Engadget has a great review of HP’S 13-inch Envy laptop out, and I’m here to digest the review and present the most important parts for you guys. It’s been called a Macbook Pro clone, and from the looks alone, it really does deserve the title. It has an aluminum body, chiclet keys, even a buttonless trackpad. But how does it stack up to Apple’s premiere notebook?

Hardware-wise, it’s already supposed to be an ok notebook. Just look at the specs: Intel Core™ 2 Duo processor, ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4330, and a 13-inch screen with a 1600 x 900 resolution. The “Beats”-branded speakers actually sound slightly better than in other netbooks as well. However, there is a bit of a drawback: the buttonless trackpad, obviously patterned after the Macbook’s trackpad, is a little, well, clunky. And of course what kind computer manufacturer would not install any crap and bloatware on a Windows 7 install, rendering the usually-snappy OS to slow down? HP does just that, true to form. Read more…

So the highly-anticipated iPad just got released and everyone is talking about it. A lot of computer manufacturers have released tablet PCs before, but not one of those gadgets have gained as much buzz as Apple’s little tablet. Well, they don’t have an army of dedicated fans waiting with bated breath, and they don’t have Steve Freakin’ Jobs to show off their new products.

However Google seems to be on a collision course with Apple. After the search engine giant’s Google Voice app was pulled from the iTunes App Store, they responded by releasing the Google Nexus One. They’re also moving in the operating system business by way of the Google Chrome OS (I’ve been pretty unimpressed with it, by the way), and they’re poised to go for laptops/netbooks as well with the as-of-yet mythical Google netbook. Read more…

Dell can’t seem to make up its mind. The computer manufacturing giant, in a recent blog post, announced that it will stop producing its 12 inch netbooks. But it also announced that the Mini 9 (which has a 10 inch display) has been revived — after it was retired last June.

According to the same blog post, Dell’s move can be seen as a realization that in the netbook market the 10 inch display is where the money is.

Dell is selling the Mini 9 for $299 while the Mini 12 is sold at the Dell factory outlets for about $569.

Hewlett-Packard along with its Compaq division has recently issued a recall of approximately 70,000 notebook PC batteries because of fears that these batteries could overheat.

The lithium-ion batteries that are contained in certain notebook computers were the subject of two reports that were submitted to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission as well as Health Canada. The said reports were said to contain examples of minor property damage.

The batteries affected by the recall were those manufactured between August 2007 and March 2008. Among the computer models that likely contain the faulty batteries are:

HP Pavilion
dv2000
dv2500
dv2700
dv6000
dv6500
dv9000
dv9500
dv9700
dv6700

Compaq Presario

A900
C700
F700
V3000
V3500
V3700
V6000
V6500
V6700

HP Compaq

6720s

The recalled batteries will also have the following barcode levels. Please note that the ^ denotes any letter or number in the code:

62940^^AXV^^^^
65033^^B7U^^^^
65033^^B7V^^^^
65033^^BGU^^^^
65035^^B7U^^^^
65035^^B7V^^^^
65035^^BGU^^^^
65035^^BGV^^^^
67059^^V8U^^^^
67059^^V8V^^^^

It is interesting to note that the last time a battery recall happened, which was in 2006, it began a series of recall announcements from a number of companies. This means that this could be the beginning of a massive recall move from other companies as well.

The Consumer Electronics Show 2009 currently being held in Las Vegas is proving to be an exciting one for laptop lovers.

ASUS unveiled its two EEE PC tablets at the show recently. The T91 and the T101H are 8.9 – and 10 – inch screens that posses the Atom processor, a direct spec link the the EEE netbooks that are probably the most popular laptops in the market today. The great innovation for this line is the tablet functionality allowing a user to swivel the screen flush and fold it flush to the keyboard.

I am quite excited about the T101H not only because of the size but also because of the good looking chiclet keyboard. No price has been given yet for these new EEE stars but I’ll definitely be getting this when it gets released.