Curious to find out the possible thinking behind HP’s recent actions, we began to look at the parallels in past behavior by tech giant HP. The most interesting example comes from VoodooPC, one of the first high-end gaming PCs for the mass market. Led by Rahul Sood, HP bought VoodooPC in 2006 and the last product to come out of that branch was launched in 2009.
In short, we wanted to know if HP really was where good ideas go to die.
Mr. Sood was kind enough to answer a few questions.
TC: We at TC have been talking about how great VoodooPC was. We all loved the hardware and I remember unpacking the boxes and hearing the drums. It was consumer done right. I also think there are a lot of parallels between Voodoo and Palm in this case. Do you agree?
Rahul Sood: I appreciate the kind words, and I know my friends at HP will also appreciate them as well. Let’s just say if you’re going to make a strategic acquisition, no matter how large, you need to have patience to blend cultures and allow the companies to mutually flourish. → Read More
There is simply no denying that the new HP Envy 13 and 15 look like an HP-ified Apple unibody MacBook Pro. Even the trackpad is a single, large glass button that supports gestures thanks to 3rd party software. I’m not saying they don’t look great, but seriously, someone copied off of Steve Jobs’ test. Good thing that these notebooks seem to have the power and poise to stand as HP’s flagship line. → Read More
HP’s latest Voodoo rig, the HP Firebird, is a fine machine for gaming and video/photo buffs. With two SKUs to appease all sides the Firebird is sure to give PC users everything they want or even need in a relatively small and extremely quiet high performance package.
The 802 features an Intel Core 2 Quad Core 2.66GHz processor while the 803 packs a 2.83GHz processor. Both come with Vista Home Premium 64-bit editions. Graphics are taken care of with dual Nvidia GeForce 9800S cards in an SLI config. To keep the rigs cool under pressure, the Voodoo team equipped the Firebird with a liquid cooling system to ensure the proc, chipset (Nvidia nForce 760S) and graphics cards don’t have a major meltdown while you’re fragging or editing. Both come with 4GB of DDR2 RAM. → Read More
Laptop Magazine’s gotten their grubby little hands on a new concept notebook from Voodoo (HP) called “Firefly.” It’s one beefy flying insect, too, at 17.1 inches and 13 pounds. → Read More
The Blackbird 002 that launched last year may be impressive, but the design is nothing special and the price range isn’t very attractive at $1,799-$4,999. Now, HP with VoodooDNA has given us something to look at. → Read More
I love this. Back in the day before it was AMD’s Radeon vs. NVIDIA’s GeForce, it was Riva’s TNT vs. 3DFX’s Voodoo. At that stage there were serious differences and advantages, and if I remember correctly, the Voodoo3 came out as Riva was ascendant, and was competitive. The Voodoo5, implementing hardware full-screen anti-aliasing, was an interesting card but was seriously outclassed by the DirectX7-capable Radeon and GeForce2. Now that we’ve had our history lesson, it’s time for the news: it seems 3dfx has randomly decided to release a unified driver architecture for the Voodoo cards and has updated them with a set applicable to any of the Voodoo series. I confess I haven’t been following 3dfx news these last few years, so if they’ve been doing this all along let me know. I think it’s great no matter what, though, that this old hardware is still supported. It’s be like getting a patch for Warcraft 2. [via the Inquirer] → Read More
The integration of Voodoo into the HP fold is all done, so HP has gone ahead and discounted two of its more pricey offerings. The Voodoo Envy 133′s starting price has dropped $200 from $2,099 to $1,899 and ships with a free secondary battery if you order before November 30th. The Blackbird 002’s price has dropped to $1,799. → Read More
Late last week, a rumor broke that HP might be giving its gamer enthusiast brand, Voodoo, the boot. Turns out, that wasn’t entirely true as it sounds like Voodoo is going to be brought in under the HP umbrella similarly like Compaq. In fact, this was first announced a few months ago, proving that the Internet rumor mill is a crazy, crazy bastard. → Read More
Who knew HP had the chops to put together something like these? I think maybe they had a little help from Mom and Dad. Actually, they had help from Voodoo, at least with that funky-looking gaming mouse. There isn’t a lot of info but I’m thinking it has much the same specs as the HDX: variable DPI from 400-2400, up to 500Hz polling rate, several profile settings, and a nice smooth laser-based sensor. The HDX however looks ambidextrous while the gaming mouse is right-handed. We’ll see, those are the only pictures I could get. The plain ol’ HDX costs $40 and the sexy gaming one costs $60. → Read More
