HP intros ultra-green slim PC

HP this morning tackled the problem of environmentally friendly PCs with the rp5700, its latest slim desktop. The computer is the first to achieve a gold rating for the US government's Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool through both its choice of components and even the materials themselves: 95 percent of the entire PC is recyclable, HP says. The system also relies on less power-hungry processors, and uses a special 80 percent efficient power supply that wastes far less energy than most desktops. In tandem with an LCD, a complete system consumes about 80 percent less power than a standard desktop with a CRT, according to the company's estimates.

Designing the system this way also has the incidental benefit of extending the PC's usable lifetime. HP rates the system's active life at five years of constant use and will run the system at higher ambient temperatures of 40C (104F) thanks to the reduced heat output from the processor.

Matching the official criteria for the environmental claims requires an $817 system with a 1.86GHz Celeron, 512MB of memory, and Windows XP Professional; other models falling slightly out of spec begin at $648, while any system can be configured with up to a 2.13GHZ Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM, and up to a 250GB hard drive. All configurations of the rp5700 should be available for order today.