"Exclusive" Intel Air chip in HP Envy Thinness isn't the only thing it shares

11 June 2008 11:06 GMT / By Katie Scott

Just 1 day after its launch and the HP Envy 133 is already causing a storm of controversy.

HP execs looked slightly amused on stage in Berlin yesterday when the German presenter quipped that this shiny ultra-thin laptop may well be "thinner than air" in a direct dig at Apple's MacBook Air laptop, but does this machine have more in common with Apple's MacBook Air than just its skinniness?

Specs were thin on the ground in Berlin but we do know that the Envy 133 is built around an "off roadmap chip" of Intel design which consumes 20 watts of power.

The spec sheet, which we now have, reveals a processor running at either 1.6GHz (SP7500) or 1.8GHz (SP7700), with 4MB L2 Cache and 800MHz FSB.

But are these not the same specs as the Apple model?

The man behind the machine, Rahul Sood, who is also founder of Voodoo, would not confirm or deny this rumour when Pocket-lint questioned him, but did add that he had expected this.

In the private chat, he said also that he thinks it'll be just a matter of time "before someone buys the machine just to take it apart".

But what will they find? He wouldn't say, but our inclination is the Air chip from Intel.

He did, however, confirm the rumour that Voodoo's instant-on IOS is DeviceVM's Splashtop which ASUS is currently fitting into all of its motherboards, but the Voodoo team has "customised" it.

After the launch of the MacBook Air in January, Intel representatives said the chip would be offered to the rest of the PC industry if they were interested. as well as stating that much of the technology used in the chip will become part of Intel's mainstream offerings when the Montevina platform is released later this year.