The economy is bad and that might make you think that companies in markets like computers that are seeing some of the worst quarters ever would be saving money. Not HP, the world’s largest computer shipper is spending a huge amount of money to purchase 3Com.

HP has announced that its board of directors and the 3Com board of directors have both agreed to allow HP to buy 3Com at $7.90 per share for all outstanding shares of 3Com stock. That price totals $2.7 billion for the company.

HP makes all sorts of notebook and desktop computers that it ships all around the globe. That makes sense considering that HP is the top PC maker in the world. HP today unveiled the dv8 and updated dv6 and dv7 multimedia notebooks.

The dv8 is the high-end machine of the trio with an 18.4-inch screen with full HD resolution. The notebook also has a Blu-ray player and integrated TV tuner along with a built-in subwoofer for good sound quality. The machine also sports an Intel Core i7 CPU and graphics via NVIDIA GT 230.

HP has had its cool Envy 15 notebook on the market for a while now. The machine is aimed directly at the MacBook Pro. HP has now launched a new limited edition Envy 15 Beats notebook that is aimed at the aspiring DJ or audiophile looking for a notebook with good sound quality.

The machine has specs similar to the other Envy 15 notebooks including quad-core Core i7 CPUs. Two 15.6-inch screen options and an integrated Nightvision webcam. An optional battery provides seven hours of run time per charge.

HP’s new DreamScreen 100 and 130 aren’t your usual digital picture frames, but they will function in pretty much the same way. They also happen to stream photos, music, play videos, connect to Pandora, and manage to handle social networking too.

The DreamScreen 100 sports a 10.2-inch screen and the 130 has a 13.3-inch screen. Both have 2GB of built-in storage and a flash card reader and USB for more room. You can load content through storage or via drag-and-drop software on the PC. It will stream audio and photos but not video.

Is that an iMac? No, it’s the new MS200 all-in-one from HP. It just kinda sorta looks like an iMac. It’s kind of sexy, but a little thick. The entire computer is balanced on that angled stand. The computer is running a 1.5 GHz Athlon X2 and has Radeon HD 3200 integrated video for 3D acceleration and movie decoding.

Some other features are 2GB of RAM, 320 GB of hard disk and a DVD burner. It will run you $599. HP makes a webcam and Wi-Fi standard and gives the MS200 a custom MediaSmart front end for photo and video editing or playback as well as Pandora Internet radio and video chat.

Some people see mobile technology as a tool to get things done while on the go. Other people see mobile technology devices as accessories and use them as much for their style as their real purpose. Either way most technology fans want a device that works and looks cool as well.

HP and Vivienne Tam have teamed up before on a digital clutch (pictured) that was a netbook with a Tam designed covered for ladies. HP and Tam have announced that they will against be teaming up on a new digital clutch to be debuted at New York Fashion Week.

Looks like you have another choice when it comes to a stylish mouse. HP is rolling out their new Comfort mice with new and updated designs aimed at younger users. The HP Wireless Comfort Mobile Mouse in Red sports a flowery design and a special sculpted fit for maximum comfort. It also features a 4-way tilt scroll wheel and a few programmable buttons.

The HP Wireless Comfort Mouse HDX has similar features, but with a blue design. While the HP Wireless Comfort Mobile Mouse in Expresso boasts a modern black design with white circles. They will cost you from $14.99 to $49.99 depending on the design.

HP announced a brand new display yesterday. The 2709m is the largest LCD for the mainstream computer market. At 27-inches, it features 1080p and can be used as a TV as well if you like. It sports an HDMI input as well as VGA and DVI, so you can hook up all of your DVD players etc.

Other features include tilting for viewing angles and a built-in 4-watt speaker system. You can get the HP 2709m LCD display starting today for about $500 on the company’s site. The 2709m also sports a dynamic contrast ratio of 30,000:1 and an anti-glare coating, so you can expect a bright colorful picture.

Running multiple monitors on a single computer is just plain cool. At least it is for us here at the ‘Brick, and the more the better. So, when we heard about HP’s USB graphics adapters which allow you to connect multiple monitors via USB, we had to try it out. HP says a single computer can run as many as six of them and we wanted to see just how well.

THE SETUP:
We ran our testing with some pretty standard equipment. We used an HP ultra-slim desktop PC running Windows Vista with 2GB of RAM and an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, along with six average 19″ displays and a single 20″ display. And of course six USB Graphics adapters (actually we had seven adapters but we’ll …

HP just unveiled its ProBook 4310s, making it available for purchase. This one is aimed squarely at business users. Under the hood you’ll find an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, Up to 8GB RAM, Intel GMA 4500MHD integrated/ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics chip, Up to 500GB of hard drive space, DVD burner/Blu-ray combo, 4 or 8 cell battery, 13.3″ LED backlight display at 1,366 × 768 pixels, Optional 2-megapixel webcam and Wi-Fi.

The ProBook 4310s is powered by Windows Vista and prices start at $779 and go up from there, after you’ve thrown in the additional fingerprint reader, Bluetooth etc.

HP has unveiled their latest line of xw9400 workstations packing AMD’s six-core Opteron 2400 series. These processors are capable of giving a system as many as 12 cores. According to HP, the chips offer about 34% more performance per watt compared to earlier quad-cores, despite using a similar amount of energy.

Which Opterons are used isn’t mentioned, but clock speeds for the Opteron 2400 line range from 2.2GHz to 2.6GHz. The systems can also be outfitted with a high-end FirePro V7750 workstation-class graphics card from AMD.

HP announced a new range of desktop PCs, along with an update to their MediaSmart Server software for TouchSmart PCs. Slimline, Pavilion and Elite desktops have all been announced, together with a new Compaq Presario desktop.

AMD and Intel processors are available across the ranges, and Blu-ray is an option on some models. The Pavilion Slimline features an AMD Athlon single-core LE1660 CPU, 2GB of RAM and 320GB hard-drive, up to a Pentium dual-core CPU, with twice the RAM and a 500GB drive. The Pavilion has an AMD Sempron LE1300, while the Pavilion Elite starts with a dual-core AMD Phenom II X2 and goes all the way to an Intel Core i7-920 with 6GB of DDR3 RAM, 750GB storage and a 1GB ATI Radeon HD 4650 graphics card.

HP may have been late getting into the netbook party. However, it is making up for lost time by introducing all sorts of new models. HP announced this week a new netbook called the Mini 5101 series offered through its small and medium business site.

The machine has an Intel Atom N280 processor running at 1.66GHz and uses the Intel 945GSE chipset. Memory options include 1GB or 2GB of 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM. Storage options include 160GB, 250GB, and 320GB 7200 rpm HDDs or a 128GB SSD.

Printers are fairly boring, but HP is looking to shake things up with the “world’s first web-connected printer.” The Photosmart Premium features a 4.33-inch front panel dubbed the Touchsmart Web, a touchscreen interface with several bundled, online apps to accommodate all of your paper-friendly tasks.

It even has a full-on HD Apps Studio just in case downloading new apps on your printer really takes off. The API’s being made open for the entire realm of developers, but it remains to be seen if the interest is there. It will cost you $399.

Summer has only just started for most students. Some students only got out of school this week. Despite that HP is already announced its back to school line up. Back to school isn’t something that students will want to think about right now, but most parents are already counting the days.

Among the offerings is the HP Pavilion dv6z Artist Edition notebook. The machine starts at $949 and includes all the features found in the dv6z plus and the machine sports the design that won the HP MTV notebook design contest.