In the wake of yesterday’s WWDC extravaganza, HP decided that today would be the the most opportune time to release a new laptop to rival the MacBook Air: the Voodoo Envy 133.
CNET Crave got a chance to check out the Envy and stacked it up against the the Air.
Apparently, the battery life isn’t as good (3.5 hrs), and it’s not as thin (0.7 inches), and it’s heavier slightly (3.4 pounds). That being said, it’s got some features that the next generation of the MacBook Air might want to consider, notes Crave’s Dan Ackerman:One particularly smart innovation we hope other laptop makers will adopt is what the company calls “Voodoo Aura PowerConnect.” That simply means the Ethernet jack is located on the power brick, so you don’t have to fit the jack into the system itself. Plus, the power brick will act as a point-to-point Wi-Fi connection, so you can unplug and move around without being tethered to your Ethernet cable in those rare situations where you have wired Internet access, but no Wi-Fi router (which actually happened to us in a hotel recently). There’s also an Instant-On menu that gives you access to a Web browser and even Skype, without booting into Windows.
Unlike the Air, the system has HDMI and multiple USB ports, but it does have a few Mac-like touchpad gesture controls (such as pinching to zoom in on photos). We saw it in white, but the Envy 133 will be available in a variety of colors and custom graphic finishes.
It's got one big weakness: Vista for its operating system. Thumbs waaaay down.
HP who?
It doesn't matter how good the competition looks, or how close they get. At the end of the day, it's all about OS X.
Putting the Ethernet jack on the power brick evades the real problem, which is the utter kluginess of the Ethernet connector itself. It was designed to be cheap and tenacious in staying connected, which was perfect for the corporate desktop PC world in which it was born. IP staff probably even regarded the fact that it was so hard to disconnect as a plus.
But that same connector is dreadful for the mobile world of laptops. Someone with influence should call for an industry standards committee to create an alternative Ethernet connector, one better designed for how Ethernet is used today.
Personally, I'd hope it'd be along the lines of Apple's marvelous magnetic power connector, but not encumbered with a patent that keeps others from using it. This needs to be a standard everyone can adopt and one where anyone can make old-to-new adapters.
You may want to take a look at this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLIrgQHV5aU
That is really cool. I can't remember seeing that kind of innovation out of HP (outside the printer market).
hey, that ethernet technology is a GREAT idea. It looks like a nice piece of hardware. I'm all in favor of competition keeping apple's prices low!
This is a seriously hot new notebook! I just wish I could get it delivered with my choice of a Linux distro.