Hewlett Packard’s new “Envy” line of laptops is sleek and stylish, and according to PC World, looks a lot like Apple’s MacBook Pro line.
The 13.1 inch model or the “Envy 13” has a sharp 1366 x 768 pixel screen and lots of power for its small frame. For $1700, you get a 1.86GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SL9400 CPU with 3GB of RAM (including an extra DIMM slot), plus a 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 GPU. For low-end tasks, the laptop throttles the GPU and shifts down to the integrated Intel GPU, extending battery life.
The thin 12.6 x 8.5 x 0.8 inch frame contains a 250 GB had drive and an external 8x DVD-RW drive. It provides two batteries: the standard four-cell battery along with a thinner six-cell battery that sits underneath it. It supposedly has enough power to handle the 64-bit version of Windows 7.
The comfortable keyboard and mouse are backed up by a series of quick-access multimedia buttons along with an “Instant On” feature for browsing the web and playing multimedia files. The laptop also features two USB ports, 802.11n, optional Bluetooh, HDMI-out and a combination headphone/microphone jack that is also suitable for a cell phone headset.
There is also an Envy 15 in the works, but HP hasn’t been quick to release the details. What is known is that the machine is a 15-inch model, weighs 5.18 pounds, and will feature a “Future Intel Core i7 Processor” with up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM and 1 GB discrete ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830. That laptop will retail at $1799. More details will be released at next week’s Intel Developer’s Forum.
Both the Envy 13 and the Envy 15 will go on sale October 18, just in time for the holiday season.
The HP Envy looks too much like the Mac Book Pro. I think that they could have produced a different look for the computer, and comes too close to being a cross between the Mac Book and Mac Book Pro. A new look would have guaranteed more sales instead of the almost "copy cat" look that reminds potential customers of how much they want a Mac notebook. Both computers are in the same price range, and the Mac notebooks can actually be cheaper in some cases. I think HP needs to stick to competing with Toshiba for the most cost efficient laptop instead of competing with Apple for the outrageous reason that they did.
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