HP Pavilion tx1000 Entertainment Notebook Evaluation

In 1975 the world was set on its ear with the introduction of home computing. The MITS home computer kit that was supposed to sell only a few units ended up being a sensation for hobbyists and is widely recognized as the catalyst for the PC frenzy that followed.  We were introduced to terms such as PC, and SOHO, We suddenly had ways of working from our homes; PCs were affordable, easy to use (relatively) and gave us a tool to perform tasks that previously were reserved for our offices or schools. But now the world has changed again, we have mobile offices and virtual work spaces. People do not just bring work home but to the local coffee shop, to the park, even to McDonalds. There is a need and a want for people to be able to be connected anywhere they go.

Product: HP Pavilion tx1000 Entertainment Notebook
Author: Sean Kalinich
Category: Notebook
Reviewed on: March 27, 2007
Product Cost: $1584.98
Manufacturer: HP
Spelling and Grammatical Editor: Planetx64 Staff

We want movies, work, games, etc at our fingertips. HP has been providing powerful and versatile portable computing solutions (a fancy way of saying notebook) to consumers and businesses alike for well over 20 years (with the introduction of the handheld HP-75C). This year they announced the release of the tx1000 Entertainment Notebook which follows HP’s tradition of giving you the most power and versatility available all in a package that does not require a few annoyingly large trucks to carry it around in.  The tx1000 combines the best features of a notebook, home entertainment system, workstation, and a tablet PC all in one 4 pound package.

HP and AMD have been kind enough to arrange for us to put one of these to the test. Can the tx1000 really provide a consumer with what they really want? Can it perform well enough to satisfy a Prosumer’s needs? How far will this system take you?
Today we will give you the chance to find out.

{mospagebreak title=Packaging}
The Box- Arrival Day:
it sat there on the door step like and unwanted thought.

When the tx1000 arrived I was rather giddy, I do not remember being this excited about a piece of review hardware since my very first product sample arrived in the mail.

I was amazed at the size of the box, after being used to receiving items in boxes much larger than needed. The tx1000 arrived in a box that was only a little bigger than some of the mainboards that I have been sent.

Inside this small package was nestled the tx1000 itself and all the toys that come with it. To be honest I was impressed with the quantity of “loot” that came in the box. HP has thrown in two batteries, a four cell and a six cell Li-ion (Lithium Ion), the four cell offers a great weight savings advantage while the six cell gives you great battery life. Also present in the box is a cover plate for the optical drive slot this is for when you want to lower the weight and/or increase the battery life. Although I personally cannot think of a time when I would not want an optical drive, I suppose there could be times when this would come in handy. The next item on the loot list is two pairs of ear-bud style headphones. This is a nice touch and goes rather well with the dual head phones ports on the front of the notebook. Other items included were the obvious software and adds that seem to come with any purchase you make these days,  a stylus (complete with leash) for use with the tablet functions, the power “brick” , and a small soft cloth to be used to remove the greasy finger prints from your friends after they are finished “admiring” your new tx1000.  Believe me this last item sounds silly but the first day I walked around with the tx1000 I did not bring it and I found that the shiny surface of both the screen and cover were covered in print marks from people that just wanted to “look” at it. I will talk more about people’s reactions in just a minute though.

{mospagebreak title=Appearance and Construction I} 

Appearance and Construction:
they were of a size and shape that, more or less, exactly failed to please the eye.

For our guided tour of the tx1000 we will assume you are viewing it as if you were working at the notebook.
HPs tx1000 is a compact sturdy notebook that also functions as a tablet PC.  When you first get a look at it closed what catches your eye is an impressive glossy black surface reminiscent of black lacquered wood. This impression is added to by a subtle wave pattern that covers the back of the screen. This pattern seems to disappear depending on the angle you are looking from and adds a visual texture to the top.  In actuality the top cover is made of a sturdy plastic and has the HP logo and the words “Pavilion Entertainment PC” in silver foil embedded beneath the surface near the latch for the screen.

Along the back side of the top cover is a silver strip that is also the back of the speakers and the pivot point for the single hinge. You will also notice that the bottom “half” of the tx1000 is larger than the top or screen.
Flipping the tx1000 around to look at the back you will see the battery slot is located here. If you use the four cell battery the back is a nice completed curve the same color and texture as the under carriage. If you use the six cell battery, the battery sticks out like an afterthought. This does take away from the visual quality of the tx1000 it does provide you with a much longer battery life and a decent grip if you are using it as a tablet in portrait mode.  Flipping the tx1000 over ( I will deal with the sides and the inside later) I found that HP had not only put some thought into the placement of internal components but had decided to let us all know what is where and what screws on the bottom do what. I have repaired laptops in the past and nothing is worse than trying to figure out what screws you need to remove to get the keyboard or other component off. HP has taken the guess work out and just labeled them.

As you can see from the image here HP has moved the CPU to the back right of the system (when right side up) the fan here blows out to the back and side and does a pretty good job of keeping the AMD Turion X2 cool. The HDD ends up being under your right hand and the DVD-RW under your left.  The memory compartment is located in the middle while the wireless card is located just to the left. Again everything is labeled for easy location and access.
Now that we have covered the top and bottom let’s move onto the sides. After that we will open the tx1000 up and see how the working end fairs.

