The good: Loud speakers; nice design; speedy enough for day-to-day use.

The bad: Crippled graphics card; low battery life; poor sensitivity for the tablet.

The bottom line: The HP Pavilion TX1000 is great as a normal day-to-day business notebook, and not so great at being a tablet. Still, the price is hard to ignore and it is an attractive machine--so you could do worse than getting one of these.

Read full review of the HP Pavilion tx1000 »

By Craig Simms, CNET.com.au
Dec 12, 2007

The HP Pavilion TX1000 interestingly has written on the chassis that it is an "HP Pavilion Entertainment PC". There are a number of things that fly in the face of this (poor screen, old and weak video card, no digital video-out), but presumably can get away with it because HP bundles in Altec Lansing speakers, a remote and includes its own Media Center software (QuickPlay). Unlike other vendors, however, there seems not to be a lightweight media client that can load without Windows, to save on battery.

More sensibly it's been classified officially by HP as a travel/mobility notebook, meaning it is well-suited to business use. As an added bonus, it also happens to be a tablet PC.

Editors' note : This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com.au. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some of other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia. Please check directly with your local distributor for details.

Design

Inscribed with a recurring "fingerprint"-style design in silver and black, and with HP's distinctive dimpled trackpad, the TX is a notch above what enterprise users generally get to display in front of their peers. Vexingly, as tends to be the case these days, the whole thing is high sheen, meaning you'll be forever cleaning fingerprints off.

Unlike some competing models the screen twists only clockwise when converting to tablet mode, but the hinge feels strong and well-built, with the Altec Lansing speakers flanking either side. The monitor is locked shut when in closed and tablet positions, a button on the lip needing to be pressed to release it. The tablet pen is stowed away at the front right and is pushed in to release, although in practice the laptop wanted to hang onto the pen a little too much, making it difficult to remove easily.

The 12.1-inch, 1,280 x 800 screen never quite reaches a high level of brightness even when powered from the wall, and has a greasy vaseline look about it. This, combined with tablet sensitivity, is the only real gripe we have about this notebook.

The keyboard has been compressed, but never once felt too small and our fingers in typing tests didn't mis-hit anymore than on a desktop keyboard--even the extremely tiny tilde key didn't present a problem.

The hot air vent sits on the right side, meaning lefties get a reprieve for a change, while the right-handed population gets a cooked hand if using an external mouse. Another vent is situated at the back.

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