Interesting new HP tablet PC (tx1000-series)

[Ian]

My four and a half year old Sony Vaio C1MHP PictureBook has, alas, outlived its usefulness. It was not particularly fast back in 2002 and despite a hard drive upgrade, it's really struggling with today's applications.

So it's time to spec a replacement. The newly announced HP Pavilion TX1000 range (launched at CES last month - see attached pic below) looks interesting. My old Sony weighs only just over one kilo and has a very small (8.9 inch diagonal) 1280x600 screen. But the new HP is still relatively small with its 12 inch 1280x800 screen and weighs about 2.3kg. A typical 15.4 inch laptop weighs half as much again and is much more bulky.

But what really interests me about the TX1000 series is that a touch screen is used (it's a tablet PC after all). But it's not the usual tablet PC 'touch screen' - where the stylus actually doesn't have to touch the surface of the screen. The traditional tablet screen senses the stylus in three dimensions, rather like a graphics tablet. The TX1000 uses a contact-sensitive touch screen, like a PDA, for example.

The most obvious issue with a touch-sensitive screen is that it will register your palm or something else other than the tip of your stylus. Well, apparently HP has fixed that, but you can use the touch screen with anything, like a pen top, finger, etc., which you can not with the traditional tablet PCs.

I can see some people thinking that a touch screen like this is a disadvantage, but personally, I have never been able to truly enjoy the 'tablet' experience, where the stylus is sensed even a centimetre off the surface of the screen, so I believe the TX1000 is a better solution for me.

I'm hoping to get one of the TX1000s in to try soon and will let you know how I get on - and to report how the screen and stylus perform when using Photoshop, for example.

Ian

[StuartR]

Re: Interesting new HP tablet PC (tx1000-series)

Hi Ian

I'm on my third tablet now, I started with a Compaq TC1000 - nice machine with space-age docking station and detachable keyboard - shame about the processor (Transmeta Crusoe TM5800 1GHz). Moved on to the TC1100 which had a slightly better processor (Intel Pentium M 1GHz) and this handled everything I threw at it but I eventually tired of the sluggish performance and recently moved on to the (now HP) Compaq tc4400. (The MD now uses the 1100!).

The tc4400 is a real performer and is soo much faster than the TC1100 - doesn't look as sexy mind the original TC1000 still turns heads and many regard it as a classic design.

I've now got about 4 years worth of hand-written notes from 100's of meetings available at the touch of the pen - beats carrying a filing cabinet on my back! I tend to keep notes in handwritten form rather than convert them to text (which it does well when writing hand-written replies to emails etc). I could never go back to a "normal" lap top.

I don't have a problem with the fact that the pen is sensed before the stylus touches the screen, in fact I quite like it when scrolling down pages etc. But then I use it mainly for MS Office type applications, I haven't tried using it with PhotoShop yet, I use my home desktop for that, but I'll be getting round to trying it soon.

[Ian]

[StuartR]

Re: Interesting new HP tablet PC (tx1000-series)

My model has the Intel Core 2 T7200 2GHz CPU. Which, along with 1GB of RAM is doing the job nicely. It also has 802.11, BlueTooth and the finger-print scanner built in. There is a media card slot somewhere but I've not investigated that too much (shame it doesn't handle CF cards like my original TC1000 did!).

No mini remote though .

Presented a PowerPoint slide show yesterday using a projector and how nice it was to be able to write on the slides using the tablet pen to highlight / annotate as I went through the show. You can also bring up a blackboard (or whiteboard) half-way through the show and use it for notes or diagrams - all of which can be saved with the show for distribution afterwards.

I also like using it (the Tablet) to critique screen designs (I work in software development) or documents just by "printing" the document / screen to the Journal Printer and scribbling over it in Windows Journal. You can then circulate the critique as long as the recipient has Journal Reader software (free from MS) installed. Takes you back to school days - "3/10 must try harder!" or "See Me!!"

As I said, wouldn't (couldn't) go back to a "normal" laptop!