Starting at the front (always a good place to start) we find a power switch on the left front; this switch is conveniently placed but not easy to use. It is a “slide” type switch. To turn the system on you push it to the right, well that would be nice except for the small issue of the switch being extremely stiff and difficult to move with a simple push of your finger. I found that on most occasions I had to “hook” it with my fingernail to get it to move. Next to this in the center of the front side are: the IR sensor for the remote, two headphones jacks, and a microphone jack. The addition of the extra headphones jack was welcome as it eliminates the need for splitter if you want to share what you are listening/ watching with another person. HP has also included two sets of ear-bud headphones to complete this setup. To the right of the audio inputs and outputs is another slider switch and an LED. This one controls the wireless devices, both the Wireless LAN and Bluetooth and is blue while the wireless devices are enabled and red when they are not. Unlike the power switch, the wireless control switch is very easy to manipulate and provides a very easy method for enabling or disabling the wireless on the tx1000.

{mospagebreak title=Appearance and Construction II}

Rotating the tx1000 clockwise a quarter turn we find an odd looking hole, this is actually for the passive stylus that comes with the tx1000 and is for use with the tablet screen.  Close to this is also a place to attach a leash so that the stylus does not get lost. This hole is just below a single USB 2.0 port.  Next to that is a 1.0 Gbps LAN port, this is an awkward position for this as it blocks the potential use of a mouse and also increases the footprint of the tx1000.I would have preferred the LAN port to be on the back but there was no room, barring being able to put the LAN on the back I would have liked to see it further back on the side. With the LAN port in the position it is in it also interferes with the use of other ports on this side. Speaking of other ports on the right side there is an expansion port. This single port actually multiplies into three additional ports with an optional accessory the HP xb3000 Notebook Expansion Base you can also use the HP Notebook QuickDock. To complete the right side there are two video output ports; a VGA and an S-Video port. 

The right rear corner, as mentioned before is occupied by the exhaust for the AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60. Giving the tx1000 another quarter turn we are now looking at the backside of the notebook. Right next to the CPU exhaust is the battery port (I talked about that earlier) this stretches almost the entire length of the backside of the tx1000, only leaving enough room for a single RJ-11 Modem port and two USB 2.0 Ports. These are right on the left rear corner, but are easy to reach from the front without the need to close the lid or turn the tx1000 around.

With another clockwise quarter turn we come to the left side and all of its charms.
Here we find the power port. This port lights up blue when connected to power. The left side also offers us a combination media reader that is capable of reading SD, MS/Pro, MMC and XD media cards. Below this is an Express Card 34 PC card slot.  This is a 34MM PC card slot that can run using a PCIe 1x lane or USB 2.0 depending on the application and card used. This slot also happens to be perfectly sized to hold the IR remote that HP includes with the tx1000. At the time of writing HP did not have any accessories that worked with this form factor but we were informed that there would be products available later this year. A quick search on the internet showed that there are Express Card 34 devices available today but most are just port expansion (More USB 2.0, compact flash card readers, 1394b, e-SATA etc and a few Wireless WAN cards).  I am sure the TV cards, sound cards and other devices will be out very quickly. Taking up the rest of the left side is the 8x Dual Layer DVD-RW/ DVD-RAM complete with LightScribe. Having this much functionality in the optical drive is a nice touch. I did have one complaint, the eject button on the optical drive is very difficult to work. Although it is easily located and seems like it is easily pressed, the button does not always respond each time I went to change or put in a DVD or CD ROM I had to press rather firmly to get the tray to open. I asked one of my kids to give it a try and they were not able to get it open ether. This issue did seem to lessen after some usage but did not go completely away.

Another quick quarter turn clockwise brings us back to the front, now we are ready to open the tx1000 and see if it can continue to impress when in the working position.  
The screen is held in place by a series of latches and clips. Two of these clips provide stabilization for the rotating screen and are located on either side of the keyboard. The latches that keep the screen closed are located in the front on either side of the mouse buttons. These latches normally are kept below the surface of the palm rest by springs, yet when the screen comes in contact with the palm rest magnets in the screen draw the latches up into the screen securing it in place. Pushing the release button moves the magnets out of range allowing the springs to pull the latches back down into their housings.
After pushing the large and easy to use release button for the screen the first thing that you will find is that the central hinge is very stiff. This makes lifting the screen into position one handed almost impossible. Even after working with the tx1000 for 30 days the center hinge was still nice and stiff. This has its pros and cons; on the one hand a stiff hinge makes it difficult to open the screen, on the other the screen will stay in the position you put it in without fear of it moving.
Although I am sure that after time this hinge will loosen up I think that you would have to work with it for a very long time before it became too loose.

{mospagebreak title=Appearance and Construction III}
After opening the tx1000, viewing the business end shows us that the style that was present on the outside is still present within.

The same subliminal wave pattern is present in the glossy silver surface surrounding the keyboard. This surface is very smooth your fingers seem to just glide over it yet when your palms are resting on this surface it provides a firm and comfortable grip. Transitioning from this to the keyboard proper is a glossy black plastic bevel. This adds a distinct framing around the keyboard and lends to the already impressive visual impact. But even more than the framing or the wave pattern the one thing that will grab your eyes is the track pad. The track pad on the tx1000 is unlike any other I have seen. It seems to be a part of the palm rest and is only made obvious by the depression on each side, the two “mouse” buttons, and a pattern of small dimples in the surface. These dimples provide a visual and tactile reference for the track pad and the scroll bar. The combination of silky smooth surface and the dimples make one of the best track pads I have ever used. Another item that makes this track pad stand out from others is the physical separation of the track pad and the scroll pad. As you can see in the image below there is a small break in the pattern of dimples this allows for a tactile reference point between the track pad and the scroll pad making it easier to use. I actually found myself using this surface. Normally I would have plugged in my handy USB mouse but with this surface I found I did not have any desire to use the more traditional mouse. Above the track pad, in the black bevel around the keyboard, is a small button and a blue LED resembling a track pad. This can be used to disable the track pad if you do choose to use a traditional mouse and the blue LED will switch to red when the track pad is disabled.

