Digital Trends

HP tx1000 April 24th, 2007 | by Justin Whitaker

Testing and Use

The performance evaluation of the HP tx1000 was completed over a 30-day time period. All of the typical tasks you would perform with this type of notebook – watching DVDs, surfing the web, listening to music, writing handwritten notes, word processing, playing games, burning CDs, etc. – were undertaken in order to put the tx1000 through the paces to see how well it would perform as an all-in-one laptop.

Application Performance

True to its intended use, the tx1000 easily handles running multiple entertainment programs – as well as the typical web browser, spreadsheet, and other basic applications – without even the smallest hiccup. The AMD Turion X2, as well as the memory and graphics subsystems, provide enough horsepower to smoothly play DVD movies while background tasks continue without interruption. Using the included "Muvee" software to capture video clips and images from the 1.3-megapixel webcam was a snap, even while running multiple applications in the background. The capabilities of the tx1000 are nearly limitless with the suite of application software available on the market today, and you will be hard pressed to find ways to stress the limits of the tx1000.

Graphics Performance and Display Quality

The tablet PC touchscreen display of the tx1000 provides a whole new set of possibilities over a typical laptop, but it does sacrifice some of the image quality that is typically found in high-end laptop displays. The image quality of the tx1000 when viewing DVD movies and other high-quality video is crisp and clear, but the color saturation and depth of color is not as vibrant as other high-end models and occasionally appears washed out. In above normal lighting conditions, the display also suffers excessive glare. Viewing angles while watching DVD movies, on the other hand, were very good, and no loss of color or detail could be found at viewing angles of up to 40 degrees off center. The 12.1-inch screen lacks the real estate for any serious business use, as extended periods of typing and reading can be a bit eye-straining with the native 1280 x 800 screen resolution.

The NVidia Go 6150 processor shares the 128MB of video memory with the main memory subsystem, which limits the video capabilities of the notebook. The tx1000 has no trouble displaying DVD movies and other high-quality video clips, but it just doesn't have enough power to run any of the current generation 3D games at acceptable resolutions. In the Vista Windows Experience Index, the graphics component scored the lowest with a 3.0 rating, and thus the overall rating in the Windows Experience Index is 3.0.

Tablet Functionality

The tablet functionality of the tx1000 promises to be either one of the best features of the laptop, or one of the most frustrating. Unlike most other tablet laptops on the market, the tx1000 uses a touch screen, not an active stylus screen. This means that you can use any stylus, pen or other pointed object to input commands and text on the screen. This is very handy in case you misplace your stylus, but the touch screen is not as responsive as an active stylus screen. I found that the only way for my handwriting to be recognized was to use slow, consistent pen strokes and to make sure that the point of the stylus never lost contact with the screen during the pen stroke. It takes quite a while to get used to, and my writing speed was much slower than if I had been using a pen and paper to take notes. If you can get the hang of the tablet writing on the touch screen, you will most likely love the way you can take handwritten notes wherever you go. My natural handwriting style was not a good fit for the tablet, however, and the results were disappointing.

Image Courtesy of HP