Posts filed under 'HP'
Overview and Introduction
This review is for the new Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv6227cl, which is currently being billed as an “Entertainment Notebook” by HP. It’s a fairly new model in the dv6000 line, and is currently being sold by Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores as well as their online counterparts.
* AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-50 processor running at 1.6 GHz.
* 120 GB hard drive running at 5400RPM (6.6 gigs used as a restore partition.)
* 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM (2 512MB sticks)
* NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 graphics chipset, up to 288MB shared video RAM.
* 15.4″ WXGA Hi-Def Brightview Widescreen display.
* 802.11 b/g WLAN
* 8x DVD+ and DVD- R/RW with dual layer support
* 5 in 1 card reader
* ExpressCard54 expansion slot
* Expansion Port 3 for docking stations
* 6 Cell Lithium-Ion battery.
* Windows Vista Home Premium
* HP Mobile Remote Control (plugs into Expresscard slot)
* Headphones
Reason for Buying
I purchased this system because I travel a lot, and require a computer to keep in contact with home, as well as entertainment uses such as gaming. It also is a lot easier to carry a laptop to a LAN party than it is a full tower PC with monitor. Before purchasing this system I had looked at the HP dv2000 series, the Dell E1505, the Acer 2112, and the Alienware M5550.
I eventually chose the HP due to the price of the system (similar systems configured from the Dell, HP, and Alienware websites were substantially more expensive, even before figuring in shipping) and the fact that Acer needs a lot of help in their customer support areas. Even their website does not give a good impression, it has broken links and slow loading pages.
This system is an upgrade from an older Dell Inspiron. I needed an upgrade due to poor video graphics, busted hinge, and a slow, single core processor.
Where and How Purchased
This system was purchased at a Wal-Mart in Washington, Indiana, for $798. For the specs of this system and the extras it comes with it’s a very good deal. If you go to a tier-one builder and configure a system, you will end up paying more, even before the shipping comes into play. Strangely, building a similar system in the dv6000 line at HP’s website is still more expensive than going to Wal-Mart and purchasing the system outright. HP’s website price for a dv6000 series with the exact same specifications was $1,031.97 at the time of this writing.
This system is black and silver with blue LED lighting. The casing has a nice solid feel, and the weight is average at around 6.6 lbs. The hinges for the monitor feel quite strong, and there is no ripple effect on the LCD by pushing on the back of the monitor. Strangely, there is no latch or lock at all for when the laptop is in the closed position. You just pull up on the monitor to open it. This is the first laptop I have owned with this design, and I rather like it. The entire casing is thick plastic with a glossy look all over, which, while looking very impressive, also shows a lot of fingerprints. Keep a cleaning cloth handy.
The notebook has blue LEDS all over it. The row of quick launch keys above the computer are all lit, as well as the mouse pad lock button, power and HDD lights, and even the power plug-in has an LED that lights up when plugged-in. It matches the case design quite well.
The system uses HP’s Imprint design as well. For those unfamiliar with this, it has small curved lines running across the top of the monitor as well as the palm rest area with a very glossy look. It’s a classy look.
Screen
The screen on this system is a WXGA Hi-Def Brightview Widescreen display. It’s 15.4 inches, and is easily bright enough to see clearly. There were no dead pixels on the unit I purchased, as well as no discernable areas that were leaking light. The lighting seems even throughout the entire area of the screen, and the size is fine for a portable system. The native resolution is 1280 by 800.
Speakers
The speakers are manufactured by Altec Lansing, and are located directly above the shortcut keys on the keyboard, which places them underneath the monitor instead of in front of the system as most makers have them. These speakers impressed me a lot, they are quite loud with minimal distortion at higher sound levels. Be sure to be careful with your sound settings, as these speakers can get very, very loud.
Processor and Performance
This particular model uses the AMD Turion 64 X2 running at 1.6 GHz. Having the dual core setup under Vista is noticeable, although the benefits will get better slowly as more and more apps start moving from single-threaded to multi-threaded. Still, the 2 cores help performance and make up for the lower clock speed setting. The boot up time averaged around 40 seconds.