In the lower right corner of the palm rest are four small stickers. These show off some of the more prominent features of the tx1000.
Moving to the upper left corner of the palm rest are three silver press buttons each with a blue LED in them. From left to right they are volume down, mute and volume up. The mute button also lights up red when the sound is muted.
Now let’s talk about the keyboard, HP has provided a keyboard on the tx1000 that is very pleasant to use. The keys have a slight texture to them that helps your fingers “stick” to the keys and makes typing a little easier. But there were some issues with the keyboard, with the small size of the tx1000; HP could not give a full sized keyboard. Granted while most of the keys are full sized there are many that are smaller than normal and can cause some frustration if you are used to the larger keys.
Of these keys the small right shift button was the one that gave me the most grief. Every time I went to punctuate a sentence with a “?” I would end up with “/.” . Of course as I got used to the layout this happened less and less but it still took some getting used to. Other smaller than normal keys are all of the function keys and the esc, page up and down, home, end, insert and delete. These occupy the top most row of keys on the keyboard while their small size would not be a problem the secondary function labels are small and can be difficult to read (especially in low light). A nice addition to the keyboard is little Blue LEDs in the black bevel to the left of the Caps Lock and above the Number Lock keys.
Directly opposite the track pad, at the back of the tx1000, is the dual direction hinge. This hinge allows the screen to rotate in two directions. The obvious one is opening and closing, but you can also rotate the screen clockwise to turn the entire screen around. This is a handy feature when watching a movie or TV from a TV tuner or if you simply want to share information without spinning the entire notebook around.  You can also rotate the screen around and fold it back down into the flat or closed position and watch a movie or for tablet use.
On either side of the hinge are the Altec Lansing speakers. These provide you with clear, if somewhat “tinny” sound.  These two speakers resemble the heads of an electric razor yet do not detract from the stylish design.

{mospagebreak title=Appearance and Construction IV}

The next item on our tour is the screen itself, this 12.1”, 1280×800 pixel HD ready screen is also a fairly good touch screen.  Most of the tablet/ touch screens I have worked with have been dull and not sharp. HP’s is anything but dull, they have covered the screen with a coating that resembles the same type of clear coating that you would normally expect on a regular LCD display yet is pliable and allows the screen to register input from the stylus or your finger. This coating provides a glass like appearance and offers excellent viewing quality. Surrounding this screen is another glossy black bevel between the screen and a silver outer trim. Now the bevel around the display is not merely cosmetic, HP has thrown in some nice hot keys. These hot keys are all clustered in the lower right corner. From left to right these buttons are;

Screen Rotation, this handy little button allows you to rotate the screen to suit your needs.
Mobile Configuration, this button opens up the Vista Windows Mobility Center.
Moving up the right hand side of the screen is a media/ audio repeat button, above that is the DVD auto launch button. Located on the silver trim near these two buttons are the labels for the DVD/CD controls. These buttons are actually integrates into the top cover but are easily accessed from the front of the screen. The only time these controls are not accessible is when the screen is folded down in tablet mode.
Now moving back to the left and keeping on the lower edge of the screen are the function LEDs.
These show power, charging and HDD access.
Moving a little more than halfway up the left edge of the screen we find a small fingerprint reader.
HPs fingerprint reader is provided by Authen Tec Inc, and is an AES1610, but the hardware is only one half of the system. The software component for this is provided by Verisoft and is capable of mapping different user names and passwords to the same finger print for easy access.
At the top of the screen HP has placed a 1.3 MegaPixel Webcam. This camera runs off of the USB 2.0 bus and is very good quality. On either side of the Webacm is a small Microphone. The combination of these two provide for very clean and full voice reception. Unfortunately HP has not provided a method to turn the webcam off, this would have been a nice touch and can help protect you from potential attack.

Now something you may have noticed about the tx1000 is that there are no sharp edges. This theme follows throughout the tx1000. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, there is the styling; rounded edges and corners do make for a nice stylish system. Second, there is the durability factor; here rounded corners and edges can absorb more stress and do not crack as easily as sharp corners.

In all I found the tx1000 to be a well laid out notebook, everything that you would need to operate the tx1000 is in easy reach and easily identifiable.
 
{mospagebreak title=Perceptions and Comments}
Perceptions and Comments:
Most of the products that I review are never physically viewed by other people. Instead they are observed through photographs. Even with my Case evaluations where I ask people about the aesthetics of the product I usually only put together a series of images to represent the product.
With the tx1000 people were able to see the product and physically interact with it.
This interaction provoked a number of comments and a number of greasy finger prints for me to clean off.
Here are some of my favorite:
“Oh my God, it is so cute!”
“Now that is a cool laptop” (This was said by some one that owned a larger HP)
“I want one! How much are they?”
“Do they come in pink?” (Said by my daughter)
“It’s got a touch screen and everything, can I have it” (Thank my son for this one)
“I have never seen a touch pad like that. Where can I get one?”
“That’s an HP?  I know what I am asking for for Mother’s Day”
As you can see the general consensus is that the tx1000 is a visually impressive piece of hardware.
Is this beauty only skin deep?  That is what we find out in the next section.

