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HP Elitebook 2540p and Elitebook 2740p: both official!

The new, upcoming HP Elitebook 2540p!

After months of speculation and a slip up in picture posting, HP finally made official the two new ultra-portable notebooks in their Elitebook line today. Meet the two new family members: the Elitebook 2540p ultra-portable notebook and Elitebook 2740p tablet PC. Both look like evolutionary upgrades to their predecessors announced in 2008 – on the outside, you’ll get a new partial-chiclet style keyboard, HP Night Light lamp and button consolidated into one and a low-profile, inconspicuous fingerprint reader, just like I speculated last week. The Elitebook 2740p tablet also got a change in touchpad button colors: they’re now black, instead of beige/silver on the 2730p tablet.

On the inside of both notebooks, you’ll get Intel’s latest generation of Core processors. My prediction was fairly spot on again, about those low-voltage Core i7 processors… but wait, here’s a surprise that probably none (or few) of us saw coming – both the Elitebook 2540p and Elitebook 2740p notebooks are configurable with Core i5 Mobile processors as well as a full (as in, non “low voltage” branded) Core i7 Mobile processor. Yes, that 2.66 gHz dual core Core i7 620M processor will now be available in notebooks even smaller than that compact Sony Vaio Z that everyone’s been talking about!

Now, someone could scream “hey, HP could’ve stuffed in those power-packing Core i7 Quad processors, seeing they share the same socket with the conventional Core i5 and dual Core i7!” but no, they use different sockets (there’s a variation/branch off the original socket) plus power consumption would be too high. Speaking of battery life, I wonder how the ‘new’ processors would fare in a face off against the old SL-series Intel Core 2 Duo low and ultra-low voltage processors with TDP almost twice that of the processors used by the 2530p/2730p pair, and clock speed that’s up to 20% higher (yes, true the new Core i5 and i7’s have the ability to throttle down effectively when running on battery power, but it still does make me wonder…)

Other than that, you still get pretty familiar designs, akin to the previous generation of Elitebook ultra-portables… plus the addition of a Display Port on the Elitebook 2540p. The 12 inch screen size stays put on both new notebooks, though the Elitebook 2740p now appears to support multi-touch. Choice of 1.8 inch hard disks/solid state drives on the Elitebook 2740p, plus 2.5 inch form factor varieties on the Elitebook 2540p, remain. And of course, you can attach external battery to the Elitebook 2740p tablet.

Excited yet? Unfortunately, only Intel integrated graphics are available as of now, with no [official] word or hint about discrete graphics, though there was a whisper or two about the remote possibility of dedicated graphics in the future, or never.

Check out the Elitebook 2540p specifications sheet and the Elitebook 2740p tablet specifications sheet both on HP’s official website. No prices listed yet, but word is that both notebooks will have starting prices upwards of $1000.

ATI FirePro M5800 to be based off ATI Mobility Radeon 5850?

I’m a curious person who likes doing a lot of thinking and analysis of things. And after yesterday’s revelation of an unannounced ATI FirePro M5800 card, I’ve been thinking… which consumer ATI card would be the mysterious workstation-class FirePro M5800 be based on? The answer, I suspect, lies with HP and their Elitebook 8540w. See, their current Elitebook 8540w makes available two Nvidia Quadro graphics options: the 512 MB Quadro FX880M and 1 GB Quadro FX1800M. Both are 40 nm chipsets. All of ATI’s new Mobility Radeon 5000 series graphics cards are based on the 40 nm process, plus the fact that ATI (with their recent reputation of coming out with all the good stuff) is very unlikely to use their “old” 4000-series designs for a new product… first part solved – the FirePro M5800 will be based off a card in the 5000-series.

Now, which specific card in the ATI Mobility Radeon 5000 series? The Nvidia Quadro card options for the Elitebook 8540w have bandwidth figures of 25.6 to 31.2 GB/s and TDP values of 35W and 45W respectively. So the ATI FirePro M5800 card HP has chosen should sit with specifications somewhere near those ranges. Also, the Nvidia Quadro FX1800M is a DDR3/GDDR5 card. So at first guess, one would probably suspect the ATI Mobility Radeon 5470 as the “base” of the new FirePro card, but no… it has a lower minimum bandwidth (12.8 GB/s) and significantly lower TDP (13W-15W) than the Nvidia cards.

