HP has unveiled two new budget-conscious business-oriented laptops, the Compaq 515 and 610. Priced pretty competitively with netbooks, they offer a bit more muscle. The 515 is available from $429 with an AMD Turion or Athlon X2 CPU, a 14" LED-backlit display, up to 3GB of 667MHz DDR2 RAM (upgradeable to 8GB), an integrated ATI Radeon HD 3200, up to 250GB of hard drive space and a DVD burner. It is 802.11a/b/g/n capable and houses 3 USB 2.0 ports, 1 VGA port, ExpressCard and secure digital slots, an optional 2MP webcam a 6-cell battery and weighs 5lbs.

Starting at $449, the Compaq 610 kicks things up a notch with an Intel Celeron T1500 and Core 2 Duo T5870, a 15.6" display, 800MHz DDR2 RAM and an extra hour of battery life. It switches things up with an Intel GMA X3100, supports a maximum of 4GB RAM, weighs 5.5lbs and apparently drops 802.11n support. Both models are available now and ship with your choice of 32-bit and 64-bit Vista as well as SUSE Enterprise Desktop 10.