{mospagebreak title=Performance}
For performance testing I wanted to test the tx1000 as it shipped from HP, then with Vista x64 Ultimate. In the end I opted for testing in Vista Ultimate x86 and x64. for each OS I ran the tx1000 as a full production unit, brining this with me to work, using it at home and even carrying it with me on camping trips and photography jobs. The specifications of the tx1000 and the software installed on each version are listed below:

 

{mospagebreak title=As Shipped}
As Shipped:
The tx1000 ships from HP with Vista Home Premium (32Bit) this is a nice OS for most people’s use. However, since I use my laptop for work and would need to connect into a normal business network (Client/ Server) I would not have kept the tx1000 with this OS. The tx1000 ships with a fair amount of shovelware. I was simply appalled at the number of useless applications that were installed at the “factory” you could spend hours uninstalling all of the crap that you would not need for a working (and stable) installation. You would actually be better off simply formatting and reloading the OS only from the restore partition. Thankfully if you do decide to start all over to get a clean install HP does offer drivers for every bit of hardware on the tx1000 on their website.
Originally I was going to work with the tx1000 as installed but since I would be comparing this to Vista x64 Ultimate I decided to nuke the installation and start from scratch with fresh installs of Both Vista Ultimate x86 and x64.

{mospagebreak title=General Use}
General Use:
This product not intended for use with the other use

For general office use I found the tx1000 to be perfectly suited. The AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60 had more than enough power to handle every business application I threw at it. Much of what I do on any computer system revolves around office applications and photography.  So for my general use I need a computer system capable of allowing me to have multiple Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Outlook, and even PowerPoint running at the same time. Throw into this mix the fact that I only shoot in Raw mode on my Canon Digital Rebel XTi. This means that I am working with image files that are an average of  8MB and up some as large as 15MB. So I need a system that is capable of manipulating these images for color correction, exposure, etc. I use Adobe’s Photoshop CS2 for and Canon’s Zoom Browser X for this image manipulation.
Now this is only part of what I do.  I am also an IT professional and often have multiple VPNs (Virtual Private Network), and RDC (Remote Desktop Connection) sessions open while I am working throughout the day. For my time with the tx1000 I wanted to work with it in a full production environment and subject it to what for me would be normal work as well as to explore the tx1000’s stated function as an entertainment notebook.
I will be testing the tx1000’s ability to deal with this punishment in both Vista Ultimate x86 and x64.

Now since this is a very subjective test I also wanted to run a standard synthetic test to give numbers to this subjective testing. For this test I used FutureMark’s PCMark05.

Vista x86:
PCMark 05:
Although I know PCMark is nothing more than a synthetic series of tests it can give a good indication as to how well a given set of hardware operates. The tx1000 did not do too badly, I was expecting a little more from it though. As you can see from the screen shots here the tx1000 that I tested did not do terribly bad but it also did not score amazingly high. Much of this is due to the speed of the hard drive and the lack of power the 6150 GPU possesses. In all the score indicates that the tx1000 is great for business and 2D application work (Photoshop etc) but that 3D and non-business graphics performance is not going to be something to write home about (unless it is to complain).

But not to worry, if you do need a little more power you can use Vista’s ReadyBoost.  I found that ReadyBoost gave a nice little kick to the system. With a 1GB flash drive formatted with 16KB sectors (this setting showed the greatest performance increase) I gained almost 200 points on the PCMark score. With a 2GB flash drive formatted with 32KB sectors (again the fastest settings) I gained another 200 points. Not too bad if you think about it.

PCMark05 No ReadyBoost	PcMark05 1GB ReadyBoost	PcMark05 2GB ReadyBoost

On a more real-world basis the tx1000 provided me with a quick and responsive platform to work on. As mentioned above with the work I do (Evaluations and my normal “Day” job.) I tend to have multiple applications open. While under Vista x86 Ultimate I found the tx1000 quick and responsive. I was able to have multiple Word documents open, Multiple Excel spreadsheets and multiple RAW images. This was usually in combination with other applications such as Internet Explorer, Outlook, Skype, MSN Messenger and Firefox. While working I saw no slowdowns or other performance loss in any of my working applications. I was even able to have multiple windowed Remote DeskTop sessions running and not loose performance with my local applications. With the 2GB drive running ready boost it seemed like I could not give the tx1000 enough to do. All of my applications seemed to run like they were the only thing running.

Vista x64:
For those of you ready to take the next leap in computing technology I did not leave you out of my review. I installed Vista Ultimate x64 and ran it through the same paces as I did Vista x86.
To begin with let’s start with drivers. In most cases the reason people do not want to make the switch to 64-Bit is a very simple one, Support. I can tell you from personal experience there is nothing like having a perfectly working (not to mention extremely fast) installation of a 64-Bit OS only to find that few (if any) manufacturers choose to support it. I am not exactly sure why this is still happening even though Bill Gates and the MS Empire (insert Darth Vader theme music here) have stated that 64-bit is going to be the standard in 5 years. There are also multiple working 64-bit operating systems readily available, yet still many manufacturers seem to think 64-bit is a passing fad. Thankfully HP is not one of them (at least not with respect to the tx1000, printer drivers are another matter) Hp has available dual function drivers for every piece of hardware on the tx1000 except for the webcam. The webcam was not a problem though as Vista had a built in driver for that. I was able to everything working in Vista x64, even the fingerprint recognition device and software worked without issue in Vista x64.
For applications the only issue I had was with Acrobat 8. For some reason under Vista x64 Acrobat is not able to install the PDF Printer properly. This was not any fault of the tx1000 though and the only reason I mention it here is to note that the tx1000 had enough horse power to allow me to install VMWare 6  and run XP Pro (32 bit) as a guest OS for my PDF printing. In x64 I again made use of my 2GB ReadyBoost drive but even without ReadyBoost Vista x64 seemed quicker and more responsive than Vista x86. With ReadyBoost there was no comparison (except as mentioned below). I would not want to switch back to Vista x86.

