HP's gargantuan 18-inch HDX 18t laptop now available

Don't hold out on us -- we know good and well you've been eying HP's bigger than big HDX 18 ever since it got real last month. For those unable to resist the urge to find out what life's like with an 18-inch entertainment notebook gracing their lap (and likely the lap of the guy one cube over), you can order this sucker up right now. Yep, the HDX 18t Premium series gets going at $1,549.99, but it won't take too many configuration tweaks to push that figure well over the $2k mark. Have fun!

[Via Laptoping]

[Muhammed @ Oct 2nd 2008 7:47AM]

If I'm spending over 2k then I'm better off buying an Alienware m15x, Nice laptop tho.

[Aceley @ Oct 2nd 2008 8:38AM]

totally agree... but this things looks great!

[Billy Byno @ Dec 15th 2008 11:38AM]

I purchased this laptop a week and a half ago. Two days after I received it wired.com reviewed it and said it was one of the best they have ever seen, minus the volume control. I think they must have been either too nice about it or paid off not to say "Don't buy because of faulty volume control!" I have spent over 5 hours on the phone with HP trying to let them make good on the $2500 laptop I bought. They had me reset the drivers, do a few more tricks and then finally do a recovery back to factory settings which re-installs Windows. It played nice for about a day after that and then went right back to flipping out. The issue is that the volume window keeps adjusting the volume without anyone touching it. To give better insight, what this means is that you have a window of the volume control in the middle of that beautiful screen and there is the most annoying clicking sound you have ever heard. I can't even use the laptop. And I have been trying to get a refund now for three days. It seems the customer service people are allowed to say whatever they would like to you without repercussions. I have been transferred to two numbers that are disconnected. I was also told I would have to say please for the direct number for a supervisor who might be able to give me a return shipping label. I had another lady say that they are a big company and do not need my $2500 when I complained about them not giving it back.

[RadicalxEdward @ Oct 2nd 2008 8:09AM]

That screen reminds me of what the rumored new MBP screen will look like.

[Muhammed @ Oct 2nd 2008 8:23AM]

And by this you mean ........?????

[roy @ Nov 29th 2008 10:20AM]

agree

[KilgoreTrout @ Oct 2nd 2008 8:43AM]

The comments to this useless thing are the same made for the 18" Sony.
Anybody with some sense would rather buy a netbook maybe with a projector (which BTW are getting smaller lighter & cheaper by the day) and a good desktop, or shuttle connected to your TV screen, or AIO , to use home.
You'll save money and get much more fun and work done then with this thing.

[Sarig @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:04AM]

Maybe you should go back to read all the comments for the Sony then, as quite a few uses were mentioned there that your setup doesn't cover.

[KilgoreTrout @ Oct 2nd 2008 8:44AM]

The comments to this useless thing are the same made for the 18" Sony.
Anybody with some sense would rather buy a netbook maybe with a projector (which BTW are getting smaller lighter & cheaper by the day) and a good desktop, or shuttle connected to your TV screen, or AIO , to use home.
You'll save money and get much more fun and work done then with this thing.

[KilgoreTrout @ Oct 2nd 2008 8:44AM]

The comments to this useless thing are the same made for the 18" Sony.
Anybody with some sense would rather buy a netbook maybe with a projector (which BTW are getting smaller lighter & cheaper by the day) and a good desktop, or shuttle connected to your TV screen, or AIO , to use home.
You'll save money and get much more fun and work done then with this thing.

[telepheedian @ Oct 2nd 2008 8:58AM]

Believe it or not, this laptop actually makes sense, for live video gigs and maybe photogs. This probably wouldn't be the editor/coordinator's primary laptop, but I could definetly see it being used to capture & playback some live HD video captures, its still easier to carry around than a shuttle, and you can move it from location to location without shutting it down. Plus, its not that expensive compared to a lot of the other equipment they use, nor is it as heavy as other things they're probably carrying to gigs.

[muddyh2o @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:36AM]

great- now when will we see an 18-incher for business?

i'll have a hard time getting an entertainment device approved by our purchasing dept...

[jay.viz @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:50PM]

That's what she said...

[foebea @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:43AM]

Meh. For a second I worried that I might have jumped the gun on my dell 1730, but I ran the hp config and to get similar specs it costs exactly the same price, $2800. Sure the screen is 1 inch larger, but its lower resolution and you are forced to get the useless fingerprint scanner embedded on the shell. I'm happy enough with what I've got.

[3dpenguin @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:45AM]

Does anybody see anything wrong with paying the same price for the 18" HDX that HP was selling the discontinued 20.1" HDX for? I paid 1599 for my 20.1", and I can tell you it is probably more gargantuan than this one, the monitor is so large it expanded the keyboard platform large enough to include a remote that looks like a remote and not an oddly shaped business card that slips in the side of the laptop.

[Eddie @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:59AM]

I configured one online. You can get a quad core processor, but no 7200rpm hard drive option. That seems odd

[Jeremy K. @ Oct 2nd 2008 11:24AM]

I was thinking the same thing. It's strange that they limit the hard drives to 5400RPM. Lenovo's done it right with offering 7200RPM hard drives on their business laptops.

[Mr_Armageddon @ Oct 2nd 2008 11:28AM]

I will give credit where is is due, and this looks to be a very nice notebook, but why is it that HP will not offer an option to have better graphics than an 9600M GT on any of their notebooks? For the most part the specs are great, but why skimp on the GPU. This is a high-end notebook, so I would expect more in the graphics department.

[Zack @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:11PM]

I absolute love the new HP designs, look-wise. This one looks really sleek too, and the graphics on the covers are awesome too in my opinion. Good job, HP! They might not be the cheapest brand, but almost any HP product I've owned was high quality, except for the one with the Nvidia graphics card issues. (Which I blame NV for, the laptop itself functioned great)

[Zanthyr @ Oct 3rd 2008 5:34PM]

It looks like ion the top right corner of the screen it says Acer lol

[Roberto @ Oct 6th 2008 2:22PM]

If it could only run XP ... please someone tell me it can!!
and OSX !!
Vista is probably the worst turn-down of all times for laptop buyers.

[Britt @ Oct 10th 2008 6:18PM]

Where can you get this with the Quad core processor? All I see is the Duo T9400 when you build it on HP's site, which is the same processor as my Asus M70Vm-C1. My specs are almost identical to this machine and with 4GB of RAM and BT I paid $300 less. So what if my screen is only a 17", I wouldn't spend the extra money.

[Suneth @ Oct 18th 2008 1:11AM]

This laptop looks awesome, and the textures on this is superb it seems, but no idea about the quality of the product. I hope to buy one of this beautiful machines. Physical look is great and it certainly the best looking laptop i've ever seen.