HP Star Wars Special Edition Laptop Hands On: A Closer Look

Last week, HP unveiled its new range of Windows laptops, powered by Windows 10 and the latest sixth-generation Skylake processors from Intel. While the headline-grabbing entry is the sexy, Surface-like Spectre x2 tablet, HP also showcased the Star Wars Special Edition Notebook. While it’s not exactly a powerful gaming laptop, it is a surprisingly well-designed notebook that’s sure to interest Star Wars fans.

Available in Malaysia since mid-November, the HP Star Wars Special Edition Notebook is a mid-range laptop with unique Star Wars-inspired design that makes it a collector’s item. It’s powered by an Intel Core i5-6200U processor with an NVIDIA GeForce 940M GPU, 8GB DDR3 RAM, 1TB hard drive, and has a 15.6-inch Full HD display. There’s also space for an optical disc drive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnIKRpJHQ4M

What’s worth noting also is that HP also made sure the Star Wars experience does not just start from the laptop, but in the packaging itself. Everything appears thoughtfully considered, from the black-and-red retail box featuring Darth Vader and the words “You don’t know the power of the Dark Side”, to the grey polystyrene safety foams moulded to look like a Twin Ion Engine fighter. Inside, you’ll also find a box for the power brick, again emblazoned with Darth Vader.

The entire exterior is draped in a “battle-worn distressed design with ‘Galactic Empire’ written in the unique Star Wars Aurebesh font,” while the touchpad design is inspired from the X-wing targeting computer while it flies down the trench on the Death Star. It is clear that HP paid a lot of attention to detail with its design choices here.

Inside, users will also find a Star Wars Command Centre, which contains thousands of images, as well as comics, e-books, and select Star Wars movie trailers – most of the content here have never been released, including behind the scenes content from the movie sets, making it even more valuable for the die hard aficionado.

Alongside the laptop, HP is completing the Star Wars experience by offering a wireless mouse and a laptop sleeve, both with matching Star Wars design. The wireless mouse, featuring (surprise!) Darth Vader, retails for RM95, while the sleeve will be sold at RM70.

At RM3,999, the HP Star Wars Special Edition Notebook is priced higher than other laptops with similar specs – it just about passes the minimum requirements to actually run Star Wars Battlefront with 8GB of RAM and a mid-range GPU. But like the MSI limited edition Heroes of the Storm gaming laptops, the laptop is designed for the Star Wars fanatic; this isn’t some freebie you get with a box of cereal. The design is also “evergreen”, in the sense that it makes no reference to the upcoming “The Force Awakens” movie which premieres later this month.