So how did the tx1000 fair with in PCMark05?
Well here are the results:

PCMark05 No ReadyBoost	PCMark05 1GB ReadyBoost	PCMark05 2GB ReadyBoost

Something odd happened here although I saw excellent performance and the system was very quick and responsive you would not know that from the PCMark05 scores, this is a good reason not to rely on synthetic tests alone to measure performance. In Vista x86 I saw a good performance increase from ReadyBoost, this went along with fairly decent scores in PCMark05. In Vista x64 those scores were significantly lower than their x86 counter parts. Also ReadyBoost did not provide the same level of performance increase as was evidenced in Vista x86. I am not completely sure of the reason for this but I suspect it is driver related. nVidia’s drivers for Vista x64 have been lacking in general but their Video drivers are simply abysmal. I will hold out hoping that the drivers will improve and bring the x64 performance up to where it should be.

 

{mospagebreak title=MultiMedia}
Multi-Media Performance:
The tx1000 is billed as an entertainment notebook, with that in mind I wanted to run it through the gamut of video formats that were available to me. While at the present time there is not a TV tuner option available from HP there is nothing stopping you from picking up a USB Tuner (even an HD tuner) and using this as a potable HTPC. For my testing I tested the tx1000 as it was sent to me with the exception of using Vista Ultimate instead of the Vista Home Premium that was preinstalled. The video formats I used for testing were, DivX, Xvid, Mpeg, Avi, WMV (Normal and HD) and of course standard DVD movies. For Audio I used MP3s, WMA, and CD audio. Another little multi-media hoop I put the tx1000 through was working with the new Internet TV application Joost. I was lucky enough to get on the BETA team for this application and while I cannot tell you too much about the way it works. I can tell you how well the tx1000 handled running Joost on its own and while running other applications.

Vista x86: Multimedia work is where the tx1000 shines, after I installed my favorite Codec pack (KLite Codec pack 2.85) I was able to play just about any format I wanted. I found myself leaving a movie or video file open in a Media Center window while I was working on other projects. In fact as I wrote this I was watching the movie “Man on Fire” on DVD in a small window beneath Word while watching the Indy channel on Joost Beta. Although this reduced the screen available for my writing, I found that it did not impact on the overall system performance. Even with multiple applications running (including Joost Beta).

As you can see from the screen shot above not only did I have both applications open and running but I also have a rather full sidebar. These are my usual gadgets that I have running when I am working.  I usually do this since my office is away from the main areas where we have TVs (or rather media centers). Now this feat might not seem like much to many desktop users but you have to remember that many notebooks do not have SATA drives and do not have 7200 or 10,000 RPM HDDs. Notebooks also usually have a system bus speed slower than your average desktop. This can cause the system to stutter and bog down when there is heavy HDD access, such as when you are watching an Xvid, DivX, or streaming movie.  If the tx1000 had a built in SD (or even better HD) TV tuner and an HD or BluRay DVD RW drive it would be the perfect entertainment notebook.
The screen quality is superb (thanks in no small part to the 6150s use of pure video technology).  Even in full screen mode the video quality was not diminished. Sound quality was actually quite good. I expected to have to deal with tiny and weak sound but this was not the case. The combination of the RealTek HD audio and the Altec Lansing speaker system delivered surprisingly full sound. Many notebooks do not have the dynamic range to give you clean sound across the high and low volume levels in an average movie but the tx1000 was up to the task.
I was able to hear voices quite clearly in every movie or video clip I watched.
The same can be said for MP3 audio, although here I did run into the tx1000’s lack of any real low-end sound range.  Some audio did not have the same punch as it should. Still, even without the bass the sound was crisp and clean.

Vista X64:
If the tx1000’s multimedia performance gained anything from running under Vista x64 I was not able to directly measure it. As with general usage, multimedia operations were quick and responsive. I noticed no stuttering at all. Sound was impressive considering the small speakers. One thing I did note that fall indirectly under multimedia performance was that CD and DVD burning was considerably faster in Vista x64. I used the same application, Roxio Easy Media Creator 9, for both systems. In Vista x86 my average burn times for a 4.3GB DVD were around 30-40 minutes with a disk to disk and 20-30 minutes from either and Image or Raw data from the drive. In Vista x64 those times dropped to 22-24 and 10-12 respectively.

{mospagebreak title=Tablet Functions}
Tablet:
Vista x86:
I have used touch screens before and found them to be a little awkward to use and not very precise.
When I first approached the tx1000 tablet features it was with a little trepidation, this was even reinforced by the first few times that I used it. I could not seem to get it to work properly. My letters did not complete, the handwriting recognition software did not seem to be working. But thinking that there had to be more to this, I quickly went through the tablet features in Vista and found the PC Tablet settings, here  I found the calibration button right on the general tab. One other item I found out was that calibrating for one orientation does not mean the tablet is calibrated for all orientations. If you are considering using the tx1000 in tablet mode I highly recommend going here first and calibrating the tablet to the orientation you will be using the most often. After orienting the tablet to the secondary portrait orientation, I looked through the rest of the settings and stumbled across the handwriting recognition tab. Here I found that handwriting recognition was turned off (this is the reason it was not working). Now with the tablet calibrated and handwriting recognition turned on I went back at the tablet functions including something called Flicks. Flicks are small movements of the stylus that are recognized by the system as certain functions.  As you can see from the image you can set your flicks to be either navigational or navigational and editing. I left the default flicks on I found them difficult to use at first but I quickly found them invaluable when working in tablet mode. Now something that I know will be on your mind is will the tablet work with applications like Photoshop. Well the answer is… yes. And here is where the flicks come in handy. Since many of the tools in Photoshop require you to sample with the “ctrl” or “alt” key, to get around this (since the keyboard is under the screen in tablet mode) I set up the forward and back flicks to toggle ctrl and alt respectively. So with a simple flick of the stylus I could sample if needed. In the screen shot below you will see the configuration I used for Photoshop. The really nice thing about the Flicks settings is that you can easily change them to suit your needs and style.  I have to say that the tablet mode in Vista x86 exceeded my expectations.

