HP Unveils ProBook Notebook Line- Small Business, Prosumer-Oriented
HP has today augmented their notebook offering with the launch of the ProBook line. The new line of prosumer notebooks joins the consumer line and the EliteBook business line to address the needs of the small business and serious notebook consumer. The ProBook notebook line is intended to provide business notebook features at a lower price.
The new line will initially consist of models with three screen sizes — 14, 15.6 and 17.3 inches, appearing as a new S series of notebooks. All of the ProBook notebooks have 16:9 displays, which is a first for HP notebooks aimed at business users. Gobi communications technology is available in many of the new models for integrated 3G capability.
The new notebooks are available with Intel processors with AMD options available on some. The new notebooks are available with a variety of OS options including Vista, XP and SUSE Linux. The ProBooks are available worldwide, although the smaller, 14-inch model will only be available in Latin America and Asia, not the U.S. nor Europe. The press release can be found at HP.
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I don’t see anything serious in these units – no high end displays or graphics cards, no quad-core and too utilitarian styling. An enthusiast or prosumer will want high-end gear.
Maybe instead of making their business notebooks cheaper HP should take their high-end EliteBook models and wrap it with some consumer styling. I’d give my right arm for a Pavilion dv7 with a 1920×1200 display and a GTX graphics card.