David Flynn11 June 2008, 11:00 AM
HP’s new ultra-mobile 13.3in notebook joins the thin brigade with an 1.8cm profile but more ports and features than Apple’s iconic Air
Could HP’s newest notebook live up to its name and induce stirrings of envy among the owners of the MacBook Air?
While the Voodoo Envy 133 plays a technological trump card over Apple’s skinny sub-note by shaving off a mere 1.5mm from the Air’s anorexic profile, there’s also some sleight of hand in HP’s claim that they’ve knocked the Air off its shiny podium of being “the world’s thinnest notebook’.
The Envy slinked on stage at HP’s Connecting Your World media event, being held in Berlin this week, joining the TouchSmart IQ500 touchscreen desktop PC as HP unveils its ‘Summer 2008’ lineup of an insane 17 notebooks plus a new 24in desktop monitor, a BlackBerry-styled iPAQ smartphone and four new calculators (we kid you not about the later – HP takes this stuff seriously, you know).
We’ll admit that 1.5mm is the tiniest of differences, and we’re sure HP’s designers had the micrometre out at every step of the way, ever-mindful of trimming every possible fraction off the dimensions of the Air.
However, while the Envy is 1.8cm thick compared to the Air’s 1.94cm rear end, the Air’s wedge design tapers down to a near-invisible leading edge of just 0.4cm whereas the Edge’s conventional ‘squared slab’ form factor is a constant 1.8cm from bow to stern.
That doesn’t detract one whit from the Envy’s superb design, but it doesn’t exactly send the MacBook Air or Lenovo’s ThinkPad X300 running away in tears.
However, the Envy 133 (the name is derived from the backlit LED 13.3in widecsreen display)
does boast a few things the Air lacks. There’s a second USB port (which doubles as an e-SATA connector), HDMI video output (with a HDMI-VGA adaptor thrown into the box), integrated 3G HSDPA mobile broadband and a replaceable battery. HP also includes an external USB optical drive, and while other tech specs are thin on the ground (no pun intended), we’re told users will be able to choose between a hard drive and SSD flash drive.
Also unknown is what Intel processor has been shoehorned into the Envy’s high-gloss carbon fibre chassis (available in a variety of colours and patterns). While the MacBook Air and ThinkPad X300 both use the 65nm Santa Ynez ‘mini-Merom’ package, the Envy won’t makes its US debut until northern summer (starting at US$2,099, or AU$2,210). This date directly follows the Centrino 2 launch in mid-July, so the Envy could possibly be built around one of Intel’s fresh-from-the oven 45nm ‘small package processors’, aka the
pint-sized Penryns.
There’s more coolness and cleverness crammed under the hood. A proximity sensor recognises when your fingers are on the keyboard and temporarily turns off the multi-touch touchpad so an accidental brushing of the trackpad won’t result in the cursor doing poltergeist-like leaps around the screen.
HP has also joined Asus in licensing the embedded Linux-based
Splashtop ‘instant on’ OS so you can browse the Web and make Skype calls without having to wait for Windows Vista to get its Aero glass arse into gear.
And while the Envy doesn’t have room for an on-board Ethernet port, you’ve got to admire HP’s canny solution: there’s an Ethernet jack and tiny Wi-Fi radio baked in the power brick. Plug a network cable into the port and software on the Envy creates an ‘ad hoc’ point-to-point connection between the hard-wired cable connection and the Envy’s 802.11n radio. The connection remains even if you unplug from the power brick so you can use the Envy on your lounge, bed or balcony. The power brick’s radio is likely to be 11b or 11g at best, but that’s still enough for most users.
Top all that off with a backlit keyboard and ambient light sensor to automatically adjust the display’s brightness, and Envy is indeed the operative word, even if it just applies to the 90% of PC owners.