HP apparently wasn't kidding when it said it expected people to buy that hot new
UMPC 2133 sub-notebook "
without a thought": DigiTimes is now reporting that the company has contracted Wistron to crank out two million units this year. That's an astonishingly high number -- almost 10 percent of HP's worldwide laptop sales last year -- and even wilder compared to the EeePC, which completely blew away expectations by selling
350,000 units worldwide last quarter, or Samsung's Q1, which has only moved a couple hundred thousand in two years on the market. Sure, the 2133 looks sexy as hell, but at a rumored
$630, HP's going to have to put some serious sales muscle behind this guy to move that many -- it's just slightly too expensive to be an accessory, and probably way too
underpowered to be your primary machine. On the other hand, while this is just a rumor and could be totally wrong, we'd actually like to think HP has a product so good it's going to roll the dice a little. Guess we'll find out soon enough, eh?
[Via
jkOnTheRun]
posted February 26th 2008 5:32PM
I don't know about everyone else, but I'm going to wait till the specs are out before complaining about them. Wining about rumors just doesn't cut it for me.
Without rumors and apple store closings engadget would update once a week.
I wonder how long it will take them to fire the yes-men that told them $630 was a price people would pay without thinking once they are left with 1.5 million of these units after a year while Asus rolls out new models. The eee price of 300-400 doesn't get people seeing the infamous $1k mark like $630 does, and with the economy kinda entering stagflation... ehhh... not a good business decision imo.
If it runs Vista, then it will not be so hot because that OS needs horsepower. XP or Linux would be better and maybe then it'll compete.
What happened to all those Hp iPaq's ??
At least the Asus Eee works as advertised.
Well it's a trade off between EEEPC's ghetto screen with it's poor resolution and small HDD space vs an underpowered VIA processor in the HP. Too bad they didn't put a celeron in it.
The second gen EEEPC's may only have a larger screen with the same crummy resolution they have now in which case the HP is a no brainer. If the new EEEPC has a better resolution screen the HP's may end up being extra cheap.
Cool !
So when they are not selling as expected they will lower the price. That will make for a cheap umpc :D
With the Dollar beeing at a record high of 1.50 per euro. A 630 USD laptop would be 420 euro! If so, it would sell like crazy in Europe. But they are probally going to sell it for 599 euro (900 USD) in euro, and in that case, it won't sell!
I wish it had a 10 inch screen!!! I would defenitly buy it with a 10 inch screen.
yep...it wont come lower then 599€ what a shame...make it 499€ and ill get it.
i know its hard to compare the 2... but how come you can make a laptop like this for that price... but gps units can be hundreds more...
Dear Engadget, just so you know:
2m = 0.002
2M = 2000000
HP has two options... either lower the price or for $630, increase the spec. This looks like a great machine from HP but if you have this sitting next to an Eee in a store then the Eee will win on price every time.
Increase what specs? As far as I know none have been released, aside from the stellar resolution.
Maybe we should wait until we know the specs before saying they're bad?
core2duo darnit!
Um...UMPC = "Ultra Mobile PC". I can buy a motorcycle for less money than a car. But if I buy a motorcycle, I won't have a car. If I spent money on a "full fledged laptop", I wouldn't have a UMPC. In other words, I think you missed the point of the UMPC.
Nice UMPC though at least one major flow...size of the screen: if they have already decided for 'nearly full-sized QWERTY' (which may make this UMPC questionably too big) then they should exclude that ridiculous speakers from their present position and use the maximum possible screen size...
Still in the absence of ECS G10IL, which would be my first choice, I may end up with one of these...So, fast release is important selling point too. Something what ECS guys should be reconsidering for the future.