The hard drive on this system has plenty of storage for a laptop at 120 GB (105 GB usable after formatting and HP Restore partition), but the speed is only 5400 RPM. While acceptable on a laptop, I still wish they had put a 7200 RPM drive in this system. Sometimes it takes a few extra seconds to access files on this system depending on how fragmented they are and how large they are.
It comes with a gigabyte of RAM, which is adequate for running the included Windows Vista and normal programs. I would recommend upgrading to two gigs of RAM down the road for the extra performance and speed. Be aware if you do plan on upgrading that HP uses 2 512MB sticks of RAM, so you will have to purchase two 1 GB sticks for the upgrade.
The video chipset uses the Geforce Go 6150. You can play some games on this system, but I recommend lowering the resolution and graphics details before loading the game so you can play at an acceptable frame rate. Also, some games, such as Oblivion, may not play at an acceptable speed even with all details are set down at their lowest. I recommend going into your BIOS and setting your shared memory for your video at the highest setting possible, 128 MB. If the video system needs more RAM than 128, it pulls it automatically up to 288 MB.
March 9th, 2007
Hewlett-Packard recently took the lead as the number one PC maker in the world, finally overtaking their rival, Dell. With the market shift came many new computers from HP, and a much needed refresh to their laptop line. The HP dv9000t is the most powerful model HP has to offer with its crisp 17″ screen, Core 2 Duo, dual-hard drive capabilities, and GeForce Go 7600 graphics card.
Reasons for Buying:
I had been in the market for a new laptop for quite some time. I do alot of digital design work including web design and photo retouching, as well as making art in my spare time. I needed something with a bright, large screen and ample resolution to work with. I also needed enough power to play the latest PC games. I had my eye on the HP dv8000, but soon after the dv9000 came out and I knew it was the one for me.
Build and Design:
The design of the dv9000 is excellent. It is much thinner and lighter than I had anticipated. The chassis is a very strong plastic, there is no flex anywhere on the body of the notebook. The screen will twist if ample force is applied, but is very sturdy for a 17″ screen. When I push on the lid, no ripples are produced on the LCD.
The most attractive part about the design of the notebook is HP’s Imprint Finish. It is a swirled pattern on the outside and inside of the notebook, right under the keyboard. It definitely adds flare and personal taste to the normally bland world of mobile computing.
Screen:
The screen is one of the biggest things that attracted me to this notebook. As someone who relies on their screen for contrast and color accuracy, this screen has been nothing short of amazing. There are three options for customization regarding the screen: WXGA+ BrightView Widescreen (1440×900); WSXGA+ BrightView Widescreen (1680×1050) (which is the option I chose); and WXGA+ Ultra BrightView Widescreen (1440×900). The resolution differences are straightforward enough, but the Ultra BrightView does confuse some people. The difference between Brightview and UltraBrightview is the number of lamps lighting your LCD. Typical screens only have one lamp, while UltraBrightview contains two that light your screen. The outcome is a much brighter, and sometimes crisper screen. I would have chosen this option, but I value a higher resolution, and most screens are bright enough for me as it is.
Speakers:
The speakers on this laptop are some of the best I have heard and are made by Altec Lansing. In typical notebook fashion however, they do come up short. The sound quality is crisp and clear all the way up to max volume. There is no “tinny” sound from the speakers that many have. The only complaint I have about these speakers is that they don’t get loud enough for my tastes. Not a big deal to me, as they get plenty loud for sitting around and listening to your MP3’s, but for gaming and audiophile tastes, a set of external speakers or headphones may be a good option.
Processor and Performance:
The processor I have is the Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 (1.66ghz). The Core 2 processors are currently the best mobile processors on the market. The T5500 is the middle to low-end of the Core 2 models, but doesn’t even break a sweat with everything I have thrown at it.
Benchmarks
The Intel Core 2 Duo offered with this notebook is the “low end” 1.66GHz version, but still offers very good performance, I got a Super Pi calculation time to 2 million digits of 1m 18s. That’s slower than the under 1 minute results that 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo processors get, but still demonstrates the processor can chug through calculations fast.
