HP's Newest Laptop Has an 'Air' of Familiarity

Back when Apple launched its MacBook Air line of laptops, a lot of competitors showed up to compete in the light-and-thin laptop game. Heck, the device practically spawned an entire class of notebook — the “ultrabook.” But while we’ve seen a lot of companies try to equal or best the MacBook Air’s form factor, we’ve not seen one that looked almost exactly like a MacBook Air until now.

The laptop I’m talking about is HP’s EliteBook Folio 1020. And, despite its somewhat borrowed looks, it’s actually an impressive piece of kit.

The Folio 1020 includes some features that Apple hasn’t yet brought to the Air, such as a high-density screen (the Folio packs a 12.5-inch 2560 x 1440 display) and a fingerprint sensor. And there’s even a flavor of the Folio that comes with a touchscreen, enabling you to use all those touch-capable Windows 8 apps along with the typical keyboard-and-mouse fare.

Other hardware highlights include solid-state storage, 8 GM of RAM and Intel’s newest Core M processor. The Core M, by the way, isn’t the fastest chip on the block; however, it produces a lot less heat than Intel’s “i” line. As a result, the Folio does away with a fan entirely.

So yeah, it looks a bit like a MacBook Air. But HP didn’t just put out a spec-for-spec copycat and call it a day. The EliteBook Folio 1020 is a pretty unique device, at least on paper. We don’t have any price news at this time, but we’ll certainly get that to  you when we have a bit more info on the device.

[Source: Gizmodo]