PCs, Notebooks And More At HP's Connecting Your World Conference

Push To Touch

HP hopes its line of TouchSmart PCs, positioned as the top consumer product of the HP Connecting Your World Conference, will revolutionize the home computing experience.

Based around software designed specifically for touch interaction, consumers can use their fingers to tap and drag icons, photos, songs and other media across the 22-inch high-definition widescreen display. The desktop also offers a thin wireless keyboard, integrated WLAN and an adjustable screen. Users can also upload homemade videos directly to YouTube and use the touch sensitivity to crop and edit photos. The TouchSmart comes in two versions, the IQ504 for $1,299 and the IQ506, with a TV tuner and a larger hard drive, retails for $1,499. Office In Your Pocket

The HP iPAQ 914 Series Business Messenger will be the latest entry into the crowded smartphone market when it debuts in the EMEA market on June 30. The iPAQ runs on Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional and uses tri-band UMTS/HSDPA and quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE wireless technology for worldwide phone and Internet access. Snap-happy suits will be pleased to know a 3-megapixal digital camera comes with the iPAQ, as well as the ability to instantly upload photos to online digital photo sites. HP Brings Envy To Market

HP revived its dormant Voodoo notebook brand to find its answer to the MacBook Air, the Voodoo Envy 133. The Envy, 0.70 inches thick and weighing less than 3.4 pounds, offers some features Apple didn't include in their laptop, including a removable battery and a carbon-fiber microweave case. HP also managed to squeeze in two USB ports and relocated the Ethernet port to the power brick. The Envy 133 includes a 13.3-inch backlit LED display. Available in black or Voodoo Allure paint finishes with optional laser engraving, the Envy starts at $2,099. Elite Aspirations

The flagship of HP's new line of business notebooks, the EliteBook 6930p Notebook PC offers what HP calls "aircraft-inspired design" with a magnesium alloy chassis, a brushed anodized-aluminum exterior and reinforced metal pins and hooks. The EliteBook weighs 4.7 pounds, offers a 14.1-inch diagonal widescreen display and provides up to 15 hours of battery life. HP says the Elite is designed for the corporate road warrior and has upgraded durability accordingly, using the military test standard MIL-STD 810F. Available in late July, the EliteBook series is expected to have a starting price of $1,179. Color Them Impressed

HP is calling the DreamColor 2480xz the "the world's first affordable color-critical display," with an estimated list price of $3,499. HP hopes to capture two markets with one product -- the professional market, in industries where color-management is critical, and the high-end consumer market. HP says the DreamColor display achieves more than 64 times the colors available on mainstream LCDs, with reds, blues and greens visibly deeper and blacks that are four times darker. It is the first display to be introduced under the HP DreamColor Technology initiative, a two-year technology collaboration between HP and DreamWorks Animation. Fresh Pavilion Styles

HP's huge laptop showcase included three models in the Pavilion notebook line, the Pavilion dv4, dv5 and dv7. New to each is a "Mesh Imprint" liquid metallic finish, one-click access to TV, photos, music and movies and a "frameless" display option HP calls BrightView Infinity. All Pavilion models also include a hard drive accelerometer to protect data if the laptop is dropped. The entire line also received an HDMI port and the option for a Blu-ray ROM drive. Hear, There and Everywhere

The MediaSmart Server allows users to access media files like music and photos through any Internet-connected computer, with two models offering 500 gigabyte and 1 terabyte capacities, respectively. The server, currently available online and in select retail stores in the U.S., uses the AMD Live! 1.8-GHz 64-bit Sempron processor, two internal hard drives and comes bundled with a trial copy and one free update of anti-virus software from McAfee, as well as iTunes server software. Both the Media Vault and the Server are aimed at digital enthusiasts who have collected and created a large amount of media content currently spread over several computers. The MediaSmart Server retails for $599 for the 500GB model and $749 for the 1TB model. A Good Omen For High Performance

Along with the Envy, Voodoo launched the redesigned Omen desktop, designed for the hard-core performance enthusiasts. The Omen features a 7-inch auxiliary LCD, which can be used as a second display, and copper liquid cooling pipes with quick-release hose connectors. Voodoo designed the casing and interior components so no tools would be required to disassemble it. A sophisticated cooling system keeps the system running quietly even at high levels of performance, and battery powered interior lighting allows upgrade installation while the computer is unplugged. With a suggested starting price of around $7,000, the audience may be limited, but the level of customization, which ranges from paint color to coordinated peripherals, is not. Bringing Business Back, Yeah!

While it may not offer quite the same durability standards or panache of the EliteBook, HP's "b-series" line of business notebooks, like the 6735b pictured here, still offer features like scratch-resistant DuraFinish and environmentally sensitive features, like an optional mercury-free Illumi-Lite LED display, which is also lighter. A large display size (up to 15.4 inches) gives professionals who need a bigger screen more visual workspace, and the magnesium alloy support structure offers improved support. The 6730b and the 6735b launch in the EMEA market at the end of July. They Always Keep a Compaq in Berlin

HP also unveiled three revamped Compaq Presario models at the conference, including the CQ45, which includes a built-in TV tuner for its 14.1-inch display, as well as a Blu-ray drive option. The CQ40 offers a more basic feature set but is otherwise nearly identical to the CQ45. The 15.4-inch CQ50 sacrifices speed (only 2GB of RAM) for a low price point, which starts at $499.