HP Envy Phoenix h9-1420t review: Gaming power in a subtle form

PCWorld - By gaming standards, the HP Envy Phoenix h9-1420t's appearance is positively subdued. This midsize tower PC has some red backlighting and a clear pane so that you can gaze at the liquid cooling unit, but aside from that it could easily pass for a conventional HP desktop. Although it doesn't have much in the way of bling, the Phoenix delivers better-than-average performance at a cheaper-than-boutique price. Down-the-road upgrade options, on the other hand, are limited by its decidedly nonenthusiast motherboard.

Components and performance

Our $1840 h9-1420t test configuration sported an unlocked 3.5GHz Intel Core i7-3770K processor. Thanks to the liquid cooling unit, the system had no problem maintaining 4GHz, and it likely has at least a little more headroom. The Pegatron (that’s Asus’s OEM arm) 2AD5 motherboard offers minimal overclocking controls in its BIOS, but it isn't completely locked down. You can set each core's maximum frequency multiplier separately, but you get no provisions for tweaking the operating voltage, for instance. The board also has just a single full-size PCIe slot, so you can forget any dual-card graphics upgrade via SLI or CrossFire.

Fortunately, HP picked a strong graphics card, inserting an Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 with 2GB of GDDR5 memory. With that card in place, the Phoenix managed a playable frame rate in Dirt Showdown right up to the 2560 by 1600 resolution of our 30-inch test display. The game wasn’t as silky smooth at that resolution as it was at lower ones, but it was certainly playable. Should you decide to buy an h9-1420t online, HP allows you to customize the configuration to a degree, but your options don’t include Nvidia’s best GPU, the GeForce GTX 690.

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Hewlett-Packard joins Chromebook fray with 14-inch browser-based laptop

PCWorld - Hewlett-Packard on Monday said it’s officially jumping into the Chromebook fray after persistent rumors about the company launching one surfaced in late January. HP joins Samsung, Acer, and Lenovo selling PCs loaded with Google’s browser-as-OS.

The HP Chromebook features a 14-inch display with 1366-by-768 resolution, step up from most Chromebooks that feature 11.6-inch displays. You also get a 1.1GHz Intel Celeron processor, 16GB solid-state drive, 2GB RAM, and 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi. For ports, the device offers 3 x USB 2.0, HDMI, Ethernet, headphone/microphone combo jack, and a media card reader.

HP is promising a paltry 4 hours and 15 minutes for battery life, and the laptop is also a little heavy at just under four pounds, and measures 0.83 inches thick. The Chromebook 14 is available now from HP and sells for $330, but you also get 100GB of free Google Drive storage for two years--usually an extra $120.

It’s not clear how well Chromebooks are selling overall, but there are indications that the concept is catching on with American PC users as more people move their digital lives online. Acer recently told Bloomberg that Chromebooks have, since November, accounted for 5 to 10 percent of Acer’s U.S. shipments . Samsung’s 11.6-inch Chromebook is currently the top-selling laptop on Amazon , and Lenovo believes its $429 ThinkPad-branded Chromebook will appeal to schools looking to make bulk purchases.

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HP Elitebook Folio 9470m Review

 

CNET Editors' Rating

3.5 stars - Very good

$1,237.65 to $1,356.75

The good: The HP Elitebook 9470m has a solid, lightweight design, great battery life, and lots of ports and security features.

The bad: There's no touch screen, it has a non-high-res display, and there's a general lack of unique features to justify its high price.

The bottom line: The HP Elitebook Folio 9470m does a serviceable job at being a good thin all-around Windows 8 business laptop, but it doesn’t rise from the pack, and it doesn’t take any chances.

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HP Envy x2: Tablet and laptop meet again on a Windows 8 hybrid

 

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CBS Interactive)

 

CNET - Take a tablet; add a keyboard. Turn it into a laptop. Do it with full Windows 8. This is the dream of the HP Envy x2, and the dream, it seems, of Windows 8 in general. Break down the barrier between tablets and PCs. Create progressive computing. The future is now. Well, the future was also over four months ago, when HP first started showing off the Envy x2 in public, including at CNET.

We marveled then that the device was well-built, comfortable to hold, and, when you think about it, pretty shockingly practical. After all, theoretically, this is the best of both worlds: a laptop and a tablet in one. This is what I dreamed about going back to the teased-but-never-real Lenovo U1 Hybrid three years ago.

