After arguably the biggest hype-fest of late 2008, HP's Firebird with VoodooDNA was revealed as Rahul Sood's ambitious little secret. The miniaturized gaming rigs began shipping out during CES, and we've no doubt that a few of you with space constraints and a lust of high frame rates have already chomped on the bullet. So, does the machine live up to the hype? Is it worth the asking price? What features weren't included that should have been? Has it handled your gaming demands with ease? Feel free to sound off below -- who knows, maybe Mr. Sood will tune in and hear you out.

While low-cost laptops are all the rage right now, there's still a solid chunk of folks out there willing to pay a premium for potent ultraportables. The Voodoo Envy 133 is undeniably one of the sexier small machines we've seen of late, and the internals are rather impressive given the size of the enclosure. Still, this here rig costs a pretty penny, and we've all ideas those who splurged have a thing or two to say about it with nearly two months of usage under their belt. Has the Envy 133 lived up to your surely lofty expectations? Are there aspects there you wish were different? How could Voodoo go about tweaking things whenever it finally decides to actually launch another product at all its successor?

Oh Rahul, why must you tease us so? Over a month after you referenced that "some other thing," we're still left to wonder what exactly "that thing" is. In a recent video response (posted after the break) to a question surrounding the HP Blackbird 002 gaming PC, Voodoo's founder closes things out by informing viewers that a product "way ahead of its time" is sitting just behind him, but he confesses that he can't show it off just yet. Of course, he also threw in the "forward-thinking" buzzword and assured us that the industry would "absolutely embrace" it, but as of now, there's simply nothing there to wrap our retinas around besides that smile. The game's growing tired, Mr. Sood.

Most everyone digs a surprise, but the novelty tends to wear off after the third or fourth iteration of the same trick, wouldn't you say? Rather than just coming right out and showing us the wares, Voodoo's Rahul Sood is playing the tease card again with an obviously undisclosed new product. In an apparent attempt to keep the wave (started by the Omen and Envy 133, by the way) rolling, Mr. Sood has dropped a sliver of a hint on The Next Bench. He states that "there's also this other thing [Voodoo is] working on right now," but he very purposefully fails to elaborate. Just keep it sexy and overpowered and we won't kvetch about the build up... too much.

[Thanks, William]

Just weeks after "reinventing" Voodoo with the Envy 133 laptop and Omen gaming desktop, it looks like HP's had enough -- it's decided to straight-up merge the specialty PC shop with its core consumer business, and sell its products alongside the Compaq Presario and HP Pavilion lines. Yeah, that'll make Voodoo seem totally hardcore. For it's part, HP says it's always been planning on this kind of merger, and that the move will make Voodoo product easier to buy worldwide and faster to get with no change in service for existing customers, but it's also oddly ambiguous on whether the Voodoo name will live on -- saying only that it's "likely," but that a decision hasn't been reached. All this means that it's even weirder that HP has both the Voodoo and Blackbird gaming lines, of course -- any bets on which one gets axed first?

Read - PC World article
Read - HP CTO Raul Sood's blog entry on the merger

Let's face it: a photograph is only worth a thousand words, but a video... well, it's almost always preferred. For those still hungry for (even) more details on Voodoo's latest duo, the HP VoodooPC channel is now home to a host of fresh clips to satisfy your insatiable appetite. The goods are in the read link, kiddos.

[Thanks, William]

Sure, we've sized these two up theoretically, but how well do Voodoo's Envy 133 and Apple's MacBook Air get along when sharing the same meatspace? There are certainly some striking similarities -- both have gargantuan trackpads, for instance, but Voodoo has taken things in an aesthetic direction all its own. We just hope these two decide to be friends instead of mortal, cake-cutting enemies.

First Voodoo's home page had that little fire problem, and now this super-dramatic teaser video's making the rounds -- we'd say there's probably a new Voodoo desktop and laptop in store for us on June 10, by the looks of things. Vid after the break.

Our stubborn pocket books and loved ones continue to chime in with a resounding "no" every time we start considering one of those fancy HP Blackbird 002 units, but that doesn't mean HP isn't on to something when it comes to fancy aesthetics and even fancier tech specs -- all courtesy of that VoodooPC buy a while back. Now it appears HP has a big unveil set for June 10 that "could begin to establish the company as a provider of beautiful technology gear" according to a Fortune article on HP. Voodoo founder Rahul Sood likens Voodoo's role as akin to Lamborghini within Audi, and has promised a "huge announcement" on his own blog. He even hinted at a laptop in a birthday post depicting him cutting his cake with a MacBook Air (pictured): "Ahh well, I wouldn't be needing this notebook for long anyways... :) Stay tuned for more..." The subnotebook fanboy within us hopes that means HP has a X300 / MacBook Air killer in the works, but whatever it is we certainly hope it warrants the modicum of buzz HP and Rahul are building for it.

[Thanks, William M.]

