14 DAY TRIAL // HP is apparently getting serious about tablets once again, as this market segment is projected to reach over 25% of the PC market in 2012 alone. The company has announced today the HP ENVY x2 hybrid mobile system, which is practically a tablet with a keyboard/battery dock.
Just to make things clear, the new HP ENVY x2 system is not a notebook/tablet hybrid, but rather a netbook/tablet hybrid. It doesn’t come with any optical disc drive (ODD) and it is powered by a modest Intel Atom low-power processor.
When the user connects the tablet to the magnetic latches of the dock, the system can correctly be called a netbook, but a mobile system powered by an Atom processor and lacking the ODD cannot be called a notebook.
It’s quite disappointing that the processing power is limited to Intel’s Atom capabilities, but this is Clover Trail we’re talking about here, so we can expect some slight performance improvement.
The x86 CPU is actually a requirement, as the operating system of choice is Microsoft’s soon-to-be-launched Windows 8 in its x86 implementation.
One thing that has pleasantly surprised us about the ENVY x2 is the high 400-nit brightness of its 11.6” screen.
The screen size is also a positive aspect, and the In-Plane Switching (IPS) panel is sure to display beautiful and vivid colors.
The system is really well featured with an 8MP video camera on the back and a HD webcam on the front, along with nice gimmicks like Beats Audio and NFC.
Not much else is known about the HP ENVY x2, as this will only launch in October 2012, together with the Windows 8 launch, but except the mediocre 1366 by 786 and the low-performing Atom processor, we are quite pleased with the overall presentation of HP’s new mobile hybrid.
