New York – Hewlett-Packard rolled out a new all-in-one PC and a high-powered desktop tower today, in prepartion for CES next week.
The HPE Phoenix h9 desktop is the company’s first attempt at
creating a gaming PC-quality desktop that is not targeted specifically at
gamers. It is based on HP’s HPE Pavilion that is now on the market, but heavily
beefed up in overall strength and power.
“We don’t want it to look like a gaming PC, but to look nice
in a home. It is not targeted at the extreme gamer, but the prosumer who wants
to edit photos and videos, but at the end of the day might like to play a game
too,” said John Gleason, HP’s senior product marketing manager, consumer
desktop PCs.
The jet-black tower does a few physical features reminiscent
of a gaming computer. There is red LED light strips along the front, the side
panel has a clear portion allowing people to see the computer’s inner workings.
Included inside is another red LED installed in the fan to give the interior a
red hue.
The computer will go on sale for $1,149 at HPShopping.com on Jan. 8 and
will be available at retail in April. The Phoenix will be configure-to-order.
Gleason said the engineering team was tasked with putting as
much power as possible into the basic HPE chassis. The smaller HPE desktop was
chosen because this size has proven more popular with consumers, he added.
The Phoenix will have multiple multi-core processor options,
can take up to 16GB of DDR3 memory, has three internal hard drive bay slots,
the ability to handle multiple solid state drives, high-end graphic cards are
optional and has a 600-watt power unit. It comes standard with the Beats audio
technology.
There are eight USB 2.0 ports, four on the front panel and
four on the rear, and two USB 3.0 ports.
Also optional for the basic units, but standard on the
higher-powered configurations is a liquid cooling system. Gleason said this is
the first time HP is offering this in its Pavilion line. However, the cooling
system is the same one used in the company’s workstation products so it has
been well-tested, he said.
Despite the consumer trend that favors notebooks and tablet
PCs, Gleason said the desktop market is still quite viable.
“Towers are still very relevant in the industry. The
prosumer tends to gravitate towards them,” he said.
The latest all-in-one offering is the part of HP’s Omni
line, first introduced last September.
This model adds a 27-inch screen option to the line, which
previously topped out at 22 inches. Unlike some of the other models in the Omni
line, the 27-inch version is not a touchscreen, Gleason said. This feature was
dropped in order to hit its $1,049 price point. It will ship on Jan. 8 for $1,199.
The screen is adjustable and can tilt up to 25 degrees and
the glass reaches all the way to the edge.
This model is HP’s first non-touchscreen to incorporate the
company’s Magic Canvas software that enables the desktop to expand
horizontally. Essentially allowing the user to scroll to the left or right and
add as many items as needed to the desktop.
It will be offered with a selection of mutli-core processor
choices staring with an Intel Core i5 and advanced HD graphics and 1TB of
storage. Also standard is Beats audio and a DVD drive.
Optional features include a TV tuner, Blu-ray drive and a
HDMI port.
