HP Teases Possible Second Ultrabook In Leaked Video

Hewlett Packard is teasing a new notebook-like PC called the Envy Spectre, which is being interpreted in some circles as HP's second entry in the ultrabook market.

But assuming even this much is a leap given the oblique nature of the video's imagery, which begins with wafer-thin slabs closing slowly in clamshell-like fashion, and ends with a shot of a notebook opening just a crack before the screen fades to white. The Verge posted the video to Youtube on Monday after receiving it from an anonymous HP employee.

The mysterious nature of the Envy Spectre video is reminiscent of the WebOS teaser video that HP released last February in the run-up to its unveiling of the TouchPad tablet and Pre3 and Veer smartphones. HP discontinued all three products last August.

HP didn't respond to a request for comment on whether the Envy Spectre is an ultrabook and when it's slated for launch.

HP could choose to unveil the Envy Spectre at next week's Consumer Electronics Show, where several other PC makers are expected to tout new ultrabooks. Last month, HP unveiled its inaugural ultrabook, the Folio 13, an 18-mm thick PC that weighs in at 3.3 pounds and features a 13.3-inch display and 128-GB solid state drive.

Ultrabooks are an attempt to remake netbooks as higher margin products that are suitable for both businesses and consumers. As evidence of HP's desire to target enterprise users, the Folio 13 comes with an optional Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip, which secures data in e-mails and on the hard drive.

Intel, which began touting ultrabooks last May at the Computex show in Taiwan, gave OEM an initial reference design calling for devices of less than 20 mm in thickness, weighing less than 3 pounds and featuring battery life of up to 8 hours. Ultrabooks also include second generation Intel Core processors, as opposed to the lower powered Atom processors that netbooks used, and also come with solid state drives instead of hard disks.

While holiday sales figures for ultrabooks are still being tabulated, the ultrabook market has apparently been slow to develop. Acer and Asustek, two early and vocal proponents of the form factor, last fall cut their sales forecasts and scaled back orders significantly, according to Digitimes.