HP Gears New Pavilion Laptops, and Printers, Toward Students

The Hewlett-Packard Pavilion laptop line grows by four, with media-savvy notebooks HP hopes will appeal to high school and college-age kids. Rival Dell has also introduced laptops designed to be taken to school in the fall.

This summer Hewlett-Packard is offering four new Pavilion series laptops, which it hopes will be headed to school in the fall.
 
The student-friendly-and oddly rhyming-new offerings are the Pavilion dv2z, dv6t, dv6z Artist Edition 2 and dv3t.
 
The Pavilion dv2z starts at $599, weighs 3.81 pounds, is less than 1 inch thick and has a 12.1-inch (diagonal) mercury-free LED widescreen display. Its hard drive capacity is up to 500 GB, a Blu-ray disc drive is optional and HP MediaSmart software is included.
 
The software offers one-click menus and touch-enabled quick access to media such as movies, photos and music. HP's complete MediaSmart line includes a home server and a media receiver that plugs into an HDTV.
 
The Pavilion dv6t starts at $649 and features a 16-inch (diagonal) LED widescreen display. HP, understanding the needs of young college students, described it in a statement as "ideal for writing term papers" and said it "also delivers a 16:9 aspect ratio for full-screen viewing of high-definition TV and other HD content, including the latest viral videos."
 
The dv6t includes an Intel Core 2 Duo processor T6400, 2GB of memory, a 160GB hard drive, an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500 MHD and, among other features, optional Blu-ray and edge-to-edge display.
 
The non-liberal-arts set will appreciate that the keyboard on the dv6t includes a numeric keypad.
 
The dv6z Artist Edition 2, with pricing beginning at $949, offers the specs of the dv6z-built-in Wi-Fi, a low-light Webcam and an AMD Dual Core processor, among others-but in a snazzier wrapper, as it features the winning design from the 2008 HP/MTV Notebook Design Contest, which was reportedly inspired by the sea and sky of Okinawa, Japan.
 
Also included in the Artist Edition 2, for expressing your inner artist, are Video Studio X2, Corel Painter Sketch Pad, Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 and Magix Music Maker 14 software.
 
Finally, HP calls the Pavilion dv3t its lightest Intel-based Pavilion notebook. Available in Espresso Black or Moonlight White, it features a 13.2-inch (diagonal) screen, weighs just under 5 pounds, is 1.25 inches thick, runs Windows Vista, includes an integrated optical drive and offers optional discrete graphics.
 
Memory options range from 2GB to 8GB of DDR2 (double data rate 2) memory, and hard drive choices include a 250GB 5400-rpm SATA (Serial ATA) hard drive, a 500GB 5400-rpm SATA hard drive and a 320GB 7200-rpm SATA hard drive. Additional features include extended battery life and multiple connectivity options; its starting price is $649.
 
Along with the four new laptops, HP introduced a line of "eco-friendly" printers, ranging in price from $39 to $149. The printers meet Energy Start qualifications, include recycled materials and offer paper-saving options, according to HP.
 
The dv2z and dv63 Artist Edition 2 will be available starting June 10. The other two notebooks are likely to follow shortly behind.
 
In summer 2009, Dell also introduced a school-focused notebook, the Latitude 2100, which, with options such as a rubber exterior and antimicrobial keyboard, is designed for elementary school and junior high classrooms.
 
Dell's Inspiron Mini 10v netbook and Inspiron 15 notebook, which come in colors such as Ice Blue, Cherry Red and Promise Pink, are also geared toward backpack-toters.