Digital Home Thoughts: HP Unveils the Dragon

"Looks like HP's HDX has finally poked its pivoting, angling neck out to say hello. We welcome the mammoth, overzealous "entertainment series" laptop, in all its specced out glory...Did we mention it's 15.5 pounds, 2.3-inches thick, and will bankrupt your family? Seriously, consider this one long and hard. Your kids' college education is more important than a laptop."



I used to think of 17" widescreen laptops as being big and heavy, but this new laptop from HP puts big and heavy into a whole new category. The specs are impressive though: it boasts a 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo CPU, a 4 GB of RAM (unless they're running 64 bit Vista, will the user actually be able to access all 4 GB of RAM?), dual 200 GB SATA drives, an HD-DVD drive, dual layer DVD burner, ExpressCard slot, HDMI out, a 20.1 inch screen running at 1680 x 1050, and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT (a 256 MB card with DirectX 10 support). That's one beastly laptop - and, really, you wouldn't truly consider it a laptop, it's more of a gaming/workstation that's technically portable. I love seeing innovation like this, but I fear it will be priced in the $4000 USD range and no one will touch it (does anyone actually own a Dell XPS M2010?)