HP rolls out line of low-cost business notebooks

HP, the company formerly known as Hewlett-Packard, announced a new line of "affordable" business notebook PCs today.

Straining for a whiff of cachet in these financially challenging times, HP said its ProBook s-series is, "Distinguished by a choice of merlot or glossy noir finishes, a unique keyboard design and... innovations previously found only on higher priced models..." and "delivers HP's best combination of business features, functionality and value." These are a cut above HP's non-business notebooks, then. Let's not tell folks who bought HP's other notebooks.

The ProBook s-series - for that is its technical name according to HP - comes in three screen sizes. The 4410s/4415s models have 14-inch screens, the 4510s/4515s models have 15-inch screens, and we bet you can't guess the screen size of the 4710s models. The *10s machines have Intel processors inside, while the *15s systems mount AMD processors. HP hasn't revealed the chip clock speeds, the amount of memory in each model, or hard drive capacities. It does say the video graphic controllers are a choice of either the ATI Mobility Radeon HD4330 or Intel GMZ X4500 HD.

We guess we're supposed to be so smitten by the "merlot or glossy noir" finishes that we won't care about what's in these notebooks, but will simply desire them.

Retail prices for HP's "ProBook s-series" line of affordable business notebooks are expected to start at $529. µ