The New HP (Nasdaq: HPQ) Elite notebook may have an upscale name, but it’s not necessarily just for elitists. Priced at more than $2,000, a user may think this machine is targeted at the premium crowd. Given the price tag the channel will target it to high-level executives or those with workstation needs. But, it shouldn’t stop there. The HP Elite notebook could open up the markets for HP given the state of the economy.
The poor economy has left a lot of good people on the street. Some of these people will start their own businesses instead of looking for another job. This is the type of notebook that can give these new entrepreneurs a competitive advantage from the get-go.
With specs such as an Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.4 GHz, 17-inch WXGA screen with 1440 x 900 resolution, Nvidia graphics card, 2 mega-pixel Webcam, running Windows Vista for Business 64-bit (when tested), a single-owner operator has virtually everything he or she needs for a start-up business.I found that the Elite notebook was great as a desktop replacement system, while giving the user the portability for making presentations or to show videos to prospective customers.
It does not have the feel of a heavyweight workstation-type notebook. It does weigh more than four pounds and that is on the high side, but I think it’s a trade off most people will be able to live with given all of its capabilities. This next point, I realize, will be hard to measure, but I believe the HP Elite notebook gives the perception that you are a serious business person with its brushed-on aluminum form factor and eye-catching design. I think it tells the market place or your potential new customer that you have made a significant investment in your business and should be taken seriously.
That is the perception part of the HP Elite notebook. The reality is that this unit has security taken care of with something called drive encryption through a finger tip scanner.
The Webcam doubles as a business card reader. All you have to do is place the business card in front of the Webcam and the machine does the rest.
Battery life is solid with up to four hours of life. HP offers Extended Life Battery that can get you close to eight hours. Battery life was not an issue during the testing period.
The only negative was the 802.11 draft N wireless capabilities. We had some compute-intensive graphics and videos and the performance was slow. The machine does come with Bluetooth 2.0 and HP Wireless Assistant, which we tried to utilize but proved to be as hard to finding the meaning of life.
At the end of the day, I would recommend the HP Elite notebook because it does the job in the real world. I decided to use this demo unit to edit more than six hours of video footage for a 10 minute video using Adobe Premiere with the help of CDN‘s video co-ordinator.
My deadline was two hours and we managed to get it done and screen the video to more than 300 people at a charity golf tournament in North Toronto. What I was looking for was a workhorse system that can handle a unique business application and situation. The HP Elite proved worthy of its elite status.
