Hewlett-Packard (HP) today announced its first thin client notebooks, a result of the firm’s acquisition of Neoware. The first product to be offered in this series will be the 6720t, which has the same form factor as HP’s other 6700-series models.

However, the t version is stripped down to the bare minimum and designed to appeal to insurance claim processors, remote staff, warehouse and inventory managers and office administrators, which access major data via networks and not a hard drive. Compared to the regular 6720 notebooks, the t does not include a hard drive, but a 1 GB flash module instead, which has room for the Windows XPe operating system as well as a couple applications.

Wi-Fi capability is included via a Broadcom chip, but Wireless broadband, strangely, is not a standard feature and has to be added via a 3G broadband card. The 5.4-pound heavy 6720t comes with Intel’s Celeron 423 (1.06 GHz, FSB533) low-voltage processor, a 15.4" LCD, integrates 1 GB of DDR2-667 memory, Intel’s GMA950 graphics chipset. Pricing of the thin client is set at $725.