HP revamps enterprise class EliteBooks

HP has unveiled its latest enterprise-grade EliteBook and Spectre devices, which will be available to buy this month.

Heading up the refresh is the 14in EliteBook Folio 1040 G1. The ruggedised laptop retains its MIL-STD rating and HP now uses machined aluminium for the chassis.

The 14in laptop comes with a choice between HD or FHD panels with non-touch screen and touch screen variants depending on whether Windows 7 or Windows 8 is used.

HP is also debuting the "ForcePad" a solid surface trackpad which doesn't move but senses pressure.

"You have all the same gestures and functionality you've in the past as far as navigating and right-click. But you also have specific new gestures like one click movement of icons and file transfers," explained Aaron Slessinger, commercial notebook category manager.

The technology for the ForcePad has been developed by Synaptic and will be exclusive to HP for the first few months of production.

Cumbersome ports such as VGA and RJ45 jack have been sacrificed to shave the chassis down to 15.9mm, but HP claims to mitigate this by including a dongle which connects to its docking station and transfers native signals back to the EliteBook.

The Folio 1040 G1 will start at 1,380.

The EliteBook Revolve also gets a refresh with the G2 model starting at 1,173. The hybrid, which has an 11.6in screen that swings around on top of the keyboard to become a tablet comes with Intel's 4th generation Haswell architecture, Windows 8.1 and 4G compatibility.

Meanwhile, the Spectre 13 Pro is aimed at users who are looking for a premium laptop replacement. The machine is HP's thinnest notebook, with a thickness of 15mm.

"We start out with a full HD resolution of 1080p, but we also step up to a QHD panel, basically four times full HD. This will be our first play into extreme high-resolution panels with our commercial products," Slessinger continued.

Other core features include the use of Intel's latest Haswell processors a Trusted Platform Module chip and SSD storage.

HP will preload the Dragon Assistant voice recognition feature, which will allow users to search the Web, find content, play music, check and reply to email and update Facebook or Twitter, hands free.

The firm has also extended it's trackpad to include a Control zone' area which is designed specifically to allow users to access features such as the Charms menu and flick between applications.

Pricing for the Spectre starts at 979.