Heat and Noise:
The dv9000t has quite a bit of power under the hood, but you would never be able to tell from the way it handles it. The fans rarely come on, only during heavy gaming do I notice them, and even then they can barely be heard. The notebook is very quiet, nothing that will bother your classmates during a lecture. The only time I have ever felt the notebook get even mildly warm was after a long session of playing F.E.A.R. After quite a bit of stress on all the components used during the game, it was still very comfortable to have on my lap.
Keyboard and Touchpad:
The dv9000 is one of the few notebooks on the market to offer a full-size keyboard along with a numpad. The numpad is a welcome, but rarely seen addition to the mobile world. The keys are all very responsive and offer a satisfying clicky noise when typing. The only complaint that I have is that the right shift key is scrunched due to constraints from fitting in the numpad. This isn’t a big complaint for me however, as it is fairly easy to adapt to the smaller shift key, and is more than worth it as a trade-off for the numpad that is included.
The touchpad on the other hand doesn’t get as much praise from me. It is average at best. I almost always use an external mouse, but when I do have to use the touchpad, I don’t look forward to it. It tracks well enough, but is made of a strange material that is rather hard to slide your finger on in comparison to a standard touchpad. The mouse buttons underneath it are great however, and I wouldn’t trade those for anything. The touchpad is aligned under the main part of the keyboard, so it is off center from the whole notebook. The reason for this however is so that it is center from where you are typing. The coolest feature about the touchpad, and one I greatly appreciate, is the ability to turn it on/off. No more accidently brushing the touchpad, causing you to type in the wrong place.
Wireless:
The pavilion dv9000t has two options for wireless. Both come with the Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG card, but one is with Bluetooth and the other is without. I chose the option with Bluetooth so that I could connect with my phone and pda. The card offers a strong connection to any network remotely close to me. I can pick up signals from neighbors 2-3 houses away from me. This is definitely a card to have when looking for a notebook with reliable wireless.
Battery:
The battery that comes with the dv9000 is an 8-cell Lithium-Ion battery. The laptop averages about 3 hours of battery life with low performance usage and a dim screen, an amazing number for a notebook this big. With more demanding usage however, it gets around 2 hours.
Operating System and Software:
The operating system I chose for my system was Windows Media Center Edition. In essence, it is Windows Home with more multimedia options. I have no need for pro and the features included on MCE are pretty neat, especially for a media fanatic like myself. There is a Recovery Partition that is located on your primary hard drive for any recovery woes. When you first boot up it asks you to burn this partition onto CD/DVD. I opted for the Recovery Discs however, just in case. The system was loaded up with Bloatware when I received it, and among the bountiful programs, none of them were useful to me. After cleaning up all of the unwanted programs and cleaning my registry however, I had a near clean install.
Customer Support:
I haven’t yet had the need to test out HP’s customer service, and hope that I will never have to (knock on wood). There are many options for warranties however, and I have heard from others that HP is one of the better companies out there in terms of customer support.
February 22nd, 2007
Recently my office purchased for me a HP Compaq nw9440 mobile workstation. I was charged with the task of researching what notebook computers would be acceptable by me, so the decision of what to acquire fell squarely on my shoulders. I??™m an attorney, working mainly with office and internet research applications, but I??™m also a computer enthusiast and gamer in my private time. Therefore, I needed something that looked all business, but had a core that could satisfy my off-time personal uses.
When starting my research on a laptop that fit my bill of particulars, I first looked for the internal components. After a little research on current notebook components (my last laptop was purchased back in the Spring of 2002), I decided that I did not want to get something that would be left in the dust in a few months. My former Sony Vaio FX Series had been purchased with all top-of-the-line-at-the-time components, and worked fine for over four years. In fact, it??™s still working fine as a college computer for my sister-in-law now. Therefore, I started looking for the best components available within a reasonable price range of less than $2,500.
