HP's Dragon 'notebook' is a friggin' monster (but I still want one)

If you're looking for the notebook with the largest footprint in the world (at least the one with Intel's latest greatest mobile tech), it might very well be HP's new Dragon, a clamshell-form factored HiDef-ready multimedia entertainment center that may be able to fit under your armpit, but don't try putting it on any airplane seatback table. Today, as a part of the Intel's rollout of its mobile Core 2 Duo technology and Centrino Pro brand, a couple dozen notebook vendors were on hand to show off the systems they've had waiting in the wings (all of them were under embargo until Intel officially made today's announcements). One of those systems was HP's Dragon and I caught up with the company's product marketing manager for its Notebook Global Business Unit Denise Dibble who gave me a nice video preview of what can best be described as a monster of a notebook.

With its 20.1-inch display (yes, that's 20.1 inches), users should have no illusions about this system's ability to survive on a battery (I don't think HP has those illusions either). The idea of the Dragon is to have a HiDef-ready entertainment center that can be easily moved around the home. While Dibble said HP prefers to be agnostic about the HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray debate, the Dragon for now is strictly an HD-DVD machine. Trying to describe the system simply cannot do it justice which is why we've got the video instead: