Hands-On: HP's Athlon Neo-based DV 2 "Ultra-Thin" Notebook

We came, we saw, we set up a meeting via twitter (true story!) and we met with AMD's Ian McNaughton and Steve Howard at CES to check out the new "ultra thin" HP DV2, featuring AMD's new 64-bit Athlon Neo mobile processor, which we've heard so much about.

Initial impressions: it's surprisingly cool! Boasting the 1.6GHz Athlon Neo processor, 4GB of RAM, a 13" screen, and the comfortable keyboard that HP's getting increasingly good at (see the HP Mini 1001xx review in our February issue), the DV2 stakes out a spot somewhere north of the netbook range. The DV2 carries a netbook-worthy price tag ($599), but comes with a whole host of things that netbooks don't: an HDMI port, slimline external Blu-ray drive, and optional discrete Radeon 3000 Mobility-series graphics. AMD says it'll get about 4 hours of battery life, thanks to a CPU and chipset that only draw 25W of power total. 

AMD thinks the "ultrathin" notebook genre they're trying to create passes the "mom test," citing a 30% return rate on netbooks last year. They hope to snag some market share from people who like the portability and price of netbooks but are frustrated by its cramped quarters and lack of power.

We look forward to putting the DV2 and another, as yet unannounced Athlon Neo-based notebook through their paces when we can get our hands on them.