The big manufacturer pulled out some little laptops as HP showed off a new Mini and some widescreen portable in Las Vegas.
HP Mini 2140
 The HP Mini 2140 is a slight, but welcome upgrade to the original HP Mini 2133. HP's higher-end Mini laptops really define the limits of the Netbook genre, though the HP Mini 2140 still manages to come in at a $500 price point, and HP really squeezes the 92%-sized keyboard and the 10-inch monitor to the very edge of the device's aluminum shell. In our hands-on time with the HP Mini 2140, we still liked the metal housing, especially compared to its plastic competitors, and the device retains its light weight as well as its wide keys. We also appreciate the Express Card 34 slot, which means buyers can add all sorts of peripherals, and this nearly makes up for the lack of integrated 3G, though we wish HP would bite the bullet and just pick a carrier. The HP Mini 2140 is still available with Windows XP, though the device now uses a more capable Intel Atom processor and chipset, so perhaps its time to give Vista a try? Nah. Instead, spend $30 on the 6-cell battery, which offers up to 8 hours of usage time.
HP Pavilion dv7 and dv6 go widescreen
 With a refresh on the existing HP Pavilion dv7 and HP Pavilion dv6 models, HP is now offering these laptops with a 16:9 screen. This is a perfect size for hi-def viewing, which fits nicely with the laptops entertainment bent. The 17-inch Pavilion dv7 is a large desktop replacement laptop, with plenty of touch sensitive multimedia controls, options for Blu-ray and TV tuners built in, and strong performance options, like dual hard disk drives and an Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT card built in.
 The HP Pavilion dv6 is a 16-inch widescreen laptop. The multimedia machine features some interesting home theater options, like dual-headphone jacks, HDMI outputs and even an included remote control that stores in the Pavilion dv6's Express Card slot. Both the HP Pavilion dv6 and the HP Pavilion dv7 are available now from HP.
HP Pavilion dv2 is 1-inch thick, AMD Athlon Neo notebook
 The smaller of HP's newest laptops to use AMD's chipsets, the HP Pavilion dv2 is a 1-inch thick, glossy multimedia laptop with some impressive potential. Don't let the thin frame and the 12.1-inch display fool you, this is a serious laptop in a small shell. The dv2 can handle hard disk drives up to 500GB, and features WWAN connectivity built-in. In fact, because the HP Pavilion dv2 uses Qualcomm's new Gobi wireless chipset, you can be flexible with the network you choose for wireless service. You can even buy an external Blu-ray drive to go with your Pavilion dv2, though we suspect that option will add a hefty premium to the device's $699 starting price point. The HP Pavilion dv2 will be available starting in April, but HP is taking pre-orders now.
The HP Pavilion dv3 uses AMD's Turion processor, gets by mostly on style
 There's no doubt HP is pushing their patterns and imprints on their laptop chassis these days. The 13.3-inch HP Pavilion dv3 seems to get by mostly on its style, as it lacks some of the best features of the smaller Pavilion dv2 machines. For one thing, it tops out at a still-respectable 400GB hard disk drive. For another, it lacks the great Qualcomm Gobi wireless option. Instead, the HP Pavilion dv3 gets the more powerful AMD Turion X2 chip with dual cores running up to 2.1GHz. With the AMD chip, of course, comes the ATI graphics, here an ATI Radeon 3200 card. All these specs are fine, but this is a great looking laptop, and its definitely getting by on its charm more than its power. Still, it comes in at a reasonable price. The HP Pavilion dv3 is available today starting at $799.
Philip Berne and Mike Perlman contributed to this CES 2009 story.
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