Hands On with HP's Spring Refresh: New Pavilions, EliteBooks, Ultrabooks and More Discussion

HP took the wraps off of their Spring releases today, with almost no notebook, desktop or display safe. We spent some hands on time with HP's new products and got some impressive, and some not-as-impressive, results.

Read the full content of this Article: Hands On with HP's Spring Refresh: New Pavilions, EliteBooks, Ultrabooks and More

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The 2170p is really interesting. I liked my 2510p, but the 2560p wasn't really even an option when compared to the X220 since it was so thick and heavy. The 2710p fixes. Hopefully the 21x0p series weight doesn't drift upwards like the 25x0p series did.

-Is the CPU ULV or SV?
-Will there be extended battery options?
-How's screen quality?

 

Gawd those HP's are ugly, no matter how they try to window dress them. I know that comment will tick off some HP fans, and I don't mean to offend anyone, but I have never liked their looks, or their cheap plasticky, glossy shells.
It is nice however to see Ivy Bridge start to come around.

 

Which models are you referring to? The only refreshed models that seem to be cheap and plasticky are the budget-basement g-series, and even those are nicer than Dell's offerings.

The Elitebooks are looking good! I really do hope HP adopts competitive CTO-model pricing, though...

 

I really like what HP is doing. I think their new laptops look good and their addition of the m6 is great. Yes it may create an overlap with the envy line but it creates a highly customization selection. The m6 just might be what I buy for college if the build quality is said to be good.

 

I meant the mainstream ones. But they all have the same ugly design that HP has used for years. I just think it's in dire need of updating.

 

sincerely HP is overlapping too much, they are not being intelligent at all, with their line up. There are too many lines, too much in there for a consumer to see, give them price, give them quality, give them less option. For their CTO give them a lot of options so that they can feel that they are in power.

There is no need for the dm, g, dv, now m, and we add, the envy line with its confusing line up, obvious for us, probably not for most consumers out there.

However I do like the envy 4t, the folio 9470m, in both models I do expected them to be 1600*900, or at least as an optional.

And they are indeed using the same design cues they have from a long time, its there for everyone to see.

I wonder why they didnt put thunderbolt in the folio, EDIT: they actually put a DP in there instead of the HDMI

 

High-end sound in an Elitebook? Sounds perfect. Totally want one. Awful onboard sound was one of the things that has made me unexcited about business-class offerings in the past.

But I agree with Mr. MM that there are too many lines. General Motors syndrome. If you have two dozen model lines instead of a half-dozen, you've only got 1/4th the R&D money per model line.

 

YES!

Less models = less money on R&D

Less models = Less factory lines = lower costs

Less models = Less hassle with the supply chain be it internal or external

Less models = more standardized parts = less stocks = less downtime = lower price parts for all

Less models = budget < mainstream < high quality, rinse and repeat on the enterprise class, or simply dont, design something that aint childish and you can sell the same thing on both lines, however this would be out of the budget and mainstream lines, to recoup costs. Some parts can even be in all the line up (excluding cpu, ram, HDD and ODD)

Less models = less display sizes, 13, 15, 17, a 2'' difference delineate better your line up, portable, mainstream, large display. I do see the market for a 11'' , extreme portability.

With all that cost reduction, i think that they can recoup beter profits in their razor thin margin that they currently endure.

There are several other OEMs that are a mess, lenovo, asus, acer, toshiba. Acer is changing to a more lets get a better profit from what we sell, than kill ourselves in the razor thin margin. Apple is already there, and we are suspecting that they will kill the mbp 13'' the best selling product that they have, simply because the mba 13'' fills that role already, in form and function, but there are the storage space and the ODD in there to make it viable still.

For me this is what HP should go for

Pavillion = Budget

Envy = Mainstream

Elitebook = High Quality

What about the probook line for budget conscious IT?

Put the envy there and call it a day. Redesign the line so that its stylish and still fills a corporate room without being embarrassing, I saw a recent report that stated in the US 80% ish of the companies are letting people use their notebooks for work, in brazil its 96%. Because: it reduces their costs, and it allows for the employee to stay on top of tech, tablets and so forth. The samsung series 7 gamer (the black model) can be had in a boardroom without being embarrassing like the m17x

The best model for that to happen is the companies to share the cost of the purchase with the employee, while letting the employee to stay with his purchase afterward, it will still be cheaper than to mass deploy which is what they still think its best. For example:

Boss: hey joe, get a new laptop, its been 4 months since you entered
Joe: Ah, what are the model that I can chose?
Boss: whatever you want, you have a budget of 700 and if you want to pay more you can, from your pocket.