The Envy x2 is finally available, and we've got our review unit here at CNET. But, can it rise above our previous concerns? As Eric Franklin said back in August, "A lot of the Envy x2's success will rest on what Microsoft does with Surface, especially its price. Right now I can't see the Envy x2 costing less than $1,000, which would make it a direct competitor to the Macbook Air. From what I've seen it would be a worthy competitor, but is anyone ready to pay more than $1,000 for a tablet?"

Slide a little tab, and the whole upper lid does, indeed, undock and becomes its own multi-touch tablet. But, at $849, it's more expensive than most ultraportable laptops and tablets...and far more expensive than those little, non-touch, non-detachable-screened 11-inchers of old. You're paying for style, and also for that clever split-function feature. And the concern about the x2 versus the MacBook Air, or x2 versus the Surface Pro, still stands.

 

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

 

Style vs. substance

Depending on your perspective, you’ll either love what HP's trying to do with the Envy x2, or you'll hate it. But, it’s hardly the only innovator: detachable-screen laptop/tablet hybrids have been kicking around in a similar form across several manufacturers, including Acer, Lenovo, and Samsung. It's an official mini-trend in Windows 8 launch PCs.

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HP Envy Spectre XT Review

 

CNET Editors' Rating

4.0 stars - Excellent

$999.99 to $1,009.99

The good: Slim and lightweight, the HP Envy Spectre XT is portable, well-built, and easy to use, with a great keyboard.

The bad: The design doesn't stand out as much as the original Spectre's did, and its battery life won't get you through an entire day. From a premium product, we'd expect a higher screen resolution.

The bottom line: A high-end laptop at a mainstream price, the HP Envy Spectre XT gets much of the look and feel right, with only a few missteps.

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IFA Berlin Highlights - Samsung, Dell, HP & Toshiba

Samsung @ IFA: Galaxy Note II, Galaxy Camera and more

 

Dell teases new XPS Duo 12 convertible tablet

Hands-on with the HP Envy x2's tablet and keyboard

Sony Alpha NEX-5R: Major changes for midrange cameras








Toshiba outs three new Satellite Ultrabooks 






 

Ivy Bridge-packing HP EliteBook gets reviewed, scores well in early tests

Engadget - Hear that? That, friends, is the sound of someone in Intel’s PR department banging his head against a desk. Though we’ve read more than a few rumors about the company’s forthcoming Ivy Bridge chips, Intel has steadfastly declined to share many official details, and has controlled the flow of information so tightly that laptop makers won’t even use the words Ivy Bridge when talking about upcoming systems. (It’s always “next-generation Intel Core processors,” but we digress.) So it’s a pleasant surprise, then, to see a review of an Ivy Bridge system before Intel even makes its official announcement. Laptop Reviews has apparently been testing a yet-to-be-announced HP EliteBook 8470p with an unspecified Core i7 processor, integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics, 8GB of RAM and an Intel 320 solid-state drive.             More

Review: HP Envy 14 Spectre (Laptop)

The good: The HP Envy 14 Spectre has a unique glass-covered design and packs a lot of features into a slim 14-inch ultrabook body, plus its multitouch response is great for a Windows laptop.

The bad: It’s expensive, especially considering the standard components, and feels heavier than it should. The glass wrist rest can be awkward.

The bottom line: The first big high-design laptop of 2012, the HP Envy 14 Spectre is a bold experiment that largely succeeds, if you’re willing to pay a premium for it.

There may be a reason most laptops are anonymous-looking gray boxes. When you do see a unique design, such as the Dell Adamo XPS or Acer Iconia, it’s often too quirky to catch on, or else the company behind it doesn’t give it enough time to find an audience before ditching the idea.

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HP Folio 13 review

Engadget - By the time HP unveiled its first Ultrabook, the Folio 13, other heavyweights like Acer, ASUS, Lenovo and Toshiba had already gotten a head start of up to several months. But being fashionably late to market may have worked in Hewlett-Packard’s favor: the Folio 13 ($900 and up) is temptingly priced for what it is. Even the base model comes stocked with a 128GB SSD, backlit keyboard, HDMI port and Ethernet jack — specs that undercut the ASUS Zenbook UX31 and 13-inch MacBook Air, and render the $900 Acer Aspire S3 nearly irrelevant. Not to mention, it brings business-friendly features such as TPM circuitry that other Ultrabook makers have omitted from their 1.0 products. But surely HP cut some corners to get here, no? Is this really as sweet a deal as it seems? Funnily enough, the answer is “yes,” on both counts.

