HP Exhibits Its Slimmed-Down Pavilions
By Doug Olenick -- TWICE, 10/24/2005
New York— The streets of New York City were devoid of tech geeks recently as they had all flocked to the DigitalLife show at the Jacob Javitz Convention Center, attracted by dozens of gaming software, PC, storage and flat-panel television vendors.
Microsoft and LucasArts anchored the event by giving hordes of gamers an early look the Xbox 360 and Star Wars Battlefront II, both hitting stores in November. In addition, hundreds of attendees lined up for a free 40GB TiVo, which was given in exchange for an old VCR tape, and others queued up for the second annual DigitalLife Tournament Series.
Gaming may have stolen the show's center spotlight, but several vendors used the show to launch new products.
Hewlett-Packard introduced a slew of new products, including a slim-line PC series, upgrades to the company's Digital Entertainment Centers and a low-priced desktop replacement notebook.
The entry-level Pavilion 7210n and 7220n slim-line computers are geared toward students and consumers with space constraints. Each is about one-third the size of a typical PC tower and runs on an Intel Celeron M 1.4GHz or 1.5GHz processors. These feature 160GB or 200GB hard drives; 512MB of memory; and dual-format, double-layer DVD burners. The units are shipping with suggested retail prices of $449 and $519, after a $50 mail-in rebate.
On the notebook side, the company rolled out the dv8000. This is a multimedia-oriented unit with a 17W-inch display and, in a first for HP, replaces the standard desktop processor with a mobile chip, and AMD 64-bit Turion. Kevin Wentzel, HP's notebook product manager, said this switch allowed the unit to be thinner and lighter then previous desktop replacement models.
Other features include a 240GB hard drive and a slot for a second optional drive, 1GB of memory and a variety of DVD and CD burners. It will ship at the end of October with a $849 suggested retail price.
