Notebooks Built to Last Longer

By Shyla Sangaran

HEWlETT-PACKARD Co has unveiled a new series of mobile notebooks built to last longer. The seven models in the series are the HP Compaq 2510p, 2710p, 6510b, 6710, 6910p, 8510p and 8710p.

According to HP Asia Pacific and japan’s manager, product marketing, mobile business unit, personal systems group Phil Devlin, the new lineup offers Intel Centrino Pro Mobile technology capabilities in the form of built-in remote manageability and proactive security.

To take advantage of these new capabilities, customers can use HP’s Out of Band Management Console, a component of HP Software’s PC Configuration Management Solution, to reduce the need for desk-side visits, to protect against malware attacks and to help make sure that critical management agents are up and running.

Devlin said the notebooks also include HP security innovations such as Drive Encryption for HP ProtectTools, a fullvolume encryption technology that renders the hard drive unreadable if the notebook or hard drive is lost or stolen. For additional security enhancements, customers can select models pre-loaded with Microsoft Windows Vista.

“To improve reliability, HP integrates features such as HP DuraKeys, which are up to 50 times more resistant to visible wear than competitor keyboards without them,” he added.

The notebooks also sport ease-of-use features such as HP Quicklook, which with a touch of a button allows users to browse e- mail, calendar and contact information in as fast as 10 seconds.

In addition to mobile broadband, the models offer convenient connectivity solutions, including nextgeneration 802.11n (draft) wireless local area network and Bluetooth technologies.

According to Devlin, to simplify product selection for business customers, HP business notebook model numbers are now based on three product groupings – ultra-light (2000), Balanced Mobility (6000) and High Performance (8000).

HP is also introducing four feature packages in its business notebooks – standard (s), business (b), professional (p) and workstation (w) – so customers can easily identify the feature set that best aligns with their needs.

For example, the ultralight business notebooks include the 2710p. Weighing only 1.65 kilograms, the sleek, ultra-thin convertible tablet sports an innovative design. With a twist of the screen, it transforms from an ultra-light notebook PC into a pen-based tablet. An optional ultra-slim battery accessory allows the user to enjoy up to 10 combined hours of battery life, and a convenient ultra-slim docking solution features an integrated DVD+/-RW drive.

In addition, it offers an optional integrated camera for convenient video conferencing and image capture, HP Nightlight on the keyboard to improve visibility in low light conditions, and an integrated business card reader software.

Meanwhile, the 2510p is HP’s smallest and lightest business notebook, weighing only 1.3kg, with an integrated optical drive. The dual-pointing devices, both a touchpad with scroll zone and pointstick, offer the user greater flexibility. As with the tablet, the Illumi-lite display improves battery life by up to 90 minutes over a notebook with traditional backlighting, and the user has a choice of Intel Core 2 Duo ultra low Voltage processors to further optimise power consumption.

The Balanced Mobility group includes the 6910p. With battery life of up to five hours and 45 minutes and a starting weight of only 2kg, the notebook is designed for on-the-move productivity. The ultra-slim MultiBay II drive bay allows the user to swap optical drives for increased storage or optimal travel weight.

Next, the 6710 series offers a large display, value and extensive connectivity. It features a 15.4-inch diagonal wide-screen display with a choice of anti-glare or HP BrightView display options.

The 6510b promises greater mobility. It boasts a low-profile 14.1- inch diagonal wide-screen display that offers 30 per cent more viewing content than the standard 15-inch diagonal extended graphics array display.

As for high-performance business notebooks, the 8710 series is HP’s most powerful business notebook PC and mobile workstation with the highest-end, independent software vendor-certified NVidia 3D graphics, a high- resolution 17-inch diagonal widescreen display and a full-sized keyboard with numeric pad. Power users can work in a true 64-bit computing environment with support for up to four gigabytes (gB) of memory to run the most demanding applications.

The mobile workstation offers HP Performance Tuning Framework, a free, easy-to-use tool that guides workstation setup and custom- configures the workstation to better match user requirements.

Having said this, the 8510 series offers a choice of graphics cards from ATI and NVidia in a 2.77kg highly mobile design. The user also can develop, record, rewrite and play back high-definition video as well as store up to 50gB of data, with optional Blu-ray DVD+/-RW SuperMulti Dl Drive with any of the new high-performance notebook PCs and mobile workstations.

(c) 2007 New Straits Times. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.