Vista x64:
Tablet functionality was just as precise in Vista x64 as it was in Vista x86. I really cannot add much more to this section. The tablet simply worked and worked well. The handwriting learning and recognition API was significantly better at picking up my style of handwriting. I found myself playing around with the tablet more in Vista x64 than I did in Vista x86 just for this reason.

For screenshots of the tablet functions setup go here.

{mospagebreak title=Photo Processing}
Photo Processing:
As I have mentioned above I am also a photographer , a couple of years ago I finally made the jump from film (I still miss film) to digital. This leap of faith was only after Canon released a 10+ MegaPixel camera.
Although I would prefer to shoot with the 1Ds Mark II I settled for the Digital Rebel XTi (the D400 in Europe) this camera is capable of creating the equivalent of a digital negative. This is in the form of a RAW image file. The RAW image file contains all of the image information captured by the CMOS sensor at the time the picture was taken. In other words regardless of the color space, white balance and even exposure you can adjust the RAW image just like you would a film negative. The down side of this is the actual file size as each RAW file can be up to 15MB. Another down side to shooting in RAW mode is that fact that they are only viewable by Canon’s Zoom Browser. This means for me to work on RAW images I have to have the Zoom Browser open at the same time I am running Photoshop. Of course Photoshop is capable of opening RAW images but it cannot preview the files at all. So at a minimum I have Canon’s Zoom Browser and Adobe’s Photoshop open while I am working on images. For testing I shot a few RAW image files and timed how long it took to open, convert and run filters on each. These times are shown below. I also noted the performance impact while running additional applications while working on the RAW images.

Vista x86:
Photoshop CS2 under Vista x86 operates in the same way that it would under XP. RAW images opened up rater quickly and even batch conversion of RAW images was speedy. To provide a real world test I used the images I shot for this evaluation and converted them from RAW to Jpeg using a batch conversion action I setup in Photoshop. The time for converting the 47 files from RAW to Jpeg was:

No ReadyBoost  5 minutes and 14 seconds
1GB 16k Readyboost 5 minutes and 10 seconds
2GB 32k ReadyBoost  5 minutes and 5 seconds

So for Photoshop Readyboost is not going to give you that much of a performance gain. Adding to the Photoshop functionality are the tablet functions. This allows you to directly edit the image using the stylus. As any Photoshop user knows it is quite a feat to edit an image using a mouse. It takes a very steady hand to use the mouse alone for editing, and to purchase a quality tablet from someone like Wacom can cost you a sizable amount of money.

Vista x64:
Photoshop CS2 supposedly has optimizations for x64. What this means is that it is capable of making use of the larger 64 bit memory addressing, but it is not a true or native 64 bit application. The benefit comes from being able to manipulate larger images than under a 32 bit operating system. I found Photoshop to be marginally faster under Vista x64 while working directly in the application. There was no real way to measure this as I have found a standard filter test does not truly give an accurate depiction of system performance. I did measure the time it took to convert the same 47 raw files using the batch file I used in Vista x86. I used the same three setups:

No ReadyBoost:  4 Minutes 55 Seconds
1GB 16KB ReadyBoost: 4 Minutes 47 Seconds
2GB 32KB ReadyBoost: 5 Minutes 03 Seconds

Just on a whim I tried the 2GB drive with a 16k allocation unit size to see if would show better performance than at 32k.
The time improved slightly but still did not perform better than the 1GB 16k drive.
This is in opposition to the performance we observed in Vista x86, and verifies the performance we saw in PCMark05 where the 1GB drive also did better than the 2GB drive.

Here we see a direct benefit of the 64 bit version of Vista. Even the slowest conversion time outperformed the best Raw image conversion times in Vista x86. As mentioned above image manipulation was also much faster. A strange added benefit in Vista x64 that was not present in Vista x86 was that the pen seemed to be more precise. I was able to make very small and exact edits to images that were not possible in Vista x86.

{mospagebreak title=Portability}
Portability:
Well if you ever want to know just how portable a notebook is I suggest you take it camping with you.
I recently booked a lot at Lake Louisa in Florida for some natural photography work. Normally I would lug around my 17” Dell boat anchor and come back with a sore back and shoulders. My camera and other gear is heavy enough but that 17” Dell would make it even worse. This time I decided to bring the tx1000. What a difference! The tx1000 not only lightened my gear but also was easier to work within the close quarters of my pop-up camper. I was also able to use it to watch movies at night without keeping anyone else awake. I simply turned the screen, laid it flat in tablet mode and I had a 12.1” movie screen in my lap (although there were some issues with it actually being in my lap). I used the remote to work the DVD player controls and I was happy. The tx1000 was also more than powerful enough to let me manipulate the 10.1 Megapixel images that I shoot.

Another testament to the portability and power of the tx1000 has been its use in my day to day work.
My “day job” is working for an IT outsourcing company in central Florida. My normal work day consists of high level server and workstation support. In many cases I need to bring a notebook in to work with.
Normally as with my photography work I would bring my 17” Dell for this work. For the length of my time with the tx1000 (60 days) I chose to bring the tx1000 with me and use it in my normal production work.
The compact size of the tx1000 made it much easier to use and required less space to setup.  The battery life of the six cell battery meant that I could operate without the need for a handy power outlet.
This is something that my regular 17” notebook is not well suited to. I will discuss battery life in detail later in this evaluation. I was able to work the tx1000 into just about any environment. The swivel screen allowed me to show my presentations and other information easily to potential clients and clients that we give quarterly IT reviews to. The tablet function allowed me to quickly diagram information about network layouts and other information when several clients decided to move into new offices.

