In his otherwise wonderful “Tablet Computing From 1888 to 2010”, our own Brian X Chen missed one essential innovation. It was the original IBM thinkPad, an in-house model which was used by staff while the slab-like notebook was gestating in Big Blue’s techno-womb. Made for many years before the laptop appeared at the crossover of the 80s and the 90s, it even (almost) conformed to the majority of Chen’s tablet rules:

2: The screen measures between 5 and 10 inches diagonally.

3: It is a keyboard-free, slab-shaped device (not a big ass table).

4: It detects finger and/or stylus input.

The ThinkPad was, of course, the handsome notebook you see above, a leather-bound pad which spoke of the austere authority of International Business Machines, and with a wry, knowing playfulness seen also in Paul Rand’s Eye-Bee-M poster (Rand designed the IBM logo, and was also one of the few people ever to push Steve Jobs around when he refused to offer more than one option for the NEXT logo). According to legend, this Think pad inspired the name of the computer version. I want one. It makes the Moleskine look like a wad of cheap paper napkins.

The Original IBM ThinkPad [A Continuous Lean via ★]

You know what they say about knock offs; they’re never quite as good as the original. But HP’s Envy 13, which is clearly a rip of the 13-inch MacBook Pro (everything down to packaging screams Apple), comes pretty darn close.

It has an über attractive all metal build, compact design and eye-loving screen, and if it weren’t for the high price and its darn touchpad I’d say the MacBook should be scared.

Price

$1,800 (As configured with a 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor SL9600, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 Graphics, 3GB of RAM, 4-cell battery)

I Don’t Want Your Unibody

There is no denying that the HP Envy was built not with the original Voodoo Envy sitting next to it, but with a unibody MacBook to make design comparisons. Being carved out of a solid piece of metal wasn’t the way the Envy wanted to come to life since HP says it is heavier. Instead the 3.7 pound notebook, which is .8 pounds lighter than the 13-inch MacBook Pro, is made of an aluminum and magnesium bonded material. It has rounded edges and feels super solid because the metals are anodized layers deep. The Envy gives the MacBook Pro a good run for its money in terms of build quality, but there are still some areas where it can’t compete with the unibody structure. The bottom of the Envy doesn’t feel as solid and the pressing in on the lid while closed does cause some bend.

The Envy’s lid is metallic brown (it looks charcoal in certain lights) and the edges, brushed silver. Frankly, I could have done without the two-toned color scheme and the dotted etching on the palmrest, but neither detracts from the overall beautiful design of the Envy 13.

A word about how compact the Envy is for a 13-inch notebook: it is .2 inches shorter and thinner than the MacBook Pro. However, that comes with sacrifices. The Envy only has two USB ports and a HDMI port. It lacks an optical drive or an Ethernet port but comes with a USB dongle for the latter.

Head Turning Display

When powered off the 13.1-inch frameless display looks exactly like that found on the MacBook, complete with the silver frame surrounding the black flush bezel. But that all changes when the system is powered on and the 1600×900 resolution LED Infinity WS display is illuminated.

Dubbed the HP Radiance, the 410 nit display has an 82 percent color gamut (versus standard 45-60 percent). Not only are viewing angles good, but colors just pop and are incredibly bright. Compared to the 15-Inch MacBook Pro, the Envy looked crisper and more vivid, though the MacBook looked more natural. While my eyes didn’t hurt after about six hours of consistent use, I was warned that the increased dots per inch could be hard on the eyes over a longer period of time.

FrustraPad

HP stole another card from the MacBook with its multitouch trackpad, which they are calling the ClickPad. I‘d suggest another and more appropriate name: FrustrationPad. The buttons are built into the touchpad. While it works fine as a normal trackpad—the left and right mouse button work just like a normal one—the frustration arrives when you try the gestures.

Unlike the Apple touchpads, you have to activate the gestures by lightly touching two fingers on the pad. (I only learned this from reading the manual.) Once it is cued up, it responds to certain multitouch gestures, like pinching to zoom. Unfortunately, some gestures just seem to confuse the pad and it decides it doesn’t want to respond. Two-finger scrolling is a great example: it took me quite awhile to get the hang of trying to scroll down NYTimes.com, and when I did it was finicky. I missed the MacBook touchpad like a baby misses breast milk. And if you think I am just bad with my fingers, a number of people tried the trackpad and found the same problem. As for the island style keyboard, I love it. If it were only backlit, though, it would be total perfection.

Don’t Wait For Windows

I think instant-on operating systems are a dying fad, but the Envy 13 comes with its own version called HP QuickWeb. It took the system no more than 9 seconds to boot up the Linux environment. It was easy to navigate; I signed onto a Wi-Fi network and surfed to Gizmodo.com within seconds. I also logged into Skype and chatted with a German pal of mine. It is a nice trick but if I can wait another 50 seconds to boot into Windows—it takes the Envy about a minute to boot into Windows 7 Professional—why would anyone need the fairly limiting Web environment?

Internal Power

The HP Envy 13‘s 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor (along with 3GB of RAM) doesn’t quite have as much as power as the MacBook Pro’s 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, but it still keeps up with everyday tasks. When running Firefox with over 10 tabs open, iTunes and TweetDeck the system showed no performance hit.

When adding in playback of No Country For Old Men on Blu-ray (a $250 external Blu-ray optical drive is available) the system seemed to hold up thanks to the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics card. Instead of weaker, integrated graphics, like the 13-inch MacBook Pro’s Nvidia GeForce 9400M, the Envy is outfitted with the discrete ATI GPU. The proof is in the benchmarks: Not only did the Radeon HD 4330 beat out the 9400M on 3DMark06, but it notched better frame rates in Crysis. At higher resolutions the Envy should get about 30 fps, and the MacBook 22.8. On the Envy, you can also turn the discrete graphics off and switch the integrated Intel offering without having to shut down the system to save battery life.

