HP throws down the thin and light gauntlet

HP IS SET to take on Apple today by introducing several new notebooks, all seemingly aimed at their Apple counterparts.

The company is launching not one, not two, but five new notebooks today. The most noteworthy are the HP Envy 13 and HP Envy 15.

The surprise launch was leaked by Rahul Sood, ex-Voodoo supremo, when he twittered that ‘OK folks, new product coming out in September/October (ish), you'll love it! You will be the envy of all your friends. :)’.

He was, of course, referring to HP’s duo of Envy notebooks.

The new HP Envy 13 and Envy 15 notebooks - the numbers refers to their screen sizes - have replaced the Voodoo DNA with some serious Apple DNA, more so if you look at their price tags. They are slim, all-aluminum and magnesium crafted and should appeal to the luxury notebooks thin and light crowd.

HP is quiet about details, but according to Dutch e-tailer Topproduct.nl the Envy 13 ships with a Core 2 Duo SL9400 mobile processor, 3GB of DDR3 RAM, ATI mobility HD 4330 graphics with 512MB GDDR3, a 250GB HDD, 2-in-1 card reader, lightscribe DVD+/-RW drive, Gigabit LAN, all three WiFi, a webcam and multitouch trackpad. It weighs 3.7lbs or 1.7kg and is shipped with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

The Envy 15 (1060ea or 1080ea) is in a different class. It’ll premiere the mobile Nehalem architecture, Clarksfield, with a Core i7 720QM processor (1.6GHz, quad-core, turbo boost to 2.8GHz and 6MB of L3 cache), 6GB or 8GB of DDR3 RAM depending on model, ATI mobility Radeon HD 4830 graphics with 1GB GDDR3, and with very much the same accessories as its 13-inch brethren, multitouch included.

Photos of the new laptops have leaked on several sites, but the good stuff you can find here. Its overall Apple-inspired bezel design and edge-to-edge glass panel look great, we have to admit.

Apple, sorry, HP also broke out the Pavillion dm3 and ProBook 5310m, as well as a “guy’s” notbook based on the Mini 110 chassis and designed by Dutchman Tord Boontje.

The ProBook 5310m is a 13.3-inch LED display notebook just 0.9-inches thick and weighing in at 3.6 lbs or 1.7kg, just like the Envy 13. It uses an Intel Core 2 Duo SP9300 mobile processor.  HP claims that its 6-cell battery will get 10 hours worth of work done. It also integrates a Gobi module to allow for 3.5G wireless connections. Unsurprisingly, the optical disc drive is optional.

The Pavilion dm3 is also thin and light, but it’s an entertainment notebook, meaning it's price-driven kit. It’ll be powered by either Intel or AMD dual-core processors and sport integrated Intel, AMD or Nvidia graphics. As you can see, HP is being pretty flexible and vague about this one, underlining that it’s thin and light but keeping its options open for each market’s price level.

So far, we’ve got prices for the Envies, and those also look Apple-tastic. The Envy 13 bears in at $1699 and the Envy 15 at $1799. There's no word on UK pricing yet.

In the end, these Envy and ProBook kits do give some credit to the rumour about Apple having dumped the Green Goblin and moved on to ATI for its next-gen Macbooks. µ