My search first led me to Alienware computers, which I later found out were rebranded Clevo shells. I looked hard at the AW m7700 mobile workstation (also, Hypersonic Aviator EX7) before deciding that I wanted a notebook processor and not a desktop processor. Staying with a new Core 2 Duo in mind, I also looked at an AW m5750, a Dell XPS, and a Hypersonic Aviator CX7. I hadn??™t considered HP at all. I have had bad dealings with the consumer line Pavilions, but was pressured into trying out a business class notebook by my office??™s computer hardware & service provider, a local tech shop. The sales guy had a 17??? nx series notebook in his office that he offered to let me play with so I could see for myself the difference in design, stability and structure. I took him up on his offer, and was amazed at the difference in the business class notebooks. A little more research and configuring, and I ended up selecting the nw9440 because I could get a high end Core 2 Duo, a very capable nVidia Quadro FX 1500M (7900 GS core), a dual-layer DVD-RW super multi drive and 1 GB of system memory all in a sleek, 17??? widescreen businesslike appearance package. The icing on the cake was that this notebook features a full numeric keypad, which is very helpful for entering loads of numeric information during the tax return season.
The case is made from thin hard plastic cover panels and reinforced around the edges and at other key spots (around the keyboard, for example) with thicker plastic. This keeps the weight down while allowing for a high degree of rigidity. When pushing on the screen from the back, nothing is noticed on the LCD. Likewise, the amount of flex allowed by the 17??? widescreen when twisting is minimal unless a high degree of force is applied. The hinges on the LCD also allow for minimal wobble when the screen is tapped from the front.
One thing I??™m not absolutely crazy about is that almost all of the ports on the laptop are located on the sides instead of the back.
Having used a Sony Vaio FX Series layout, I would have liked the AC Power connector, RJ-45 Ethernet, a couple USB connections and the Video Display connectors to be on the back panel of this notebook. The AC and Ethernet connections, which I use a lot, are awkward to get used to on the sides; and since I use a USB wireless mouse, having the receiver poke out of the side can be somewhat annoying. I couldn??™t even imagine having to use a USB corded mouse.
However bad that problem is, though, I have gotten used to the configuration in the couple months I??™ve had this notebook. I??™m to the point that I don??™t even notice the cords anymore when at home. When at work the problem no longer exists because I use the HP Docking Station, which I absolutely love. It??™s a must-have for working with a laptop. I arrive at my office in the morning, slip my notebook out of my briefcase, pop it onto the dock and fire it up. No connecting anything, because it??™s already done.
While not a Toughbook, overall the notebook is of very sturdy design. There exists plenty of rigidity to withstand the daily packing into a padded briefcase and transportation to and from work.
Screen
The screen on my particular model is not a BrightView, but rather is a 17??? widescreen WSXGA (1680 x 1050) matte finish LCD. I work in an office with an overhead light, so a glossy screen would not have worked well because of the glare.
The screen shows rich colors at all available brightness levels. There are zero dead pixels and I haven??™t noticed the slightest bit of light leakage. To check and confirm that, I ran a little app that floods the screen with varying solid colors. It??™s one of many dead pixel testers you can find with a simple Google search.
Overall I have found this HP Compaq nw9440 Mobile Workstation to be an eye-opener and a breath of fresh air coming from HP. Admittedly, I have not been a fan of HP products in the past. This was, of course, before I tried their Business Class notebooks, which appear to be much different from their consumer line in overall quality. In the end, I got my notebook that, on the cover, looks all business; but inside has the power of some of the better gaming laptops. I would very much recommend it to anyone in my same situation, needing the appearance of a business-like laptop with the core of a gaming system hidden under the lid.
February 22nd, 2007
The holiday season of 2006 was filled with intense price competition between resellers for low-budget notebook sales. Online and brick and mortar stores alike battled for this market segment aggressively with mostly low-spec or low-quantity systems. The HP Compaq Presario V6000Z was a member of that competition, but unlike many of its competitors this model was available for build to order. There weren’t any lines to wait in or crowds to brave. Plus, this 15″ laptop features a Mobile AMD Semprom CPU which offers the power-saving technologies Intel leaves off their Celeron M line. The V6000Z is built to be a general purpose notebook suited for general productivity; not anything overly demanding like gaming. It’s a budget model that provides all the basics without sacrificing portability or battery life.
What led me to looking at HP notebooks was the fact that I didn’t have to deal with all the holiday traffic and crowds. Also, the price promotions and free upgrades HP was offering in the middle of December were exactly what I was looking for. This purchase was not for myself, however. Together my dad and I wanted to purchase a budget notebook for my mom. We didn’t have a lot of money to work with and wanted to keep things as inexpensive as possible. Our target price was to be no more than $550 (after rebates). Also, we made the decision to purchase a little late in the season. After some research, especially on this site, I found HP to be running the best offers at the time. I was particularly interested in the free upgrade to 1 GB of RAM HPshopping.com was offering the week of 12/13/2006.
