Hewlett-Packard Trying To Win Customers For New Laptops (HPQ)

Hewlett-Packard HPQ is offering a new service that it hopes will win it customers for the company's laptops. The company is offering new laptops and a new service that will allow travelers to bypass the expensive mobile broadband internet packages offered by mobile-phone carriers, writes Bloomberg. Two new laptops, the HP ProBook 5330m and HP EliteBook 2560, will use HP's new online connection service, known as DataPass. In an interview with Bloomberg, Mike Hockey, a spokesman for HP said, “It's for the business person who's travelling occasionally who wants quick access to 3G without the hassle of being tied to a contract or finding a Wi-Fi hot spot.” The pricing for DataPass is extremely competitive, and starts at just $5 for 75 megabytes of data, or five hours of Web browsing. For 1 gigabyte or around 30 days worth of data, the price is $30, compared to $50 or $60 for 5 gigabytes. At last check, shares of HPQ were up 28 cents to $41.09, a gain of 0.7% this morning.