Although not much has been heard about Hewlett-Packard, comparing the Palo Alto, California-based PC vendor with some of its main competitors, it appears that the company is working on a new line of portable computer systems, to be released at the end of this year. According to recent details that have surfaced on the Internet, HP is expected to announce a couple of new updates to its line of notebook PCs, with the company even planning a couple of new netbooks as well. Although details are scarce, it's likely that the new systems will debut later in Q4 or in early Q1, 2010.

In a recent post on notebookreview's forums, a user writes about a couple of new HP systems that have made their way on the online software documentation from HP. There is a number of new systems mentioned in these pages, but, at a quick glance, HP is expected to update the Pavilion line with the dm1, dm3, dv8 and tm2 models, and the Mini family with the Mini 311, Mini 210 and Mini 5102, and more in the Compaq lineup. Unfortunately, there are no exact details on the technical specifications of these new systems, but it's likely they'll be made available by the end of this year, or early next year.

There are speculations according to which the said Mini 210 and 311 models will be featured with the much-anticipated Intel Pine Trail platform, which basically means that they will be powered by Intel's next-generation Atom 450 processor. This would imply that HP will roll out the said netbooks early this year, probably during the CES event in Las Vegas, Nevada.

As for the dv8 series, there are a couple of reports on the Internet that appear to indicate that the said model will be featured with Intel's next-generation Calrksfield Core i7 processors.

At this time, we are certainly dealing with rumors and speculations, but it's clear that HP needs to get back in the game and provide its customers with a complete, new lineup of portable computer systems, if it wants so maintain its number-one spot on the portable PC market.