Initially I started looking at the Compaq models because they were priced lower than the HP models on HPshopping. The V3000Z was the least expensive at the time I was looking, however the screen was 14″ inches and the RAM was at 512 MB. Making a significant upgrade to the hard drive to increase performance was out of the question, so I examined other models to see if I could get more RAM for almost the same price. This led me to the V6000Z and V6000T. These two were priced very similar. The difference was that the Z model had AMD processors and the T model had Intel processors. I made the decision to go with AMD after researching the power-saving technologies offered by both the Sempron and Celeron lines. I liked the variable clock speed ability the Sempron had over the Celeron, which lacked such a feature (speed-step is on Pentium processors). That and an inexpensive cache upgrade is what sold me on the Z model. Also, at the time there was a promotion for a free upgrade to 1 GB of RAM.
Packing
The system arrived via FedEx. I was really surprised when I got the initial tracking notification and the system started its FedEx journey in China. This isn’t a bad thing, but as someone who has purchased Dell’s in the past (which get transported to Texas before being shipped) it was a bit different. Again, not a negative though and FedEx did race it here. I liked the speed of the delivery because it was much faster than I anticipated. The notebook arrived with foam cushions on either side of its width and a box sitting atop it. The foam prevented both the outside box and inside box from touching the system, which was also wrapped in plastic. Basically, the packing is exactly what you’d expect to find.
Inside the box sitting next to the notebook is a quick-start poster, the AC adaptor (AKA power brick, which is actually more like a rice crispy because it’s small and light), a short phone cable, and a bunch of advertisements and instruction booklets. There were no restore CD’s provided. HP instead charges extra for these but does place an 8 GB restore partition on your system’s hard drive. I’m itching to get rid of that when Vista arrives. 8 GB seems excessive to me because I have Windows CD’s. However, some of the HP software is pretty nice.
Bloatware
Again I’m going to dedicate a section to the bloatware on this system. I know manufactures do this to lower prices, but it does get really annoying to boot into Windows for the first time and have to wait 5 to 7 minutes for all the garbage to load up and have to go through all the windows that pop up. You’ll find Norton, Vongo, and some HP software like a wireless network assistant, auto-update program, and a quick-launch button configuration utility upon starting the system up. There’s also a bunch of ISP offers like AOL plastered on your desktop. Removing most of these is rather easy. It also looks like HP provides some Wild Tangent games they’ve purchased for you and some picture album software. I only decided to remove some useless or annoying programs and left a bunch like the HP photo stuff and games. So far my mom has really liked the included HP software, especially the photo album tool. While installing replacement anti-virus and spyware software I had copied over from my other system I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly my software installed.
The V6000Z comes in a very dark grey color. I want to call it charcoal-like in color. Some of the pictures online made it look silver and that’s just not what it looks like. It also really likes fingerprints. I did not opt for the imprint finish on this notebook since this was such a budget-conscious purchase. Upon starting up the notebook you’ll notice blue lights for the “feather-touch” volume controls as well as media button (which boots up a DVD player that only responds within Windows). There’s also a blue light on the power button and a blue ring that surrounds where the power adaptor plugs in. Blue indicator lights for the caps lock, scroll lock, and touchpad are right next to their appropriate buttons. There’s an orange light for the Wi-Fi on/off switch which is analog and can be toggled even when the system is off.
Screen
On this particular purchase I did not buy the BrightView screen. I got the regular screen since the only difference seemed to be $25 more for the glossy screen. I was pleased to find that there weren’t any dead or stuck pixels. Every pixel on the screen appears to be fine and there’s no sheen to the screen either. It’s just a regular LCD. The lack of the gloss coating helped save money and reduce glare/reflections, but picture quality on gloss screens always seems to be a bit more eye-catching for some reason. The non-gloss is fine for my mom’s needs though. There’s also not any noticeable light leakage on the bottom of the screen. Sure, blacks can seem a little uneven and the corners of the screen on the bottom look a little darker depending on how tilted your screen is, but these are all normal.