As with my camping trip the weight of the tx1000 made it much easier to carry with me from appointment to appointment.  The tx1000 would be perfectly suited to any portable office or classroom environment. Additionally, once HP begins offering a WWAN option the tx1000 will be exceptionally suited to these chores.
HP has informed me that this option should be available around midyear this year (2007).

Now I know that all of this sounds wonderful, but there were a few dark clouds in the otherwise sunny skies.
One issue with running on battery was that the screen dims periodically, now I know you are thinking that this is not something that is bad in itself and you can turn the brightness up. It is still annoying to have it turn down the screen brightness. When the screen does begin to dim it makes it difficult to work on certain tasks; tasks such as working with any type of graphics (yes that includes photo finishing work) writing (this evaluation) are some of the few that are impacted by this.
Another issue that I ran into was heat; the AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60, while very powerful and capable of performing some heavy computing tasks also generates heat in kind with its performance. I found that keeping the tx1000 in my lap for a long period of time was not an option. This was even more apparent when I had the screen in tablet mode.

{mospagebreak title=Battery Life}
Battery Life:
The Battery life of the tx1000 is going to be different depending on what applications you are running, the actual battery you are using (6 or 4 Cell), what hardware you have active, and the power plan you choose. For my battery tests I ran Word 07, Outlook 07, Joost, MSN Messenger, Skype, and of course all of my normal gadgets in the sidebar. I also had Readyboost running as I would use this if I were working (to add a little more horsepower to the applications I like to run). Wireless and Bluetooth were both enabled and I did not allow the display to dim or to turn off for the length of the battery. The power plan was set to balanced. I timed the batter from the moment the plug came out to the time the system force me into stand-by.
               Vista x86:
Running the applications listed above the tx1000 had the following battery life times.
6-Cell- 1 Hour and 46 Minutes
4-Cell- 1 Hour and 1 Minute
Running Battery Eater Pro Version 2.70 the tx1000 had the following battery life times.
6-Cell- 1 Hour 51 Minutes
4-Cell- 1 Hour 20 Minutes

                Vista x64:
Running the applications listed above the tx1000 had the following battery life times.
6-Cell- 1 Hour 44 Minutes
4-Cell- 1 Hour
Running Battery Eater Pro Version 2.70 the tx1000 had the following battery life times.
6-Cell – 1 Hour 50 Minutes
4-Cell – 1 Hour 18 Minutes

{mospagebreak title=Gaming Performance}
Gaming:
For my gaming testing I ran 3DMark 06 as a static test and three popular game titles. One first person shooter (F.E.A.R.) one third person perspective game (Need for Speed Carbon) and one real time strategy game (Company of Heroes). With these games I felt I would get a very good idea of how well the tx1000 performs as a gaming platform. Now bear in mind that the tx1000 is not advertised as a gaming notebook but as an entertainment notebook. I still wanted to cover gaming to give you a complete picture of the tx1000’s abilities. All frame rates were captured using FRAPS 2.8.2.

Vista x86:
F.E.A.R:
As anyone knows that has played this game F.E.A.R. is not a game for the low of memory or the weak of GPU. It places you in the role of a soldier/ agent for F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon) you are looking for former general with psychic powers that has mysteriously escaped from his cell. These powers allow him to command an army of replicant soldiers (the enemies you face).As you search for this general you encounter many enemies with some rather impressive AI. Particle and lighting effect abound in this title by Monolith. Monolith is known for its creepy atmosphere, immersive story lines and impressive gameplay.  Knowing all this and the fact that the tx1000 only has an nVidia 6150 with UMA (unified memory architecture a fancy way of saying shared memory).  
I have included screen shots of the settings I used for this test but I will list the resolutions and their corresponding frame rates.

1024×768	Minimum	Maximum	Average
Vista x86	0	81	19.3
Vista x64	0	70	14.2

800×600	Minimum	Maximum	Average
Vista x86	0	51	25.696
Vista x64	0	61	19.1

As you can see from the chart and screen shots above the tx1000 did not perform too well under the stress of F.E.A.R. even at lower resolutions. This is due to the limited power offered by the 6150 GPU and the shared memory.

Need for Speed Carbon:
Another popular and system intensive title, Need for Speed places you as a street racer just getting back from a prison term and looking to reclaim your former glory, at the same time you are looking to figure out who set you up. This ridiculous plot line is helped out by some impressive graphics great racing and decent yet impossible physics.  As with F.E.A.R. I have included screen shots of the settings but will list the frame rates for each of the available resolutions in the results.

1024×768	Minimum	Maximum	Average
Vista x86	4	14	10.595
Vista x64	5	12	8.774

800×600	Minimum	Maximum	Average
Vista x86	7	18	12.942
Vista x64	3	16	7.441

Our Need for Speed results are even more abysmal than the F.E.A.R. results. Again we are confronted with the limitations of the 6150 GPU.

Company of Heroes:
Company of Heroes is a real time strategy game that adds in great graphics and historical story line. Set in World War II you start on the beaches of Normandy and move through select portions of the European Campaign. Company of Heroes is similar in play to games like StarCraft, and WarCarft in that you have to build your forces and protect them from your opponent. (This time the Axis powers) while working toward completing the mission that is before you.

1024×768	Minimum	Maximum	Average
Vista x86	4	23	8.242
Vista x64	2	19	6.101

800×600	Minimum	Maximum	Average
Vista x86	6	25	12.112
Vista x64	4	20	9.003

Company of Heroes fairs no better than the two other game titles we tested.