Under the fairly accurate assumption that HP would like to keep power consumption/heat output/TDP similar to Nvidia’s cards, so to get the most out of the Elitebook 8540w’s design, the ATI FirePro M5800 will likely (with high probability) be based off the ATI Mobility Radeon 5850. The Mobility Radeon 5850 ticks all the boxes for being the perfect candidate for creating a workstation-class graphics card which matches/bests Nvidia’s top offering (FX1800M) for 15 inch notebooks – bandwidth (28.8-64 GB/s), DDR3/GDDR5, manufacturing process, TDP (30-39 W) and all are a closer match than any other graphics card that ATI has. So I’m almost 99% certain this will be it – the FirePro M5800 will be based off the ATI Mobility Radeon 5850, and time will tell if my guess is correct.

What to expect this CES 2010

It’s Tuesday already for everyone around the world except Hawaii residents. The biggest thing we’ve been hearing on the net and in the media lately is the Consumer Electronics Show 2010 (CES) being held in Las Vegas. CES is where many electronics and technology companies come out to showcase their greatest concepts and launch their latest products. For the computing sector, I’ve got a small list here of what to expect from this year’s CES:

• Pine Trail aplenty – Lots of netbooks sporting Intel’s latest N450 Pine Trail processor. While offering roughly the same 1.66 GHz clock speed compared to its predecessor, the N280 processor, this latest Intel processor sips even less power than ever and sports a marginally better integrated graphics chipset (but no, you still can’t play Modern Warfare 2 or Need for Speed Shift on your N450 netbook).
• Tablet PCs – Expect to see a lot more computer manufacturers entering the tablet fray. CES has barely begun yet we’ve already seen Lenovo come up with a “hybrid” netbook/tablet today and an accidental information burst from an internet retailer detailing HP’s upcoming Touchsmart tablet… and of course, the ever-present, ever-discussed speculation about Apple’s tablet, the iTablet (or not).
• Core i3 and i5 for notebooks – Both Intel’s Mobile Core i3 and Mobile Core i5 will finally see the day of light in many, many full-sized notebooks this year. As proven by initial benchmarking of new Core i5 processors against last year’s Core 2 models, we’re gonna see quite a speed boost from Intel’s latest with similar/less power consumption… and while it hasn’t happened yet, this is probably going to lead to the complete replacement of Core 2 “Socket P” processors by their Mobile i3/i5 counterparts. We’re already seeing Core 2 processors being phased out.
• More graphics power – ATI made a big bang last year with the 5000-series graphics cards and their famous performance benchmark numbers and have already come out with ‘notebook’ versions of their 5000-series graphics. Nvidia recently added their new GeForce 300 series graphics cards for notebooks, which offer a supposedly large leap over their predecessors. Reliable sources have also told me that there are still yet-to-be-announced Quadro Mobile variants of their GeForce 300 series for CAD work in mobile workstation models.
• Touchscreens and High Definition everywhere – With even the most basic of digital cameras about to feature 720p HD movie recording capabilities, computer manufacturers will be touting their HD features here, there and everywhere. “HD” displays, “HD” graphics, Blu-ray drives, HD this and HD that. They’ll also be quick to offer more touchscreen devices, and touchscreens on more devices. Savvy? More touchscreen phones, touchscreen LCD displays, touchscreen all-in-one computers, touchscreen tablets, optional touchscreens on notebooks (whose extra charge I would fail to justify unless a stand for holding my arm up to the screen for prolonged periods is included)…

I would say 2010 is a terrific year to go out there and shop for new gadgets; especially notebooks. With so much new and improved stuff (as in REAL, justifyable improvements), notably Mobile Core i5 and next-generation ATI/Nvidia graphics cards, getting a notebook this year would be great, because there’ll be a big leap in performance over last year’s models. And of course, who knows what other interesting things the year may bring in the tech area. I foresee lots of exciting, shiny stuff in my crystal ball