – you can watch videos, play games (intensive ones included) and do a whole lot of things on it; it’s nowhere CLOSE to being a “crappy budget notebook”. Did anyone read about a certain brand’s PC hard disks failing because of using the built-in speakers at a loud volume (hint: it’s not HP); now they are the real makers of really cheap notebooks, in all senses of the word.
Back to the point… people should just face the facts: ANY other notebook PC is priced much lower, with better specifications, than an “equivalent” Apple Mac/Macbook computer. True, even I would agree that the advertisement may be somewhat “stretched” in the sense most people won’t shop for their notebook based on screen size alone, but here’s a real life experience from me: A friend of mine, Steven, has been looking for a decent notebook PC priced around $900. He’s in college right now and wants something that he can use for documents, surfing the web and also for watching movies as well as some gaming (he wants to be able to run games like Left 4 Dead and Call of Duty 4 and 5 at decent quality settings and frame rate).
He’s not asking for a massive screen (in fact he prefers a 14 to 15 inch LCD as a nice compromise between portability and screen viewability) but he’s quite particular about the graphics and gaming part there. Here’s a comparison of the HP Pavilion dv4 notebook PC versus the unibody Macbook (click for larger):
Upper left: HP Online Store, Lower left: Apple Online Store, Right: Excel comparison table (As of March 30, 2009)
A HP Pavilion dv4 with a 2.4 GHz processor, 3 GB of RAM, 320 GB hard disk, 512 MB Nvidia GeForce G105M graphics and 14 inch screen would run you roughly $925.
A Macbook (Unibody model) with a 2.4 GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM, 320 GB hard disk, 256 MB Nvidia 9400M graphics and 13 inch screen would cost about $1600!!!
Turns out a *similar* Macbook would cost almost $700 extra while having inferior graphics, a smaller LCD and 1 GB RAM less than the HP. Hey, point proven. And the higher you go, the larger the price difference between a Windows computer and a *similar* Apple computer.
He’s already checked out other “Windows PC” options and likes the HP Pavilion dv4′s build quality and design better versus the others; and is currently waiting for any additional/potential “summer specials” before springing for the notebook.
UPDATE (April 2009): Steven finally bought a laptop after much comparison and shopping around; he got a good deal on a HP Pavilion dv3000 and went for that, instead of the dv4 he was planning for.
Vaio P netbook – Heaven for pickpockets?
In other news… with the Sony Vaio P already shipping, Sony has been putting that “fits in your pants pocket” concept everywhere, including propping up a mannequin wearing a pair of Levi’s shorts with a Vaio P front plate (means it’s just the lid of the netbook and not as thin as it looks in the picture above) in the back pocket. Sure it’s nice to have a little netbook that you can bring along everywhere and quickly whip out at the coffeeshop to blog a bit, tweet a little and type out some short articles… but that got me thinking as well – is it even PRACTICAL to have a netbook which fits (though not entirely) in terms of width, but sticks half-way out of your pocket?
What do you do when sitting down? How about when you’re walking around? The netbook isn’t exactly so slim that it blends in… and it sticks out half-way too (see the picture above). Well, it gives a whole new definition to the word “Square Pants”, doesn’t it? How about pickpockets? Common sense tells me bringing your expensive netbook out for a walk, in this manner, will make you one of the primary targets of a pickpocket (imagine; shiny overpriced netbook sticking out of the back of someone’s pocket); next to the guy holding two smartphones in his hand strolling without a care in the world to the nearest diner. Intriguing questions and true situations, no?
