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Hewlett-Packard is introducing two new notebooks this week at CeBIT America, as it prepares several new mobile products for the second half of the year.

The PC vendor wants to lead the market for notebooks, one of the few segments showing "robust" growth, said Kevin Frost, vice president of worldwide marketing for HP's notebook business unit. In addition to Wednesday's debut, HP plans to launch new mobile products in August and will make an announcement in September about mobile and wireless printing, Frost says.

HP also plans to launch several new IPaq models next week in conjunction with Microsoft's Pocket PC 2003 launch Monday, sources say.

Aimed at Traveler

The new HP notebooks offer a number of options and choices of configurations. Pricing begins at under $1700.

The new Nx7000 is designed for the occasional traveler, or small to medium-size businesses, Frost says. It is based on Intel's Centrino package of chips, with the Pentium M processor, an Intel chip set, and the company's Pro/Wireless 2100 chip for 802.11b networks.

A base configuration with a 1.4-GHz Pentium M, 512MB of DDR SDRAM, a 40GB hard drive, and a DVD-ROM drive is priced at $1699.

For now, HP is offering this notebook only with Intel's 802.11b technology, but Intel is expected to release both an 802.11g chip and a tri-mode version later this year. HP will build that capability into the Nx7000 as it becomes available, Frost says.

This notebook comes with a 15.4-inch wide-screen display, which offers 20 percent more viewing area than a conventional display of that size, and also takes up less space on an airplane tray, Frost says. Wide-screen displays are becoming more popular among notebook buyers, and Gateway, Apple, and HP have released wide-screen notebooks earlier this year.

Wireless Options

The new Nc4000 notebook weighs only 3.5 pounds and is targeted at business customers who travel often, Frost says. It comes with Intel's Pentium M processor, but uses wireless technology from Atheros Communications.

Customers can opt for a tri-mode wireless chip that connects to three wireless Internet standards currently in use: 802.11b, 802.11a, and 802.11g. The notebook comes without a wireless chip in its base configuration, and customers can also select a 802.11b/802.11g chip from Atheros as another option.

A base configuration of the Nc4000 with a 1.4-GHz Pentium M processor, 256MB of DDR SDRAM, a 40GB hard drive, and a 12.1-inch display costs $1699.

Making the wireless chip an option gives HP an advantage over rivals such as Dell among corporate customers, says Matt Sargent, director of research for ARS.

Most corporate technology managers don't want to support wireless notebooks right now, Sargent says. The holdouts fear a raft of unsecured wireless networks spreading throughout their organizations, he adds. By offering a price break to customers who don't want wireless, HP can offer a notebook more in line with Dell's aggressive price structure.

For example, Dell's Latitude D400 comes with wireless as a standard option. Customers can purchase a D400 without the wireless technology, but there is no price benefit in doing so, Sargent notes. The D400 is priced at $1500 in a base configuration with less memory and a smaller hard drive, he points out.

Worldwide, HP leads all vendors in notebook shipments with 15.9 percent market share, just ahead of rival Dell's 14.5 percent and Toshiba's 14.3 percent share, according to IDC data. While notebooks have been a bright spot among PC sales to corporations, shipment growth to businesses is still flat overall, compared with strong notebook growth found in the consumer market, Sargent says.

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