Ultraportables like the Lenovo ThinkPad X301 and the MacBook Air are usually at the high end of the price range. The technology used to produce such a light weight notebook makes them expensive usually anything up to the $3,000. HP’s notebook with the new Athlon Neo processor brings the price down to rock bottom for this type of Laptop. The HP Pavilion dv2 price will be  $699 to $899 depending on the configuration.

At 3.8-pounds, it’s not the lightest ultraportable but it certainly gives the ThinkPad SL300 a run for its money at 4.6 lbs. With a 12.1-inch running at 1,280 x 800 resolution the dv2 sports the 1.6GHz Athlon Neo MV-40 processor, up to 4GB of memory and can be configured with a 500GB Hard Drive, 802.11n WiFi, and optional WWAN.

With a near enough full size keyboard, less than an inch thick and the option of ATI Mobility Radeon HD3410 discrete graphics an external optional Blu-ray player and including Bluetooth, HDMI-out, an integrated webcam, and 3.5 to 4-hours of battery this looks to be a great travelling companion and a real competitor to the high end ultraportables out there. Oh and its also 64-bit Vista Home Premium capable.

But don’t whatever you do don’t call the HP dv2 a Netbook. The new AMD chips introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas are designed to bridge the gap between the cut down features that today’s popular Netbook’s offer, and those of high end ultraportables. But the lines are beginning to blur.

The Athlon Neo platform has been designed to handle 1080p HD playback and some casual gaming experience with realistic 3D graphics, using the optional ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3410 graphics chip.

AMD’s Athlon Neo processor runs at 1.6GHz and has a power envelope of 15 watts, comparable to Intel ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) Core 2 Duo processors that power ultraportables today. A dual-core Neo chip will be appearing later in the year.
The first HP Pavilion dv2 ultraportable entertainment  notebook is expected to be available from HP at the end of March. We can’t wait.