HP Drops Plenty Of PC Product On CES

HP's other major unveilings at CES include a pair of new Pavilion notebooks, a more customizable TouchSmart PC and the company's latest netbook entry, the HP Mini 2140. The new Pavilion dv2 and Pavilion dv3 magnesium-encased laptops -- HP calls them "Entertainment Notebook PCs" -- are built on custom-designed processor platforms from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Advanced Micro Devices. HP and AMD think they're on to something big with these thin, light laptops, priced strategically in the $700-$800 "sweet spot" where there isn't a lot of competition from other notebook vendors, according to Bahr Mahoney, director of AMD's Mobile Business unit.

The 12.1-inch Pavilion dv2 features AMD's Athlon Neo platform with discrete graphics, weighs 3.8 pounds and has hard drive options up to 500GB. HP will make it available in April for $699. The 13.3-inch Pavilion dv2 is available now for $799 and is a bit more robust at 4.35 pounds while packing AMD's Turion Ultra X2 hardware. Both notebooks come with HP's MediaSmart software.

HP's touchscreen lineup also got an upgrade in time for CES, as did the company's Windows Home Server product, the HP MediaSmart Center -- which was actually unveiled at the earlier MacWorld Expo in San Francisco rather than in Las Vegas.

With its latest additions to its TouchSmart PC offerings, HP has boosted the configurability of the home version while adding a commercially-targeted version called the HP dx9000 TouchSmart Business PC to the lineup. It's pre-loaded with Microsoft Windows Vista Business 64 and the basic configuration features an Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 processor, 4GB of memory, a 320GB high-speed hard drive, a VLAN driver and, of course, a full touch-screen graphic interface on its 22-inch hi-def widescreen HP BrightView LCD display.

The dx9000 will be available next month starting at $1,399.

The last in HP's lineup of major CES system unveilings is the 10.1-inch HP Mini 2140 netbook, set for availability later in January. The 2140 has an Intel Atom processor inside, weighs 2.6 pounds and will be priced at $499 -- $200 less than the fashion-oriented Vivienne Tam Edition of the Mini 1000 released late last year.

HP is exhibiting at CES at Booth No. 31112 in the South Hall's upper level.