HP’s world’s thinnest laptop is as thick as a AAA battery

HP is unveiling its Spectre laptop today — touted as the world’s thinnest notebook computer, with a 10.4 millimeter thickness. That’s as thin as a AAA battery.

The laptop is part of a broader HP strategy to position itself as an innovator and reinventor, said Mike Nash, vice president of customer experience, in a press briefing.

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The new premium laptop ranges in price from $1,170 to $1,250 (not including extras). It has a 9.45-hour battery life.

“The expectations for quality are changing in the premium space,” Nash said. “People want a laptop less than four pounds, all day battery life, thinner design, and instant on. I don’t want to be constantly looking for a wall socket, and I don’t carry a power cord with me anymore. It’s almost a lifestyle change.”

The machine has anodized aluminum on the top of the case and carbon fiber casing on the bottom, and a 13.3-inch diagonal HD screen with 300 NITS of brightness and 72-percent color gamut. It also has Bang & Olufsen sound speakers. Altogether it weighs 2.45 pounds.

The device isn’t a touchscreen. Research shows that 79 percent of premium devices sold in 2015 didn’t have touchscreens.

The machine uses either Intel Core i5 or Core i7 processors, and it uses a new kind of cooling dubbed hyperbaric cooling. Instead of using fans on a heatsink, HP created a hyperbaric chamber downstream from the processor.

“This new laptop is going straight after Apple’s new MacBook. It’s thinner, has a more powerful sixth Gen Intel processor and is less expensive. I wish it had a higher-resolution display to go with it,” said Patrick Moorhead, analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.

The entire display assembly is just 2 millimeters thick, and the Gorilla Glass 4 screen is 0.4 millimeters thick.

“I thought the decimal place was in the wrong spot when I learned that,” Nash said.

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It has a brilliant display in part because the strong Gorilla Glass is so thin. The battery has four cells in two shapes to fill every bit of available space within the chassis. It also has a recessed piston hinge that is critical to keeping the laptop thin.

The keyboard has 1.3 millimeters of travel. And it has a USB-C adapter for the power cord.

HP is also announcing a few new Envy laptops.

The HP Envy x360 is 21 percent thinner than the previous model and has longer battery life. It has a 15.6-inch diagonal screen, weighs 4.5 pounds, and is 18.8 millimeters thick. It has 11 hours of battery life, a Core i5 or Core i7 processor with integrated graphics or options for discrete graphics. The 15.6-inch HP Envy x360 will sell for $680. The 15.6-inch HP Envy laptop will sell for $780. And a 17.3-inch model will be available at $1,030.

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The laptops will be available in May and June.