Viewing angles on this screen aren’t too bad. You can always see what you’re looking at from the sides, although the brightness decreases as you move to extremes. Vertical viewing angles are pretty narrow though. It takes a bit of practice to correctly position the angle of the screen so what you’re looking at has constant color and isn’t washed out or too dark. The NVidia graphics chip really struts its stuff here because it allows you to take the default sort of washed out look of the screen and reconfigure it to something much more appealing. I turned up the digital vibrance and contrast a bit and decreased the gamma a little. Brightness really didn’t need much adjusting. Without the NVidia chip you lose the digital vibrance feature, unfortunately. That really saved the day here and makes this LCD better than I had expected. I’m very happy with the display and so is mom. It will take a good 5 to 10 minutes of playing with the graphics settings and viewing images for users to really find their preference.
There is one little weird thing I’ve noticed, however. When running the V6000Z on battery sometimes there’s a quiet whine or buzzing from the lower right side of the screen right under the bezel. If you push on that plastic lightly or adjust the tilt of your screen the sound normally goes away. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m not sure what causes it and it’s easy to get rid of.
Speakers and Audio
I really can’t say much about the audio on this system. Having the audio ports on the front is nice because you’ll definitely want to use them if you listen to a lot of music. The V6000Z’s speakers come from two quarter-sized ports sitting just above the right and left sides of the keyboard. The sound is unimpressive and you lose a lot of the lower frequency sounds. Higher frequency sounds can sound crackly which is disappointing. For general use this isn’t bad, but music lovers will definitely want headphones. I typically test the sound using orchestra music. If I can hear all the instruments, feel the drums, and things sound the way they do with a real orchestra then the speakers are good. With the speakers on this system none of the above happens although you can tweak the sound levels in various Media Players to help. A subwoofer might have helped here but this is only a budget system. The sound could be worse. I’ve heard systems twice as expensive as this V6000Z (take my old sold Sony GRZ-630 for example) which had much poorer quality sound output. For the price I paid I really can’t complain here. The speakers are competitive with what’s out there at this price point. The audio chip in this system says it’s a high-definition audio unit but I can’t hear a difference compared to a regular AC’97 system.
Processor and Performance
The V6000Z has the option of Mobile AMD Sempron processors or Turion processors. Because I was on a budget I went for the Sempron. I chose to upgrade from the 3400+ to the 3500+ with double the cache since it was $20. This along with the gig of RAM I thought would be able to offset the slowness of a 5400 RPM hard drive well. I was happy to see that the standard hard drives from HP were 5400 RPM and not 4200 RPM on the V6000Z at the time of my purchase.
I’m happy to say that the responsiveness of this system is much better than I had expected. It’s on par with a Pentium M 1.6 GHz laptop or an Athlon XP 2700+ desktop. The V6000Z is snappy and responsive. Thanks to the amount of RAM it does pretty well running multiple programs too. There’s very little lag when switching between programs. Also, to help you save battery life the processor automatically down-clocks itself when you let it idle. This was a major selling point against its Celeron competitor, the V6000T.
February 22nd, 2007
HP is one of the first vendors to announce a laptop specifically built to run Windows Vista, and somewhat surprisingly, its initial offering is a convertible tablet. Unlike other tablets, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad X60, which are aimed primarily at business users, the HP Pavilion tx1000us targets the more average consumer. HP refers to it as an entertainment notebook, and the system includes media control buttons, dual headphone jacks, a touch screen that works with any stylus or your fingertip, and a new, high-gloss finish–all of which add to its consumer-friendly vibe. The $1,299 base price Pavilion tx1000us (our review unit cost $1,720) isn’t set to ship until February 28, which is disappointing, and the AMD Turion 64 X2 processor wouldn’t be our first choice, but in terms of performance and features, our first experience with a Windows Vista laptop has been a positive one.
The HP Pavilion tx1000us measures 12 inches wide, 8.75 inches deep, and 1.5 inches high, slightly narrower and deeper than the Fujitsu LifeBook T4215 tablet. It’s large enough to work on for long stretches, but the small 12.1-inch screen can strain the eyes a bit over time. The tx1000us weighs 5 pounds (5.8 pounds with the AC adapter), which makes it easy to tote around in a laptop bag or carry around as a tablet, but it’s a little on the thick side for easy handling.
