HP's VoodooPC challenges MacBook Air on thinness

Well, Apple can still claim the MacBook Air is the skinniest laptop currently available - for the moment. The machine that beats it, VoodooPC's Envy 133, isn't due to debut until 20 June. The HP subsidiary's laptop is just 1.75cm thick. The Air is 1.90cm thick. Not a lot in it, then, but enough to send Apple's engineers - and …

[Anonymous Coward]

Interested?

I was interested up until that very last line... "It'll come running windows vista"

Damn

I wanted run to run it as a THIN client!

IGMC

[foof]

Yay! A thinner laptop!

It would matter if it:

a) Wasn't a PC, and

b) Wasn't a HP.

Anyone know how thick the more functional and more reliable Etch-a-Sketch is?

[James O'Brien]

The VooDoo is getting to ElReg

"Well, Apple can still longer claim the MacBook Air is the skinniest laptop currently available - the machine that beats it, VoodooPC's Envy 133, isn't due to debut until 20 June."

Apple can no longer claim you mean? And who said Word doesnt find errors.

Still nice to see HP taking some of the wind out of the Air

[Andy]

Weird...

I'll believe you/them, but that picture doesn't make it look very thin at all. Still, cool.

[Malcolm]

USB Sockets

The USB/eSata sockets are on the device itself. See the photo here:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/10/voodoo-floats-13-3-inch-envy-133-in-the-air/

Interestingly, the power supply doubles as a wireless access point, negating the need to have a ethernet socket on the laptop itself.

[Jeff]

Umm, no ...

The unit has one USB and one eSATA/USB combo port on the laptop itself, whilst the power brick contains the ethernet port and a wireless base station, essentially giving you your own mobile wifi hotspot wherever you have a wired connection.

[Warhelmet]

Love Handles

Size 0 is good for no-one. You need something to get hold of.

Or the satisfying meaty door clunk of a qualidy motah as opposed to the rattle of bargain basement mobile.

[Stuart]

and there it is...

... the kick in the nakkers at the end "running windows vista".

[Anonymous Coward]

UK Availability

The website http://www.voodoopc.com/ appears US-centric. Does anyone know if it will be available in the UK.

Any news on how much RAM it's got, the spec for the laptop doesn't mention it.

Cheers

[Anonymous Coward]

Well duh

"Despite being thinner than the Apple machine, its angular casing packs in an ExpressCard 34 slot and an HDMI port."

Because the Apple machine is much thinner towards the edges, I expect. I'm sure Apple will be able to come up with a definition of "thin" that means the Air still wins, and keep on selling it as such.

[Bo Pedersen]

Interesting

That they decided to use a Gaming Boutique to market an ultra thin laptop

I saw this earlier and thought it looked nice, but its not what VOODOOPC is really about

it should have a geforce 8800m gtx sticking out the back :)

however I welcome the competition, as while I think apple make nice looking products, using them is not as much fun for me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thinner?

Somehow, VoodooPC's designers have successfully managed to make a slightly thinner laptop, look hugely thicker than the MacBook Air:

http://www.journaldugeek.com/images/-2008/06/voodoo-vs-mba-3.jpg

Gotta love those lovely square corners, in comparison to the Air's sleek curves...

[Anonymous Coward]

It always has been...

Does anyone else get the feeling that the laptop market has become more of a pi**ing contest than ever before? Not much they can do technically anymore, no one wants 'em big anymore so now it's fight to see who can out Apple the Apples!

( The icon? Nearest I could find to "flogging a dead horse" icon! )

[marc]

Does it have a removable battery ?

Because if it does that would be great.

I like the idea of having a PSU double up as some kind of USB hub. Since the times when you use a lot of devices are when you're plugged in. When you just want Internet and Outlook, then you can survive on battery.

[Southern Kestrel]

"It'll come running with Windows Vista"

....sounded pretty good until then....

[adrian wardle]

Chunky not wedge-y?

No HP envy here -from that pic it looks more like a shiny black brick than an elegantly tapered object of desire. Complete with ugly voodoo logo and unpleasant and pointless grid lines on the track pad.

Why is apple the only US notebook maker capable of making attractive kit?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Air" is a stupid name

(but it sounds enigmatically sophisticated compared to "Voodoo")

And an MBA owner here still safe in the towers of smugness, if you have to go that ugly to go any thinner I'm happy with my pies. And OSX.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and with the standard HP bloat-, nag- and adware package...

...which is bundled and installed with any HP application or driver you can name, the laptop will weigh about 11kg and just about fit in the average suitcase.

My elderly mum's heart condition worsened when said shiteware took over her computer.

[KenBW2]

@ All Vista moaners

I wish everyone would stop pointing out that new laptops run the newest incarnation of the world's most popular Operating System.

Before you start thinking I'm supporting MS...

It's easy to load up a <insert favourite linux distro> LiveCD, wipe the hard drive, proceed with installation and claim your rebate on the MS Tax

/ Typing on my Xubuntu-runing eee

[Rick Leeming]

Very Nice.

I'm a long-term HP user for my laptops. The only minus to this I can actually see is the awful GMA graphics (which the Air also suffers from). That said, if I personally wasn't paying I would be ordering one. Would make a nice machine with XP and Suse on a dual boot.

As for people saying it's not nice looking, it looks like a laptop that is actually functional rather than pretty. I like the looks more than I like the Air because of that, and so will many others.

[E]

Wireless

It is not 100% clear where the wireless card is. If the PSU brick contains a wireless access point and the PC contains the wireless card then that's great. If the wireless card is in the PSU brick - meaning that one needs the brick to get online - then that is extremely weird.

It is a pretty machine. I'd look seriously at buying one modulo decent battery life and a decent CPU.

[Henry Wertz]

It IS worth mentioning a machine has a shit OS

@KenBW2,

But Vista is such shit, it really is a major negative point against any machine, and with so many new notebooks coming with Linux distros, it IS well worth mentioning. Given the crapulence of Vista, vendors should provide an XP and a Linux option, and it's worth mentioning if they don't.

And, is it REALLY that easy to get a refund from the vendor? From what I've seen, it usually is not -- they will really not want to give a refund for the M$ software, despite the license terms saying the vendor is supposed to.

[Greg]

@adrian wardle

"Why is apple the only US notebook maker capable of making attractive kit?"

Because the rest of us are interested in stuff that works rather than stuff that's pretty. ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a fecking plank

It looks like it was styled by the same bloke that used to do Volvos. You know, the guy whose toolkit contains only a pencil, a ruler and jamjar to do the wheels. And it looks like he lost the jamjar recently.

[Shakje]

Re: "Air" is a stupid name

Keep feeling smug, I'm smug I didn't fork out stupid money on a laptop with all the functionality of my pen and paper, except thicker.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ "It'll come running Windows Vista"

So the battery will last long enough for sixteen and a half crashes on average then ?

[Brian Wright]

Vista

I wonder how many of the people that keep lambasting Vista so much have actually used it for any length of time on a decent spec PC. I have and find it great, much more stable than XP was.

[Anonymous Coward]

@KenBW2

'I wish everyone would stop pointing out that new laptops run the newest incarnation of the world's most popular Operating System.'

I like this approach to talking about problems. You could spin almost everything this way. F'rinstance:

'I wish everyone would stop pointing out that prostitutes carry the newest incarnation of the world's most popular sexually transmitted disease.'