Look and feel

Considering how aggressively priced this thing is, HP made surprisingly few design compromises. Okay, the bottom is made of plastic, not aluminum, and the display offers narrow viewing angles, but other than that it’s well-made and yes, tasteful, even. We’ll wait a moment for all those folks who hate 1366 x 768 screens and things that aren’t metal to leave the room. Are they gone? Good. We think the rest of you will agree that that tried-and-true brushed metal lid was a safe design choice and also, a perfectly elegant one. Even better, those smooth metal surfaces continue onto the keyboard deck, stretching down to the palm rest. Particularly after reviewing split-personality machines like the Aspire S3, we appreciate that what’s underneath the lid matches the exterior.                      More

Review: HP Pavilion g4-1215dx - Budget Laptop

CNET Editors’ rating

3.5 stars Very good

The good: The HP Pavilion g4-1215dx has a great price, an attractive-for-the-price design, and better-than-average speakers, as well as enough graphics performance to play basic games.

The bad: A slower-performing AMD A4 processor is better than other bargain-basement processors, but less powerful than Intel’s Core i3; screen colors look washed out; battery life is merely average.

The bottom line: Budget shoppers take note: the extremely aggressively priced HP Pavilion g4-1215dx is a worthwhile laptop pick for those who want a basic, cheap computer. It’s hard to find a decent laptop for less–and we’ve seen lesser laptops that cost more.                   More

An Affordable 3D Scanner from HP

Gizmodod - Scanners are a bit of a running joke around the Giz office. “If you post a scanner, you’re probably fired,” our editors demi-joke. So it’s sorta distressing news that HP’s got a cheap 3D scannerthat’s actually kind of awesome.

HP’s TopShot Laserjet Pro M275 works by taking six images of an object and compiling them into one 3D image. It also connects to wireless networks, so it can send the image wherever as soon as it’s scanned, and it’s got AirPrint, which lets you print directly from an iPad, Pod, or Phone.                  More

Review: HP Envy 14 - Best MacBook Pro Alternative

The good: The HP Envy 14 gets updated with newer Intel processors and a new multitouch touch pad.

The bad: Despite the improvements, the touch pad gestures still can't match what you get from Apple's trackpad.

The bottom line: A much-needed update to its internal components makes HP's Envy 14 one of the best high-end laptops for those looking for a PC with the flair of a MacBook.

Read the Full Review

Hands On: HP TouchPad for AT&T

PCMag.Com - What could goose the fortunes of HP's TouchPad tablet? How about official support from AT&T? The nation's biggest GSM carrier showed off a version of the TouchPad gussied up with a 1.5-Ghz processor and HSPA+ support at a Tuesday evening event.

The AT&T TouchPad works much like the Wi-Fi-only model we reviewed, which we called the best non-iPad tablet. It has a few differences.

There's a SIM card slot in the top: push on it and the SIM tray pops out. Similarly, there's an HSPA+ signal indicator in the status bar, and a new AT&T Communication Manager app with a long, skinny progress bar showing how close you're coming to your data cap for the month. (See them in the slideshow below.)

The 1.5-Ghz processor should give this TouchPad a boost over the Wi-Fi-only model's 1.2-Ghz unit, but sadly, I found this TouchPad to have some of the problems many people have cited elsewhere. In the hands of Ovum analyst Jan Dawson, the TouchPad's scrolling juddered and it took a noticeable while to render our PCMag.com home page.     More

HP TouchPad Review

CNET -

The good: The HP TouchPad uses Palm's unique WebOS interface and delivers Adobe Flash-enabled Web browsing, Beats audio enhancement, and impressive compatibility with third-party calendar, messaging, and e-mail services.

The bad: The TouchPad has a thick, smudgy design, offers no rear camera or HD video capture, includes a limited app selection, and its unique cards system of multitasking isn't as fully utilized as it could be.

The bottom line: The TouchPad would have made a great competitor for the original iPad, but its design, features, and speed put it behind today's crop of tablet heavyweights.

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HP Pavilion dv6t-6000 Review

CNET -

The good: Improved design, Beats audio, new USB 3.0 ports, an HD Webcam, fingerprint sensor, a variety of configurations ranging from budget to high-end, and second-gen Core i-series processors are all part of the HP Pavilion dv6t's design makeover.

The bad: Underperforming AMD graphics, too many confusing configuration options, and a flexy keyboard make for a less-than-overwhelming overall experience.

The bottom line: The HP Pavilion dv6t is a solid improvement on HP's previous 15-inch mainstream consumer laptop with numerous tweaks, bells, and whistles, but the wide variety of options means you'll get wildly different systems based on what you can afford.

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