HP Unveils New Portables, Handhelds, Plus Post-Merger Details

HP executives at the same time also revealed more details about the company's plans in the wake of merging the portable PC businesses of HP and Compaq.

HP is in the process of fully adopting Compaq's Evo line of portable PCs, said Lorena Kubera, director of North American big notebooks for HP and a former Compaq employee.

HP's Omnibook line will continue to be sold through the end of 2002, said Kubera. However, for the rest of the year, there will be no new product introductions under the Omnibook name, she said.

The dropping of the Omnibook name in favor of Evo was a matter of differences in the two vendors' product lines, Kubera said.

Compared with the EVO line, the Omnibook line was relatively limited, with only ultraportable and thin models for corporate users and a three-spindle model for the SMB space, said Kubera. The Evo line had 2.5-pound mini notebooks, 3.5-pound ultraportables, thin models, performance models, and all-in-one models, and plans to offer a Tablet PC by the end of the year, she said.

Compaq also had a stronger commonality between portable PC products, with all the different models sharing common docking stations, docking bays, memory and other components, Kubera said. "Compaq also had a bigger global perspective and is better able to support global customers," she said.

New from HP this week is the Compaq Evo Notebook N410c, with a mobile Intel Pentium III-M processor of up to 1.2GHz, 802.11b and/or Bluetooth wireless solutions, integrated 56-Kbps modem and 10/100-Gbps network interface card, USB 2.0 and a full-size keyboard. List prices start at $2,149.

Also new is the Compaq Evo Notebook N610c, a 4.8-pound model with a Pentium 4-M processor of up to 1.9GHz and 802.11b and/or Bluetooth. Prices are similar to those of the N410c.

HP unveiled the Compaq Evo Notebook N1000 series, with Pentium 4 processors of up to 2.2GHz and TFT displays of up to 15 inches diagonal. This series is aimed at the SMB space, with prices starting at $1,699.

Also new from HP are a pair of handheld PCs.

The iPaq Pocket PC H3950 is an update to its current iPaq product line and includes a Secure Digital Input-Output (SDIO) expansion slot for storing and passing data on postage-stamp-sized SD cards. With 32 Mbytes of Flash ROM, suggested price is $649. The H3970 is similar, but has a larger Flash ROM as well as integrated Bluetooth capabilities with a price of $749.

HP also unveiled the Jornada 728, similar to its previous Jornada handheld PCs, but with memory size doubled to 64 Mbytes. It also has a built-in 56-Kbps model, small keyboard and a 206MHz Intel SA1110 processor. It is priced at $999.

HP plans to keep the Jornada name for the time being, said John Brandewie, product marketing manager for the iPaq products and a former Compaq employee.

The current Jornada 560 series of handhelds PCs is expected to be phased out by the end of 2002, but the Jornada 700 series is expected to be available into next year under the Jornada name, Brandewie said.

"Further down the road, maybe by the end of 2002, the iPaq Pocket PC will be rebranded HP iPaq," he said.