WTF?! HP, having already released laptops containing non-conventional materials, has refreshed its Envy, EliteBook, and ZBook families for 2019, with the 'Envy Wood' series featuring, as you might imagine, different types of wooden finishes.
HP says there will be wooden variants of new Envy 13, HP Envy 17, HP Envy x360 13 and HP Envy x360 15 models. Buyers can pick from walnut and birch finishes in colors including black, white, silver, and natural wood tones. The wood covers the palm rest and touchpad, and the wood grain patterns will vary from laptop to laptop. HP says it offers a "unique sensory experience" compared to the usual surfaces found on most other machines.
Last year, HP unveiled its 2-in-1 Spectre Folio, which it said was the world's first leather convertible PC. While a leather laptop might not be to everyone's taste, it received mostly positive reviews.
HP didn't reveal much else about the Envy Wood laptops, such as price or all the specs, but it did say they will come with 8th-gen Intel CPUs or second-gen Ryzen APUs with Vega graphics as options. The high-end x360 models, meanwhile, will have a choice of OLED screens.
Elsewhere, HP said it was switching to Microsoft's Precision trackpad drivers for the new Envy laptops, adding more accuracy, reliability, and smoothness to an area that hasn't been HP's best. As noted by The Verge, the company's consumer machines stuck with Synaptics drivers while most manufacturers implemented Microsoft's drivers.