Good news, Envy lovers. HP is finally shipping out the <a href="http://www.crunchgear.com/tag/envy-133/ after some trials and tribulations with the carbon fiber body. That’s the big news. Rahul teased about something else Voodoo is working on, but he decided to play coy and string us along. I wonder what it is. Maybe a netbook? → Read More
My excitement for the Voodoo Envy 133 has been supplanted by the outrageous prices they expect one to shell out for the MacBook Air competitor. There are nine different configurations you can choose from that start out at $2,099 and ends with an astronomical $3, 999 price tag. If you really want an SSD the pricing starts at $3,099. Frankly, I’m shocked and appalled by this, but then again, Voodoo has been pricing their PCs at a high premium since the beginning, so the price of this laptop shouldn’t shock me that much. But it does. The lackluster MacBook Air is starting to look a little more appealing. What do you think? → Read More
http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=true&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcrunchgear%2Eblip%2Etv%2Frss&file=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Frss%2Fflash%2F985637%3Freferrer%3Dblip%2Etv%26source%3D1&showplayerpath=http%3A%2F%2Fblip%2Etv%2Fscripts%2Fflash%2Fshowplayer%2Eswf Today in Berlin HP announced the Voodoo Envy 133 notebook that was hinted at last week in the video teaser I posted. Voodoo is aiming to take on the MacBook Air and the Envy is ready for the bout. The Envy 133 has an LED backlit 13.3-inch screen, carbon fiber body (super lightweight), multi-touch trackpad (I just tried it out and it stinks. I’ll get a full demo later on, but there’s a short video after the jump. It pinches but doesn’t do the rotation.), built-in ethernet port into the power brick, removable battery, HDMI port, two USB ports, and an express card slot. The Envy’s starting price of $2,099 is less desirable, though. Another unique and cool feature for the Envy is Voodoo InstantOn, which allows the user to boot to a Linux screen with seconds of starting up while Vista boots in the background. Check out the video. The Omen starts out at $7,000 and features a 7-inch auxiliary LCD on the front of the case and copper liquid cooling pipes. You can also add a touch of your own flair by picking from Voodoo’s Allure paint color choices, Ink designs and Iconograph patterns. Also worth noting is that the Omen will only be available to current Voodoo customers until production is in full swing. → Read More
Looks like it. We’ll find out next week when I’m in Berlin. → Read More
A buddy of mine who shall remain nameless tipped me off the other week that a big computer company was going to announce something really big, like, their biggest announcement of the year big. I immediately said, “it’s Apple, moron.” He said, “no, I’m not that stupid, moron.” We squawked back and forth for another few minutes and I let it be because I couldn’t think of anyone else who would be stupid enough to announce something the day after the purported 3G iPhone’s purported announcement. Lo and behold, I had the answer right under my nose the whole time. It’s actually been sitting in my inbox for a couple months, but it wasn’t until I came across this Fortune article that I put the two together. HP will more than likely announce a hybrid HP/Voodoo rig that shows off Voodoo’s taste for flair with HP’s gaggle of robust…whatever in Berlin next week. I’ll be there to cover the event, so we’ll be sure to have plenty of pictures and video. I’d assume they’re going after the likes of Apple, Dell and Gateway with something aesthetically pleasing. → Read More
The Voodoo booth was an orgy of exposed PCB, flashy accessories, and some guy with dreds up in a topknot. And rotating in a glass case was this gold thing, which really just seems incredibly impractical, but still awesome. The Blackbird ran Unreal Tournament 3 beautifully, and I killed some fools who thought they could rumble with this. Now, if I were rich, I would buy these products, but I just put together my own PC and it runs Crysis, so I’m not feeling the heat yet from these hardware artists. See the Blackbird and an old guy playing in a huge racing rig after the click. → Read More
Check out the tramp stamp on the red head! The Voodoo M:152 Envy was officially announced today and it’s sort of, kind of worth looking at. It features the latest Intel Centrino Duo processor aka Santa Rosa, a 15.4-inch WSXGA+ 1680×1050 resolution screen, and a fingerprint reader. It’s also sporting a 2-megapixel camera and weighs a mere seven pounds with an NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT 512MB graphics card and 2GB of DDR2-667 RAM (upgradeable to 4GB). It’s supposedly the quietest Voodoo notebook so far. Pricing starts at $3,308, but that doesn’t include the super cool paint jobs and tattoos you can get. Product Page → Read More