That is around what the IT pays for the enterprise line, and as a plus you make your employee happy, he gets a new lappy, you get a gal/guy that will have the possibility to work at home, and you dont have to spend so much on IT, since the hardware support is not made by you anymore, you have to deal with the mess created by different setups, but with some good guys you can do it.

Basically I do agree that the consumerization of the enterprise class is here to stay, just recoup costs from some features that are needed by shrinking the line up.

Sincerely be smart and get better profits.

 

Three ultrabooks? Four separate 15" consumer laptops? (G6, dv6, M6, Envy 15)? Crazy business.

 

11.6" + IVB = new class of netbook

Intel was too late to the party with Cedar Trail, and it barely improves on the N570. Moving up from 10" to 11.6" isn't a big deal as far as size/weight is concerned, but the massive improvement in CPU/GPU performance that IVB brings is huge. I only hope that HP nails the pricing on the 2170 - putting it anywhere above $800 is a deal-breaker IMO.

 

Wow, that M6 is sexy! I hope it doesnt turn out like the Envy 15 with the gimped GPU.

 

Lets see the hp line up

Consumer

hp mini: 1104, dm1z

pavillion: 2000z, g6t, g6z, dv4t, dv6z, dv6t, dv7t, there will be more here for the budget line.

Envy: 4t, 6t, 15, 17, 14 spectre, 17 3d



Corporate

hp mini: 210

Essential: Folio 13, 3115m, 635, 630

probook: 4430s, 4530s, 4535s, 4730s, 5330m, 6360b, 6460b, 6465b, 6560b, 6565b

elitebook workstation: 8460w, 8560w, 8760w

elitebook: 2560p, 8460p, 8560p, 2760p tablet

I call it crazy. The notebooks are listed according to the HP site and are the ones currently available, not the upcoming models.

16 notebooks consumer

21 notebooks corporate

7 15'' for consumer

1 ultrabook, the spectre 14 aint an ultrabook by intel definition, however if you want, be my guest, nor the envy 4t and 6t, the scpectre xt aint launched.

Lenovo is worse.

 

I'm an HP fan, been waiting for the Ivy Bridge models, and already confused by the quantity of what's pictured in the (good) article.

Which are the models with the posh looking one piece touchpad? They look different than the M6 & DV models pictures later.

These two:

 

those would be the envy 4t and 6t, already available with the SB ulv cpu and a 7670m as a gpu. they are quite cheap might I add, configed one this afternoon, and got:

I5 2XXX somethin something
GPU: 7670m
Backlit kb
total 800ish

 

That 4t is nice looking, and quite cheap. Shame that no upgraded screen is available.

 

The 4340s has the i7-3612QM as an option. Need to see more 12.5"/13.3"ers with that.

 

Any hope the build quality of these new machines will be better then in the past? They seem to be making a lot of improvements and investing a lot.

 

I've already discussed my opinion on some of these notebooks here, but I'm absolutely mystified by this M6 - I see in the review that it "kicks everything up a couple of notches," and "offer a premium experience over [HP']s standard offerings," but this article doesn't tell me anything that differentiates the M6 from, say, the DV6, while even noting that the DV6's new chassis updates are similar to what you find in the M6. Besides, the D series Pavilions are branded "high-performance" while the Envy series is "premium" while offering similar performance to the D series. So now the M6 comes in as "a little nicer than regular high-performance, but not quite premium", or something like that.

I'm glad that Meg Whitman was able to keep HP's PC division running, but this mind-bogglingly crowded lineup is beyond my comprehension. It's almost as if HP is trying to sandbag its PC division into going bankrupt all by itself now - there's no way the extra R&D, CS, parts, and labor costs are made up by whatever extra sales might occur as a result of the new models being introduced.

And let's not forget the absolute feces-storm of low-end 1366x768 Brightview screens permeating their offerings, most of which don't even have an option for anything better. They've hit some serious home runs with great displays in the past, can anybody say DreamColor or Radiance? So how do they introduce four new higher-end models (3 Envy, one Elitebook) on one day without offering a single HD+ or FHD screen, particularly when the industry is all moving towards better, higher-res screens rather than settling for the lower-quality offerings that have permeated the marketplace for the past few years?