Posted 07/24/08 at 04:09:44 PM by Paul Lilly

After being acquired by HP two years ago, Voodoo PC will no long operate as a stand-alone entity and will instead sell its products alongside the Compaq Presario and Pavilion PC lines. The integration could be taken as bad news for fans of the boutique OEM who fear the Voodoo branding might now fall off the map, but founder Rahul Sood assures on his blog that the merger is a good thing.

"Ultimately it means that Voodoo and Voodoo-influenced products will be easier to buy, faster to get, they will feature local service, and they will have the full power of HP's marketing and sales channel behind them. The bottom line is we have ignited the brand and sparked big excitement; so we are not integrating our organizations to fuel our growth," Sood wrote.

Despite the convergence, Sood is also telling readers the Voodoo brand name will remain. But what about the quality? Whether or not Voodoo-branded PCs can still retain their spunk remains to be seen, but this isn't the first time enthusiasts feared the worst. After HP acquired Voodoo in 2006, many wondered if the boutique OEM would still be able to perform at a high level, and that question seemed to be answered just weeks ago when Voodoo relaunced its website to showcase its new Envy 133 notebook and Omen desktop PCs.

Do you share Rahul Sood's same excitement over the merger, or is the beginning of the end?

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Posted 07/17/08 at 11:00:59 AM by Norman Chan

Just call us licky. We mean, lucky. You've seen the official super-hot photos of the Voodoo PC's Envy laptop, but we got our hands on one and were able to take tons of close-up photos of the as well as try out the highly touted instant-on feature. Our initial impressions: the laptop is really light. HP claims the laptop (it was the SSD version) weighs three and a half pounds, and even though we didn’t have a scale in our messenger bags, it sure felt about the same weight as the Macbook air, power supply notwithstanding. Stacking the Envy against a Macbook Pro and Thinkpad X300, Voodoo’s pricey portable was both smaller and slimmer, though it sports a 13” screen.

Click the jump for more impressions and all the photos, including the instant-on Linux interface, laptop size comparisons, and gross licking details.  

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