The Envy 13 comes with a 4-cell battery (yes, it is swappable) which ran for about three and a half hours during my everyday usage (running Firefox, Pidgin, TweetDeck and streaming music on Playlist.com). You can order an extra 6-cell battery slice that magnetically clips to the bottom of the notebook, appearing as if it is part of the build. HP says that will add about another 10 hours of runtime.

Verdict

There is no doubt that the starting at $1,700 Envy 13 does some things even better than the $1,200 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro. It has a nicer screen, better graphics performance and a smaller build. However, $500 is quite the premium to pay for a frustrating touchpad, no optical drive and a missing Ethernet port. In fact, you can even snatch up a 15-inch MacBook Pro for the same price which will buy you an extra gig of RAM and more screen real estate. Those lusting after a premium Windows 7 machine will find the Envy 13 to be one of the best out there, but then again, you can always get the real thing for cheaper.

Stunning display


Very compact chassis


External optical drive only


Instant-on pre-boot environment


Drains bank account


Touchpad can be frustrating as hell

Someone at Dell must have tripped over some wires and after cleaning up the bloody gash came up with the $2,000 anti-cord Latitude Z: It has wireless charging and wirelessly connects to displays too.

Like we had heard, Dell made the Latitude Z for the suit wearing, briefcase toting, conference room type. Being .57 inches thin and weighing 4.5 pounds may make it the lightest and thinnest 16-inch notebook ever, but it’s still a full-sized machine. The design itself is a lot nicer than the typical business notebook, though. The soft-touch lid feels nice and the back of the magnesium alloy chassis has angled chrome plated hinges.

Similar to the Palm Pre but on a much bigger scale, the Z has power coils built in to the base of the notebook and so it charges wirelessly, through a magnetic inductive stand that’s an extra $200. Supposedly, it takes the same amount of time to recharge as a normal notebook power cord.

The love for no cords doesn’t stop there. You can also buy the $200 wireless dock and hook up all your peripherals (printer, monitor, mouse, etc.) to it rather than to the computer. It then communicates with the notebook itself which has Ultra Wide Band technology built-in so there is no need to add an extra dongle.

Beyond the love of wireless, there are a few other things that make the Z different from your average laptop. It has Dell’s Latitude-On which gives you access to email and a browser before actually booting into Windows. Lots of laptops have this pre-boot environment now (like the HP Envy 13 and Lenovo S10-2), however, the difference here is that it runs on a different processor. In addition to a Intel ULV processor, the Z has an ARM processor which will boot up the instant-on mode faster and increase battery life. Frankly, I don’t always see the point in these pre-boot environments when you can just wait a few extra minutes to get into Windows but my guess is some find it useful.

And because it seems like every notebook has to have some form of touch capability now, the Z has what Dell calls EdgeTouch. The right screen bezel has an LCD sensor that when tapped brings up shortcuts. Not sure how much the average person will end up using this thing, but it is a neat trick.

That guy that tripped over the wires probably has some sort of unfortunate looking scar, but at least we have the Latitude Z. Sure it will cost you a pretty penny when you add in all the wireless doodads, but it is chock-full of some kick ass tech. [Dell]

Step aside, Bilbo Baggins and Frodo: Here at Gadget Lab we don’t care that today’s your birthday. We’re more psyched about the 20th anniversary of the Macintosh Portable, the first portable Macintosh.

That’s right: The ancestor of those slick MacBooks we see today was a bulky, clamshell device sporting a 10-inch monochrome screen. Apple released the Macintosh Portable on Sept. 20, 1989, and it wasn’t a hot seller: It cost $6,500 at the time ($11,313 in today’s dollars), and it weighed 16 pounds. Apple, and the entire tech industry, sure has come a long way.

The tech community this week has been celebrating this important gadget’s anniversary. Technologizer has posted a teardown looking at the insides of the Macintosh Portable, and both Ars Technica and Macworld reminisce on the most significant Mac laptops in history.

So, Mac users: What’s your favorite Mac laptop? The 12-inch PowerBook G4 perhaps? The current unibody MacBook Pro? My favorite was the 12-inch iBook G3 (500MHz): As a student at the time, this machine was the perfect size and weight for me to tote around everywhere. I was quite fond of this notebook before the logicboard crapped out completely.

Photo: Vokabre/Flickr

Like the MSI Wind, but don’t like the way the tiny 10-inch netbook slides effortlessly into a small bag? Then the 12.1-inch Wind U210 might be for you. Aside from the extra inches, from the outside the Wind looks just like its little brother, with the usual netbook compliment of three USB ports, an SD card reader and the like (although it does add an HDMI-out port).

Inside things are different, with the usual Intel Atom chip replaced by a 1.6GHz AMD Athlon Neo MV-40, 2GB RAM and a 250GB hard drive. The display (1366×768) is driven by an ATI Radeon X1250, and the whole thing can easily fit into the space taken up by a 12.1-inch laptop.

Humdrum indeed. Even the oversized keys fail to get us excited (they’re 51% bigger, making them easier to hit, apparently — perfect for typing whilst nodding off to sleep). The big Wind is at least cheap, at just $430, and the rather pedestrian looks mean that it will probably never be stolen. In short, it is probably the most sensibly boring notebook you could buy.

Product page [NewEgg. Thanks, Mark!]

See Also:

• MSI: Our Notebooks Are So Thin You Can Shove Them up Your Derriere …
• MSI's MacBook Air Baiting X-Slim Arrives in US
• First Look: MSI's Second Wind Blows Away Its Predecessor