Goodbye, Pavilion: HP returns to the OmniBook
Future consumer notebooks from HP will bear the new old family name OmniBook. All-in-ones will be changed to OmniStudio and desktop PCs to OmniDesk.
The first new OmniBook from HP.
(Image: HP)
- Florian Müssig
The family names Pavilion, Envy and Spectre have had their day: instead of several brands, HP wants to call all notebooks aimed at end customers OmniBook in the future. HP laptops already bore this name at the end of the 1990s; however, it disappeared after the turn of the millennium as part of the Compaq takeover by HP. Unlike back then, Omni devices will in future also be available as All-in-Ones (OmniStudio) and desktop PCs (OmniDesk).
A finer subdivision is achieved by adding numbers and letters: At the top are OmniBook Ultra, followed by OmniBook X, OmniBook 7, OmniBook 5 and OmniBook 3. There are no plans for single-series models, so there could well be entry-level devices in the future as before, with HP even saving on the brand name. The scheme also applies to OmniStudio and OmniDesk.
It is very similar to the naming of the EliteBook business notebooks (and similarly EliteStudio and EliteDesk), where even numbers have long been used for classification: The EliteBook 8 with a 14-inch screen is specifically called the EliteBook 840; additions such as Gen 9 are used to differentiate between different iterations. Lenovo, for example, has also been using a similar naming scheme for some time.
Kick-off with Copilot+
The OmniBook debut is the OmniBook X AI PC, a Windows notebook with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X processor. The name suffix AI PC indicates both that it fulfills Microsoft's Copilot+ requirements and that name suffixes are still possible in the new scheme. HP has previously used these (such as Pavilion Aero or Spectre x360) to highlight special features.
As older devices are not retroactively renamed, it will probably be several years before you really won't find Pavilion, Envy and Spectre on the market anymore. So for the time being, there are more rather than fewer family names. The new family name nevertheless provides a little more clarity: Acer has for some time now been abolishing the division into 3, 5 and 7 classes (which is only now coming at HP), but is retaining the names - which is why you can currently find both Swift 5 (old, classification) and Swift 14 (new, screen diagonal) in stores.
(mue)
