HP expands PC portfolio for mass retail market

Hewlett-Packard has come out with a range of industrial design consumer PCs for eople that want to interact, access and enjoy their digital content and services.

The products include HP’s new range of Pavilion, Compaq Presario and Media Centre Desktop PCs.

Manpal Jagpal (pictured), market development manager for consumer desktops at HP, said the products will be available to end users through retail merchants like Harvey Norman, Dick Smith and JB Hi Fi.

“There’s a need for PCs to evolve and go forward. With a media entertainment device these PCs can become the centre of a home’s entertainment system,” he said.

“The convergence between CE and IT is already happening with people using PCs to stream content from a games console to another PC within the home.”

Jagpal believes the popularity of notebooks will not overtake PCs in the home scenario because mobile products are much more personal than desktops.

“With a PC you can set one up in a home and have it for everyone in that household to use,” he said.

Jagpal said these products aren’t available through other resellers because the vendor has a different set of desktops available for different parts of the channel.

While competitors like Acer push products through retail chains like Big W, HP has no plans as yet to go this way.

“We are monitoring and keeping a close eye on the types of customers that go through stores like BigW and Kmart, but have no plans as yet to launch our products through these stores,” said Jagpal.

All of HP’s new PC range is based on Microsoft Windows Vista. Pricing for a Pavilion a6000 series with 19” wide-screen BrightView LCD includes HP C4180 all-in-one multifunction printer starts from $1,399 (including GST). The Pavilion m8000a series with 17” LCD – starts from $1,999 and the Compaq Presario SR5000 series with 17” LCD – starts from $999 (including GST).