HP QuickPlay in Action

(Special Report) - HP, at CES 2007, announced a new technology, QuickPlay, which will let you play movies, music and view photos without the need to turn on the notebook. This is part of HP’s push into the multimedia sector. As we discussed earlier, the entire notebook industry is pushing towards adding additional multimedia features to transition into a mobile powerhouse for mobile users.

According to HP, you should be able to double you movie viewing time and music listening time with QuickPlay. For instance, if you could watch a full length movie by powering on, you could now watch 2x movies. Similarly with music, if you could listen to 2x hours of music previously, you can now listen to approximately 4x hours. Notice that you are not doubling the battery life. You are essentially preserving the necessary battery life that a lot of programs consume even when they are idle with QuickPlay.

Although HP declined to comment on this, our belief is that if you watch a single movie and boot into Windows, your battery life should either be 50 percent or 100 percent consumed. We’ll try to get a clear explanation from HP regarding this.

Regardless, though, this is a great feature, and it will encourage users to participate in multimedia playback without the risk of consuming 100 percent of their battery life.

Check out the prices on HP Notebooks at HP.com!