Gaming conclusions for x86: If gaming is your thing and you are looking for a notebook that can deliver fast frame rates at high resolutions then the tx1000 is not for you. The sad fact is that while the 6150 is a great GPU for 2D imaging and for standard video it simply does not have the horsepower to pull off any serious 3D gaming. Rolled into this lack of power is the bottleneck inherent in any shared memory setup.
Although this technology has gotten better as RAM speeds have increased and the shear amount of RAM available to a system has increased it is still not a replacement for dedicated memory when it comes to GPUs and 3D performance.

Vista x64:
Gaming in Vista x64 was not any better than in x86. All of the games used for testing were playable but just barely so. This is again due to the lack of 3D GPU power and the shortcomings of the sahred video memory.

{mospagebreak title=Price and Warranty}
Price\Warranty and Support:
The tx1000, while one of the smaller notebooks out, does not have small price tag. The model that was loaned to me by HP rings up at around $1600 that price gives it a rough per pound price of $400. This is not too bad when you consider what you actually get. The $1600 price tag is also comparable to other tablet PCs on the market.

HPs warranty provides for not only part replacement but also for online and phone technical support.
The support is on par with other large system builders and would provide and is more than adequate to help even intermediate users. This would not be much of a benefit (other than for arranging replacement services) to advanced users or enthusiasts but it is nice to have if you need it.

{mospagebreak title=Conclusions} General Conclusions and Delusions:
HP and AMD afforded me 60 days to pound on the tx1000, this gave me the chance to see how it would really perform under real world usage in Vista x86, Vista x64 and of course as it would be shipped out from HP. For the most part I was pleasantly surprised by the quality, speed and the portability the tx1000. There were a few things that I wished HP had done differently (such as adding Wireless Wan, an HD or BluRay drive, more powerful GPU) but on the whole I feel that HP delivered exactly what they promise in the tx1000, a small ultra-portable entertainment notebook.  The tablet features are a bonus and add to the value of the tx1000, they also add the additional capacity to use the tx1000 for normal business work as well as photofinishing.  The small size and weight of the tx1000 made it perfect for carrying around during my workday and when I head out on camping trips or downtown for my photography. The warranty and support provided by HP was more than acceptable and with the quality I saw in the tx1000 I reviewed would not be needed except in extreme cases.  The typical package system shovelware was unfortunately present on the tx1000 just like every other system you would buy from a large manufacturer. This also throws a small wrench into the performance of the tx1000. If you know how and want to spend the time I would recommend a “ground up” install of the operating system that you want. This may present some issues if you need to contact support but you will get more performance out of the system and be free of some annoying applications that want to run every time you power on. But before you do this make sure you grab all of the drivers you need from HP’s website and store them some place safe. Another item worth mentioning is that you will need to provide your own DVD/CD burning software. I personally use Roxio Easy Media Creator but you can also use Nero or whatever your favorite flavor of software is. Make sure that your burning software has the lightscribe plug-in or head on over to lightscribe.com to grab it from there.

X86 Conclusions:
The HP tx1000 entertainment notebook running under Windows Vista x86 was everything it was advertised to be and more. Once I got past the shovelware that was part of the default installation I found the system to be very quick and responsive. For multimedia the only things lacking were deeper sound, an HD optical drive, and a TV tuner.  Covering general usage I found the tx1000 to have more than enough power to run all of my work applications. In terms of Photoshop work the tx1000 was a dream to use, the AMD Truion 64 X2 had enough horse power to allow me to manipulate 15MB RAW images and the tablet allowed me to perform precise edits to images. The DVD burner with lightscribe allowed me to quickly archive the images and to label them at the same time.
Gaming performance was, unfortunately, simply awful. I would not recommend using the tx1000 as a gaming platform. But as I have mentioned before the tx1000 is not advertised or sold as a gaming platform so HP is not trying to pull a fast one on you there.  In the end the tx1000 is a solid, highly portable and powerful platform for you to run 32-bit Windows Vista on. I can highly recommend it for business and 2d graphics work. Battery life was good considering the work I was doing. If you are using less graphics and or HDD intensive applications you should get an even longer battery life. For those of you that need a little extra kick for the work you are doing Vista’s ReadyBoost provided a decent performance increase when set up the right way. The tablet functions were also an extremely nice add in and only add to the versatility of the tx1000 as a business and entertainment platform.

 

X64 Conclusions:
As most of you who have been working with x64 know the biggest reason it is not in more widespread use is a simple matter of drivers. If the big manufacturers would get off of their collective behinds and develop drivers for x64 you would see a major shift in x64 usage. Thankfully HP has provided 64 bit drivers for every piece of hardware in the tx1000, well everything except the webcam. This was not an issue since the webcam had native support in Vista x64. Even the Verisoft’s access manager for the finger print reader was available and worked in x64. The same applications that I was able to run on the x86 version of Vista worked in the x64 version with the exception of Acrobat Professional 8. The issue with Acrobat is an Adobe failing and nothing to do with the tx1000. Multimedia under x64 was as good as it was under x86. There was a slightly different CODEC that needed to be installed but other than that there was no issue. For Photoshop Vista x64 beat the x86 installation hands down. Even the slowest RAW conversion time was faster than the fastest RAW conversion time in Vista x86. Gaming in Vista x64 was just as awful as in Vista x86. General usage was outstanding; although there was an issue running PCMark05 for some reason the scores did not reflect the actual performance that I was getting from everyday use. Battery life was also just as good in x64 as in x86 the tablet functions worked flawlessly as well. Again if you are looking for a notebook that works right out of the box as an x64 platform for business usage, entertainment, and 2D graphics use. The tx1000 should be at the top of a very short list.

Discuss this evaluation here

Acknowledgments:
I would like to thank Matt Peterson from Porter Novelli, Kevin Wentzel from HP, and Chris Aarons from (formerly from AMD) for allowing us the opportunity to review the tx1000.