Wireless Tech Chat

HP’s dv4t is getting fitted with a LED-backlit display, Espresso Black and Moonlight White color options, integrated WWAN (Verizon or AT&T), a 500GB HDD and optional NVIDIA GeForce G 105M (512MB) graphics. There’s also a Blu-ray option, integrated HDTV tuner and a 12-cell battery to choose.

From the HP shopping site:

Cutting-edge design meets powerful entertainment in our HP Pavilion dv4t Entertainment Notebook. This lightweight 14.1″ diagonal mobile machine is perfect for TV shows, photos, movies, and music.
Genuine Windows Vista
Get things done, stay connected, and enjoy entertainment in a protected environment with genuine Windows Vista with Service Pack 1. This series comes with genuine Windows Vista Home Premium, which includes Windows Aero, Windows Media Center, and instant search.††

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Sophisticated elegance
Get everything you need in a stylish digital design that goes wherever you go. Our HP Pavilion dv4t series Entertainment Notebook PCs feature:

Modern lines and durable surfaces with a “liquid metallic” appearance
Innovative, eye-catching color on both the interior and exterior)
Cool designs, based on your color choice, on the side panel, top, and interior
Keyboard and touchpad color matched to your PC
An HP logo that lights up when you turn on the PC
Optional flush glass for a frameless look (select the Infinity Display option)
The latest Intel Centrino processor technology (dual core1), for intense multimedia
» Learn more about HP notebooks and Intel Centrino processor Technology

Fast performance with powerful Nvidia graphics options

Total entertainment
Enjoy everything-in-one entertainment, with hours of recorded TV, photos, movies, music, and more, wherever you roam. Highlights include:
Built-in Wi-Fi2, a low-light webcam, and digital microphones
MediaSmart software, which puts your digital world at your fingertips with quick access to photo albums, movies, and music
An HDMI 1.3 port, which connects your notebook PC to an external monitor or HD TV3

An optional Blu-ray DVD player, which lets you read Blu-ray discs, and read/write traditional DVDs and CDs4 4
A built-in TV tuner (optional)5, remote control, premium audio, and dual headphone jacks

Slashgear posted a great review of the new (and overtly cutely names) HP 1000 Mini Mi.

we’ve reviewed the budget ultraportable and, dare we say it, moved on to excitement over its rivals. However there’s one last Mini 1000 variant to play with, that with HP’s new Mobile Internet Experience (MIE) - a Linux-based version of the netbook with the company’s own custom GUI. James Kendrick found one on his doorstep, and gave some first-impressions.

Under the hood, the HP Mini 1000 MI is little changed from its Windows XP siblings. A 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB SSD for storage and a 10-inch LED-backlit display, together with a 3-cell battery, two standard USB 2.0 ports, multiformat card reader and a tweaked USB port for HP’s own Mini Mobile Drive.

This page shows email (including unread headers), web page thumbnails, search bar, Music player and Photos player right on the home page. There is also a task bar at the bottom of the page that graphically shows what is running and beneath that is a button that looks like the OQO logo which fires up a task manager similar to that of OS X.

The little HP logo in the lower left corner of the home page will take you back to the home page no matter what is being displayed as will tapping the HP button (formerly known as the Windows key) on the keyboard. In the bottom right of the screen is the system bar where you can track network connections, battery life, etc.” James Kendrick

So it’s the software that’s the interesting part, and happily HP seem to have done a good job prioritizing what most netbook users will be intending to do with their new budget ultraportable. The home-page has previews and shortcuts for emails and webpages (with a custom Firefox-based browser), together with instant access to multimedia. Perhaps not enough flexibility for those who see netbooks as a cheap way to tinker with a new notebook (though there’s standard Ubuntu lurking underneath the MIE) but one of the better GUIs for Linux that we’ve seen so far for beginners.