Not to be outdone by Apple's seemingly endless stream of new product announcements, HP did their own over-the-top product launch last night--though without a true rockstar CEO of their own, the company had to make up for the lost pizazz in other areas, with a faux fashion show and a few celebrity guests, including Serena Williams, Sean White, and the Orange County Choppers guys.

Aside from a few awkward technical glitches that made the presentation come off a bit like something produced for cable access, the general lack of air-conditioning (it was 90 degrees inside--we measured it), and some generally awkward moments that actually made us feel genuinely bad for the fashion models on-stage, the whole thing went over pretty well. Because, after all, in spite of HP's fairly consistent insistence that fashion is their biggest priority these days, it's really all about the products, right?

Sascha asked that I keep an extra close eye (and camera lens) on the slew of new iPaq's being introduced. Upon entering the hall, it was pretty clear that I didn't have much choice in the matter. The things were on tables everywhere--that is, when they weren't being carried around by aloof-looking models.

The company breathed new life into their handheld line with a grand total of five new devices. The most basic device, the fittingly-named iPaq 110 Classic, is your basic, no-frills Windows Mobile 6 PDA. It doesn't look like much, but the thing should pack a whallop, with a 624 Mhz Marvell processor, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. A 320-by-240 TFT LCD display, 64MB RAM, and an SD slot round out the device.

The 210 Enterprise Handheld, meanwhile, sports a 4-inch, 640-by-480, 262k-color screen backed by a 624 Mhz Marvell processor, 802.11 b/g, and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. The iPaq 310 Travel Companion, on the other hand, is less PDA than dedicated GPS device. The in-car unit is based on Windows CE but lacks PIM functions, opting instead to bundle in GPS software, optional global maps, and video and game apps.

The iPaq 610 and 910 are HP's smartphone heirs to the 510's throne. The 610 Business Navigator resembles a standard phone, with a touch scroll wheel embedded in the numeric keypad. It also sports a 2.8-inch, 320-by-240 touchscreen, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, GPS with navigation software, and a 520 Mhz processor. The 910 Business Messenger features a full Qwerty keyboard, 520 Mhz processor, 128MB of RAM, and a 3 megapixel camera.

HP also unveiled two impressive desktop systems. The HP Blackbird 002 is an overclocked gaming system, created with help from the HP's Voodoo gaming wing. We recently did a hands-on with the $5,400 system, over at PC Mag, awarding the quad-core desktop a nearly perfect 5 star rating. The HP Pavilion Elite m9000n also sports a quad-core processor, plus a NTSC/ATSC (HDTV) tuner, 3GB of system memory and 640GB of hard drive space.

HP is recommending its new w2408 widescreen monitor to complement either system. The w2408 features a 1,920-by-1,200, 16:10 widescreen display that pivots to landscape or portrait mode. We saw the monitor in action, last night--pretty snazzy.

The other big news of the night was HP's new video streaming partnership with Dave Networks. For more info on that, be sure to check out our post, over at Appscout.