We’ve been seeing a lot of action in the ultraportable laptop market of late: new models from Sony and Dell have been pushing the envelope in terms of both power and portability. Of course, HP, the world’s largest vendor of beige boxes, isn’t about to let those other guys hog the limelight. The company’s new HP Compaq 2210b is the latest lappie designed with the road warrior in mind, measuring just 12.1 inches diagonally and weighing a feathery 3.7 pounds. The machine rocks a respectable 1.86Ghz Celeron processor, 512MB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive, internal optical drive, Vista Home Basic and an ExpressCard slot for your 3G wireless card. Sure, the 2210b’s specs aren’t going to measure up to ultraportables from Dell and Sony but the price sure does: ¥ 89,880, or around $760 greenbacks. At that price, you can see how the 2210b would be a very attractive portable for basic business tasks. Unfortunately, this little guy is Japan-only for now; keep your fingers crossed that HP sees fit to bring it over to our shores after it makes it debut across the Pacific next month.

For more on the 2210b:
– see this Engadget article