HP's laptop mega-launch

It's just as well that HP isn't superstitious -- the company launched 13 new notebooks at its 2007 Mobility Summit in Shanghai this week.

All are built on Intel's fourth-generation 'Santa Rosa' Centrino platform with six of this baker's dozen aimed at the consumer market, spanning from a 14.1 inch entry-level Compaq Presario to the 20 inch Pavilion HDX 'desknote' superslab which HP has christened 'The Dragon'.

The range are all fitted with HP's trademark notebook flourishes such as top-firing Altec Lansing speakers, backlight touch-sensitive controls and subtle patterns inlaid into the high-gloss chassis. Buyers will be able to choose between Intel's Core 2 Duo T7100 processor (clocked at 1.8GHz with 2MB of Level 2 cache) or the gruntier 2GHz T7300 processor with a 4MB cache. The sole exception is the HDX 'Dragon', to which HP is bolting Intel's flagship 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo T7700.

The two Compaq models -- the 14.1in V3500 and 15.4in V6500 -- share a common platform including Intel's X3100 integrated graphics media accelerator, which has native support for DirectX 10.

They also introduce a new-look Compaq brand in which the logo is a stylised merging of the letters CQ, shaped to look like a speech balloon. The Presario V6500 line will arrive locally in June, with the smaller V3500 following in August.

The mid-range Pavilion dv6500 series of 15.4in notebooks will arrive in June 2007 with an optional HD DVD drive and a choice of NVIDIA graphics engines: the GeForce 8400M GS with 128MB of graphics memory or the 8600M with 256MB.

This will be bookended in August with the 14.1in Pavilion dv2500 (a 14.1in model with GeForce 8400M graphics) and the Pavilion dv9500 (with a 17.1in panel and GeForce 8600M graphics).

The same month will see the HDX 'Dragon' take flight, and this 20in behemoth will undoubtedly draw the most attention -- despite being HP's least portable 'portable PC' since Compaq introduced the original 12kg luggable in November 1982.

However, a HP spokeperson said there were still no plans for an Australian release of the vendor's Voodoo range of high-end gaming systems. The US direct-sales company was acquired by HP's in October last year, six months after Dell snapped up the highly-regarded PC gaming box-builder Alienware.

David Flynn travelled to the HP Mobility Summit in Shanghai as a guest of HP.