Hewlett-Packard (HP) has unveiled its new laptop called Voodoo Envy, thus plunging in the race against Apple’s MacBook Air.

The Voodoo, only 0.70 inches thin and weighing less than 3.4 pounds, is to be made available for the price of $2,099.

It comes with a 13.3" display and packs a Core 2 Duo processor (customers can choose out of the 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz versions). The memory was also left up to the user’s choice; one can go for a 64GB solid state drive or an 80GB hard drive. It has two USB ports and a multi-touch trackpad.     

 A new feature it brings consists of the Voodoo IOS, though which users can open Skype or a browser, without the need to power up Vista.

Apple’s MacBook Air was launched at the beginning of January. The laptop is less than two centimetres (0.76 inches) thick, features a backlit 13-inch (33-centimetre) screen, a full-size keyboard and a pad responsive to Apple's multi-touch control gestures. It weighs in at less than 1.5 kilograms. It is powered by Intel's 1.6 GHZ Core 2 Duo processor as standard, with an available 1.8GHZ upgrade. It has 2 GB of RAM, battery life of 5 hours and an 80 GB hard drive. It has no built in CD drive, but does offer an external drive for an additional 99 dollars.

Although the new machine is quite attractive, the price may be discouraging to some; it remains to be seen whether or not people will start going for HP’s ultra-thin laptop and forget all about Apples’.