This is a long-overdue idea: HP has decided to do away with the bulky cardboard and foam packaging systems they’ve traditionally used to package up their laptops, at least for one of their models. Instead, the laptop carry-bag IS the packaging and only uses some bubble wrap to cushion the components inside the bag. If you look at the link, you’ll see that this lets HP package 3 laptops in a shipping box instead of one box per machine (so it’s not completely box-free). And the bag is made out of recycled materials.

The net result is that HP reduced the per-unit packaging by a whopping 97% and reduced their overall packaging for this laptop by 65% (along with using some other shipping reduction methods). That’s really incredible, and I would love to see all the PC manufacturers look for similarly innovative packaging solutions. Heck, I’d go so far as to say that almost every item that sits on a retail shelf could have its packaging reduced if there was enough motivation on the part of the makers.