Read - HP reaches for the cool factor
Read - Rahul on Audi and Lambo
Read - Rahul and the Cake Knife

It looks like VoodooPC's still up to its old tricks despite now flying under the HP banner, trotting out its latest bit of laptop excess at CES. Packing admittedly "non-existent" battery life, the Voodoo Envy HW:201 should be more than adequate as a desktop replacement for all but the most demanding gamers, with a 20.1-inch display, AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core processor, and your choice of 512MB GeForce Go 7950 GTX or Quadro FX 2500M graphics cards in single or SLI configurations. Further filling out the Envy's 18.75 x 13.5 x 1.9-inch frame are two hard drives providing up to 320GB of space (available in RAID 0, if you choose), along with built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, and a "theater audio system." While it's supposedly set to begin shipping today, the behemoth hasn't yet made an appearance on Voodoo's website, giving the majority of us a bit more time to pretend we can afford it.

ExtremeTech and Games for Windows magazine have combined their forces to take on a few of the ultimate gaming machines that are tearing up the scene these days. Over the last week, they rocked six, that's right, six full-on reviews of these rapacious rigs: the Dell XPS 710, Gateway FX530XT Gaming PC, CyberPower Gamer Infinity SLI KO, Alienware Area-51 ALX, Falcon Northwest Mach V, and VoodooPC Omen (pictured).

First up is the Dell XPS 710, which really didn't get high marks at all -- they dubbed it a "very average system." What made it deserve such a panning? Basically, the site found that it's overpriced ($5,314) for the performance you get (2.66GHz Core 2 Extreme Quad QX6700) -- Dell seems to have spent the extra money on case design and not the actual components. When stacked up against a very close rival, the Gateway FX530XT, ExtremeTech found that the 530 edged out the Dell system, earning points for a faster chip (3.24GHz QX6700 quad-core), smaller case, lower price ($4,030), and quieter fan. Keep reading to check out the rest of the hardcore action...

Just moments ago, we're sure a hoard of you rushed off to purchase the newest OMEN PC from VoodooPC in order to have the most intense gaming rig in your neck of the woods, but we've got news for you: it's already been outdone. Vadim Computers is offering a custom-built machine that packs the latest and greatest computing hardware the world has to (currently) offer, outdoing even VoodooPC's latest offering. Inside the liquid-cooled case, you'll find Intel's quad-core 2.66GHz Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor nestled in an Asus P5N32-SLI Premium motherboard, surrounded by such niceties as 2GB of DDR2 RAM, dual nVidia 8800GTX 768Mb PCI-e graphics cards, twin 150GB Raptor 10000 drives (and a 750GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 just for storage), dual-layer DVD burner, CD-burning combo drive, and a Creative 7.1 X-Fi ExtremeMusic sound card -- and that's just the bottom-of-the-line configuration. The "3-to-20 percent variable overclocking," as well as the system itself, is backed by a two-year warranty, but similar to the Mac Mini, you'll be providing your own mouse, keyboard, and monitor. The tally on this incredulous beast comes to £4,622.23 ($8,818) -- which isn't quite what Dell demanded for its all-inclusive Renegade 600 -- but that's before the government even takes its share. Pony up, fellas.

[Via The Inquirer]

If you really, absolutely, positively need to have the sweetest gamer rig at your neighborhood-friendly LAN party, then you may want to check out VoodooPC's latest offering, the OMEN PC. We're pretty sure this is the first Intel quad-core desktop that we've seen on the market, and boy it sure doesn't disappoint. It's loaded up with your choice of an ATi Crossfire or an NVIDIA SLI graphics card 2GB of DDR2 RAM, an 80GB SATA drive, a Pioneer dual-layer 16X DVD burner, a Creative Labs X-Fi Xtreme Music audio card, a near-silent liquid cooling system and an "advanced chamber airflow layout" (i.e. BTX). Of course, all of that gadgetry doesn't come cheap, no sir -- that'll cost you $5500, and that's before taxes and shipping. Did we mention that VoodooPC is throwing in a t-shirt too? That seals the deal, no?

[Via Slashgear]

With its high-profile XPS line and recent purchase of boutique gaming house Alienware, for awhile it looked like Dell would be the only major PC manufacturer willing to cater to serious gamers. Not anymore. In a move that caught everyone, including us, completely by surprise (you'll notice the lack of backlinks to any rumor posts about this), HP announced today that it will acquire Alienware rival VoodooPC for an undisclosed sum. After the deal closes -- following the usual regulatory rigmarole -- HP will form a new business unit dedicated to gaming in its Personal Systems Group, with Voodoo co-owners (and brothers) Rahul and Ravi Sood assuming the roles of Chief Technologist and Director of Strategy, respectively. As you're probably aware, the acquisition comes at somewhat of a turbulent time for HP: not only is the company still reeling from the bruising merger with Compaq under former CEO Carly Fiorina, it's currently undergoing unwanted public and governmental scrutiny over the so-called "pretexting" scandal that led to the recent resignation of chairwoman Patricia Dunn. Although we doubt that the Voodoo deal is going to make everyone forget about the alleged spying that has occurred, it's nice to know that once HP finally puts this ugly mess behind it, consumers (especially gamers) can expect to benefit from some hot products and lower pricing that can only be realized now that Dell has some real competition on its hands. [Warning: PDF link]