HP Notebook Teardown @ CntrStg

During this sessions at CntrStg we had Matt McAndrew from HP come in and provide us with an overview how they have improved their laptops over a few years and showed us the evolution of making a stronger and lighter laptop in the next version based on repair costs that customers experienced making a better laptop and increase the value for the consumer.

Not only was a show and tell it was a highly interactive session with bloggers and their communities for feedback.

 

They passed around the lids from their older and newer laptop lids with new finishes and added durability and rigidity.

On the back of the lid is an aircraft inspired honey-comb plate is added for torsional rigidity while keeping the notebook as light as possible. Rigid not only on the top and bottom, but also as side impact and on the corners where most impacts from dropping occurs.

Matt talked about their hard drive drop-protection technology that parks the hard drive when its dropped and how it has improved.  HP also mentinoed that are looking into opening up a developer SDK so end-users can tap into using the accelerometer for custom applications like taping the side of the display to flip pages, windows, moving the screen up and down to scroll.

He also did a quick example how they test their new Dura finish and tested with steel wool from average usage patterns by consumers on the previous version with out it and the current version with the anodized aluminum durafinish which didn’t scratch at all. Amazing process. On the bottom there is also a new painting surface to reduce the wear and tear occurs from every day sliding and placement on flat worksurfaces.

DuraKeys, (I know my wife would have loved this in her current HP notebook) that a finish on it to reduce the wearing off of letters from the keys. This came directly from feedback given by bloggers and customers This new finish has a 50% increase in resistance to wear.

A mylar film on the back of the keyboard guides the liquid away from the critical components in the laptop that would have expensive repair and replacement costs.

HP also made improvements in battery life and the circuitry to charge the battery to not only extend the battery, but also how fast it charges.

HP has also done some rugged-ablity and reliablity tests with MIL specs via third party testing with a table on their website on what the specs are for each of their laptops.