HP UMPC Compaq 2133 Could Be On The Horizon

Alas, one of the other major PC manufacturers is getting into the UMPC space, well not really, it might just be semantics, but I'd call this and ultra-portable, not a UMPC. It's the Compaq 2133 and its being made to compete with the Asus Eee, although hopefully it won't have the same superbly generic hardware inside.

I'd be more than willing to pay a few more dollars for something that was at least marginally nicer than an Eee. Anyways, there will supposedly be a formal presentation on this new product towards the end of spring.

What we know so far is that it will have an 8.9" WXGA screen, an ExpressCard/54 card slot, WiFi (likely including N), a larger keyboard, integrated web cam and the option for an SSD drive. It will also apparently come with your choice of OS between Vista and Linux. Apparently the main thing they are still working on is making the battery last longer while in use, sans SSD, with just an HDD (probably somewhere between 30 and 80 gigs) I'd probably be willing to pay $600, maybe a little more for it, it definitely looks good. Sadly, as it hasn't even been officially announced, there are no price or availability details.

[via laptops blog]