HEWLETT-PACKARD launched the Voodoo Envy 133 at a world-wide event here in Berlin. This is the firm's very first Voodoo branded notebook the since acquisition of the company over 18 months ago

It is Intel Centrino based, weighing in at 3.373 pounds and only 0.70 inches thin. With a clear and present focus of the luxury market with its carbon fibre design and a price tag backing the expensive style at $2,099 (ouch!).

The display a 13.3-inch diagonal LED WXGA screen capable of 1,280x800, covered in high-quality fused composite glass running from edge to edge giving it a streamlined look with an intergraded webcam to boot.

Keeping the size down is the external eSATA optical disk drive. There’s also with a plethora of ports on the Envy seen within the HDMI, dedicated USB, a shared e-SATA/USB, Bluetooth and 802.11 ABGN. Battery life comes in at 3.45 hours between charges, offering a reasonable operational life.

There’s a nice touch not really seen before, with the external power supply housing an Ethernet connection to establish a one-to-one wireless connection between the notebook the PSU if needed. This allows users to roam free from the wired connection, by effectively turning the power supply into an access point of sorts.

It also ships with the Voodoo IOS (Instant-On Solution) making it one of the fastest-loading systems ever launched by HP, according to the press blurb. They’ve offered no actual times of other HP boot-times, but it does appear to start up within seconds.

Intel mobile mouthpiece Mooly Eden said the chip maker had "worked with HP to enable the Voodoo Envy 133 to be as small as possible without losing key features such as performance and battery life.”

"The final outcome is a terrific notebook," he reckons.

However, we really only saw a pre-production model and weren’t overly impressed with build quality shown for the press event. We were assured the final shipping model will be nowhere near the flimsy-keyboard-bending-to-the-touch model. It’s not entirely fair to comment on devices shown, but for a worldwide launch event we thought there’d be a final, final versions on offer.

Another product launched in the Voodoo lineage, although fairly low-key compared to the Envy was the Omen. The son of the devil desktop, same as before reeks of the designed look coming in at a scary price of $7,000 (double ouch!).

Damien wanders in to our realm supporting up to four GPU, integrated copper liquid cooling pipes and a built-in, fully functional 7-inch LCD auxiliary screen. Its advanced thermal engineering with liquid cooling makes it run quietly, even when performing at high levels.

Those who have the money can finish off this Voodoo and the Envy with an extensive palette of Voodoo Allure paint colour choices and a selection of Voodoo Ink designs and Voodoo Iconography patterns – basically, pimping out the case.

Customers can purchase and personalise Voodoo-branded devices at the redesigned Voodoo website – www.voodoopc.com.

Voodoo Envy 133 is expected to be available this summer, initially the new Voodoo Omen will be available by invitation only to customers who have previously purchased a Voodoo PC. General availability is planned to follow later this summer. µ