HP Announces New EliteBook Business Notebooks PCs with AMD PRO A-Series APUs

HP’s Elite lineup is targeted towards business and professional users, and today HP is announcing a big refresh of the lineup. One interesting twist is that HP has partnered with AMD on these devices, and will be utilizing AMD PRO A-Series processors in both their desktops and notebooks. In addition to the other features of Carrizo such as HEVC decoding, the PRO lineup is AMD’s take on Intel’s vPro technology and should fit in well with HP’s goals with these machines.

There are three new notebook models with 12.5-inch, 14-inch, and 15-inch display sizes. The MIL-Spec tested notebooks will be offered with a wide range of options, but will be powered by the AMD A12, A10, or A8 APU models and 16 GB of memory. HP will be offering accessories like fingerprint readers and LTE as well. They also offer HP’s Sure Start BIOS which will automatically correct the BIOS if it finds there is an issue – whether malicious or not. HP will also be offering a choice of operating system from Windows 10 to Windows 7, and FreeDOS 2.0 as well. The displays are all SVA panels, with (unfortunately) 1366×768 as the base option on all three laptops, with 1920×1080 optional, or the 14-inch model can also be had with 2560×1440. On the networking side, HP has gone with Broadcom for Wi-Fi, and Qualcomm’s X5 LTE model is optional.

The notebooks have a nice magnesium chassis with a bit more flash than your traditional business PC. HP also includes spill-resistant keyboards, docking connectors, and RJ-45 on all models, and yes, even a VGA port which seems like it can’t ever go away.

The new models should be available in September starting at $749.

Source: HP

LG Steps Into The Ultrabook Ring With the LG Gram Series

LG has announced several new Ultrabooks labelled under the Gram series. They are going for a very lightweight and portable design, hence the name. There will be two models, with a 13.3-inch and 14-inch available starting today.

Both models feature a 1920×1080 IPS display, and weigh in at just 980 grams for either model, so there is no weight penalty going with the larger device. They are just 0.5” or 12.5mm thick, so they should have no issues with portability. The chassis are made out of carbon-lithium and carbon-magnesium which should result in a pretty strong frame despite the light weight and thin dimensions. LG has also managed to go with a minimal bezel of just 7.2mm on the sides, much like the Dell XPS 13, but they have kept a top bezel in order to fit the webcam. The 13.3-inch version will be offered in white, while the 14-inch version will be gold.

LG Gram 13

Despite being very thin and light, both models will be offered with Intel’s 15w processor lineup. The base offering is the Broadwell Core i5-5200U which is 2.2 GHz and a turbo to 2.7 GHz, and the 14-inch model will also be offered with the Core i7-5500U which is 2.4 GHz to 3.0 GHz. Memory is 8 GB of DDR3L which is listed as single channel, but being soldered on it could actually be dual-channel and only hands on with the device could determine that. Storage is 128 GB of SSD, with the i7 model doubling that to 256 GB.

There is HDMI, dual USB 3.0, and a SDXC card reader as well which should be enough for most tasks, and there is also a micro USB connector which can be used with the included 10/100 Ethernet adapter. It would have been nice to see Gigabit here, but that can’t work on a micro USB port and LG must not have wanted to tie up one of the USB 3.0 ports. Wireless is provided by the Intel Dual Band Wireless AC-7260 wireless card, but I would have preferred to see the 7265 model here.

LG Gram 14

Packing all of this into a small frame, light weight, and thin device is a pretty nice feat, but the one thing that seems to have taken a hit is the battery. LG rates both models at 7.5 hours of use, but the battery is just a 35 Wh model so it has a pretty big disadvantage over other Ultrabooks.

Perhaps most importantly, the LG Gram series will be sold through the Microsoft Store, which means they will be sold as “Signature PCs” from Microsoft. This means that there will be no extra software installed out of the box other than necessary utilities to function with the hardware. When you see the state of some PCs sold, with so much software installed that it would take you hours to clean it all off, this is a nice benefit and well done to LG for going down this route.

The LG Gram is available starting today.

Source: LG

Toshiba Refreshes The Chromebook 2 With Broadwell

Toshiba announced today that it has refreshed their Chromebook 2 model. The new version will be available with 5^th generation Core i3 or Celeron processors. Thanks to the the poor branding by Intel and vague release notes by Toshiba, the Celeron model may be the same N2840 as before or it may also be Core based. This is a pretty mild refresh, but the optional Core should mean a pretty significant increase in performance compared to the outgoing Silvermont based N2840.

The Chromebook 2 keeps its 13.3-inch IPS display, as well as the ability to configure it with up to 4 GB of memory which should be plenty for most tasks in Chrome OS. The notebook is just 2.9 lbs and offers up to nine hours of battery life according to Toshiba. The company is trying to leverage some other branding as well, saying that the front facing stereo speakers are tuned by Skullcandy.

Overall, the device does not change much, but it was already one of the nicer looking Chromebooks around. We were able to do a full review on this based on the N2840 Celeron, and the one complaint was that it needed a bit more processing power. The i3 model should help out a lot in that respect. The new model also gains a backlit keyboard which is kind of surprising in this price range.

The new models will be shipping on October.

Source: Toshiba