HP Pavilion dv6 and dv7 tee up Sandy Bridge on the cheap

HP dipped its big blue and white toe into the world of Intel's next-gen Core Sandy Bridge technology yesterday with the unveiling of its uber-stylish and consequently quite pricey Envy 17. Luckily for us poor folk, the company has also announced a couple of slightly less extravagant Pavilion dv6 and Pavilion dv7 laptops, also powered by the chip that sounds like an exclusive golf club.

Both machines are cut from the same laptop-shaped cloth, their major differences being the fact the Pavilion dv6 has a 15.6-inch display, while the dv7 gets a 17.3-inch panel.

They don't appear vastly different to the current crop of dv6 and dv7 machines already on the market, but they do promise far better performance thanks to their use of Sandy Bridge Intel Core architecture.

HP hasn't yet released final specs for individual machines within the dv6 and dv7 ranges, but we're reliably informed there'll be a version of the dv7 that features the Core i7-2630QM -- a 2GHz chip that auto-overclocks to 2.9GHz when extra performance is required. It'll also come with a rather healthy 6GB of RAM as standard.

The dv6 and dv7 will also come with decent mid-range graphics. HP could have chosen to rely on the new Intel HD graphics adaptors built into the new Sandy Bridge architecture, but it's chosen to furnish both machines with new AMD Radeon graphics. In the case of the dv7, users will get an AMD Mobility Radeon HD 6570, which should be more than quick enough for gaming and HD movie playback. Again, specs for the dv6 are still to be confirmed.

The dv7 will come with HP Beats audio, a high-end integrated speaker system developed in conjunction with Dr Dre and quite possibly one or more of his homies.

Both the Pavilion dv6 and Pavilion dv7 will go on sale on 9 January for $900 (£580) and $1,000 (£640) respectively. UK prices and availability, as usual at CES, are yet to be announced, but we're certain they'll come here.