As a convertible tablet, the tx1000us uses a center hinge to swivel the screen around, allowing it to fold down over the keyboard. The hinge feels sturdy, and the lid locks down cleanly when in tablet mode. Using the system in tablet mode may take a little getting used to. Unlike most other tablets, the HP Pavilion tx1000us uses a touch screen, not an active stylus. That means that you can use any stylus or any stylus-like object–even your finger. That can be very handy and certainly adds a little bit of that Minority Report-feel as you whip windows around with your fingertip.
You may need to adjust your writing style, however, because the touch screen isn’t as responsive as traditional tablet screens–if it were, resting your palm on it would drive the system crazy–so a firm hand and deliberate pen strokes are needed. Whether you prefer this or an active stylus system is largely a matter of personal preference. We like the idea that if you lose your stylus, you’re not out of luck.
The Pavilion tx1000us uses the Home Premium version of Windows Vista, which includes all the features home users want, including Aero effects, while forgoing some of the business-oriented security and networking features found on the Business and Ultimate editions. While Vista doesn’t offer too many new features aimed squarely at laptop users, tablets get a few new programs including Pen Flicks, which enables basic navigation (forward, back, scroll) and commands (copy, paste, and so on) via simple stylus movements. We found the response a little tricky, but with more practice, we could see it being a useful way to work quickly.
The 12.1-inch LCD screen offers a 1,280×800 native resolution, average for a screen this size. The high-gloss screen (HP calls it “BrightView”) is great for playing games and watching movies, although reading and typing in well-lit situations gave us a little too much glare. Built into the screen’s border are a fingerprint reader, buttons for rotating the display orientation, and a Webcam.
The system supplies most of the connections you’d expect, including three USB 2.0 jacks, a mini-FireWire jack, an ExpressCard slot, a media card reader, and VGA and S-Video outputs for hooking up an external monitor. We would have liked to see a PC Card slot and a regular FireWire jack. Networking connections include a modem and Gigabit Ethernet jacks, and integrated 802.11b/g wireless plus built-in WWAN, which requires a separate subscription from a service provider. One useful extra is a tiny, credit card-style remote control for controlling media files and volume that’s able to be tucked into a slot in the system’s base.
You’ll also find the touchpad is a little unusual. It’s the same color and material as the rest of the keyboard tray, demarcated only by small, indented dots in the shape of a traditional touchpad and scroll bar. It’s a stylish look, but we found a little too much drag when moving a finger across it. There’s a good reason most other touchpads are made of a smooth, slick material.
Our review unit included a 1.8GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-56 processor, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 160GB hard drive running at 5,400rpm, and a 128MB Nvidia GeForce Go 6150 graphics chip. HP plans to offer configuration options when the system is available, but has not yet announced what those options will be. The stock components are certainly acceptable for everyday productivity and multimedia use, and we found the system to be responsive, even if Intel’s Core 2 Duo CPUs generally perform better, run cooler, and extend battery life.
Compared to another early Vista laptop, the Toshiba Portege R400, the Pavilion tx1000us is positively speedy, beating that much more expensive Toshiba (which has an ultralow-voltage 1.2GHz Intel Core Duo U2500 CPU) in both the Photoshop CS2 and iTunes encoding tests (beating out even the Core 2 Duo Fujitsu LifeBook T4215 tablet in the Photoshop test). We’re conducting additional testing on both Vista systems and will update this review as new results become available.
Our battery testing, using CNET Labs’ DVD battery drain test, gave us 120 minutes of battery life, not exceptional for an entertainment-oriented system. That should be enough for a single DVD, but not much more. However, in anecdotal testing, we used the system for nearly three hours without exhausting the battery.
HP backs the system with the standard one-year parts-and-labor warranty. The company will also cover the cost of returning the system for repairs throughout your warranty. The company’s toll-free telephone-support lines are open 24/7 and offer free help during your warranty period. The HP support Web site includes real-time chat with tech support, and you can troubleshoot problems by searching through the site’s robust FAQ database.
February 22nd, 2007
