HP may have pushed back the launch of some of its new business laptops to wait for Intel to clear up the Cougar Point controller, but it gone full steam ahead in announcing a refresh to its consumer offerings.
For the mid-range customer, the 15.6in Pavilion dv6 and 17.3in Pavilion dv7 will get an upgrade to the latest Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs and the option of an AMD Radeon 6000M-series GPU. USB 3.0 is also along with the ride, as well as the option of a Blu-ray drive and up to 2TB of storage on the larger model.
The chassis have also been restyled, with design cues taken from the high-end ENVY line and the inclusion of a 'quad-speaker' Beats Audio sound system. The dv7 even manages to squeeze in a subwoofer for good measure.
For the slightly less well-heeled customer, HP has refreshed the entry-level Pavilion g-series with the new 14in g4, 15.4in g6 and 17.3in g7. The internals are nothing to shout about, but the choice of AMD Athlon and Turion or Intel Pentium or Core i3 CPUs should provide more than enough power for most users.
Once again the exteriors have been given a major overhaul, and the g-series notebooks are now available in a huge choice of different colours. The most interesting change is the touchpad, though, which is now completely flush with the palm-rest and almost invisible - while questionably functional, it certainly looks pretty sharp.
The new Pavilion g-series laptops are going to launch on March 13 in the US with pricing starting at $500, $450, and $600 (£390, £350 and £470 inc VAT) for the g4, g6 and g7, respectively. The dv6 and dv7 are being held back until sometime later in the spring and pricing will be announced closer to when they launch.
