HP Pavilion HDX Entertainment Notebook

Enter the Dragon

Summer - that time of the year when days become longer and warmer. It's also the cue for big budget, CGI-bloated Hollywood blockbuster movies to start flooding the cinemas. Getting into this spirit is a revitalized HP, fresh from its recent triumphs in the marketplace, with its latest, and biggest ever blockbuster of a notebook, a 20.1-inch wide creation with an appropriately Hollywood nickname - the Dragon. The actual name however is a more mundane and longwinded one, HP Pavilion HDX Entertainment Notebook PC and apparently, it's so new that HP has not yet christened it with a proper model name/number.

Following in the footsteps of rivals like Dell and Acer, which already have such unconventionally large 'notebooks' models available - we have previously reviewed the Dell XPS M2010 - HP is merely capitalizing on the trend of increasingly powerful, consumer desktop replacement notebooks that are larger than ever. Consumers are taking to 17-inch notebooks for their performance, widescreen displays and multimedia capabilities and manufacturers are convinced that taking a notch further to 20-inches and above is feasible for a certain select desktop replacement (DTR) user group.




HP joins the mammoth notebook club with this impressively large 20.1-inch widescreen notebook, which they have dubbed the 'Dragon'

But with a bulk and weight that would have been unimaginable for a notebook a few years ago - the HP Pavilion HDX weighs around 7kg alone, excluding the substantial mass of its power adapter - would these machines fit the typical definition of a 'notebook' which has always been associated with portable computing machines? We'll find out with this preview of an engineering prototype of the HP Pavilion HDX. Since this is only a prototype, we were warned that some features and functions might not work properly. The specifications of this machine (the version for the Asia Pacific region) have also not been finalized at the moment so we will list the technical specifications relevant for this preview below. More likely than not, these specifications will be changed for the actual retail unit when it is available sometime in July.

HP Pavilion HDX Specifications

Processor and Chipset
* Intel Core 2 Duo processor T7700 (@2.4GHz)
* Intel PM965 (ICH8)

Operating System
* Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium

BIOS
* Supports DVD/CD-ROM and USB boot

System Memory
* 2GB DDR2 System Memory
* 2 x DDR2 SO-DIMM Slots

Video & Display
* ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT
* 256MB Dedicated video memory
* Up to 1GB total available video memory
* Built-in HDTV hybrid analog/digital tuner
* 20.1-inch WSXGA+ HP Ultra Brightview Widescreen Display
* Native resolution: 1680 x 1050

HDD
* 200GB x 2 (Dual SATA hard drives)
* 4200RPM

Optical Drive
* SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer

Communication
* Intel PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Network Connection & Bluetooth

Audio
* Altec Lansing speaker system - 4 panel mounted and integrated HP triple bass reflex sub-woofer
* Full 8-channel analog output ports on the system support up to 7.1 external speaker configurations

Front & Side I/O Ports
* 4 x USB 2.0 ports
* HP Expansion Port 3
* 1 x RJ-45 (LAN)
* VGA analog output
* 1 x 4-pin 1394 FireWire port
* 1 x eSATA port
* 1 x HDMI output
* Integrated 5-in-1 card reader
* Headphone and microphone jacks
* 1 x ExpressCard/54 slot

Rear I/O Ports
* DC Power connector
* Audio (Rear, Center/Sub, Front) outputs
* Built-in HDTV hybrid tuner's ports: NTSC/ATSC (with F-Jack adaptor) input, S-Video Input, Blaster (IR emitter), Stereo audio input

Miscellaneous
* Integrated webcam with built-in array microphone
* 180W AC adaptor
* 9-cell Lithium-Ion battery

Dimension & Weight
* 474mm (L) x 340mm (W) x 58.4mm (H)
* ~7.03kg

Bundled Software and Accessories
* HP Total Care Help & Support Center
* HP QuickPlay
* HP Photosmart Premier
* PC Recovery (Softthinks Restore Solution)
* Roxio Backup MyPC
* Roxio Creator Premier
* muvee autoProducer 6.0
* Microsoft Works
* Microsoft Office 2007 Student and Teacher Edition (60 Day Trial version)
* Adobe Reader 8.0
* Serif WebPlus 10
* Symantec Norton Internet Security 2007 (60 days complimentary live update)

Continue....

Source hardwarezone