Customer Reviews

HP Pavilion TX2110US 12.1-inch Laptop (AMD Turion 64 X 2 Dual Core TL-62 Processor, 3 GB RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive, DVD Drive, Vista Premium)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

DISCLAIMER:

Normally, I steer clear of HP's (and Compaq's) sub-par products with risible quality-control, as well as its outrageously-detestable practice of filling the hard drive with cloggware that forces the customer to spend the first hour clearing out unwanted garbage with a plunger in hand, and to add to the outrage, the cloggware RESIST uninstall attempts.

FEATURES:

With the said caveat in mind, this particular product is magnificent! Albeit, it is a bit heavy (the DVD player can be removed to make lighter) and a tad warm, but perfectly smooth running Vista Home Premium, Office 2007 Premium, Matlab 2007, Photoshop CS3 and Visual Studio 2008. Looks beautiful (though a fingerprint magnet), has all the bells and whistles needed on a portable / tablet, and is dirt cheap compared to all other convertibles in its class. The only con is that it is not using the faster/cooler Intel Core 2 Duo chip, preferably the T8300 (2.4GHz), but that would have increased the price by a few hundred bucks. The graphics controller is built-in, but works very well for attaching high-resolution 22"-30" monitors. Those who are looking for a great GPU for gaming should not be looking at a tablet/convertible anyway.

If you're wondering, a "convertible" is the same as a tablet PC, but has a built-in keyboard / glider pad.

The stylus functionality is good, though it does require some calibration and some getting used to, the media remote stows in in the unit, the built-in camera, mic and speakers are also very good. The mic with software boost is adequate for Skype or recording lectures, but not for voice-command. The glider pad is the best I've seen on a laptop (it is slightly offset/indented to avoid accidental touching, and has perforations to allow for better finger adhesion/control). The screen resolution is nice, crisp and bright, but the digitizer overlay makes it a tad grainy and certainly shiny--but you'll stop minding by the first week of use. The included 6-cell battery lasts me ~1.5 under medium-heavy use, but an 8-cell version is available now and possibly a 12-cell may be available in the future.

COMPARISON:

The tx2110us is preferred over other tx2000z models, particularly the HP tx2120usbecause: (1) Vista 64 has compatibility issues, and may overall be an overkill for the current Turion chips (hence, slowing things down); (2) there is no noticeable benefit in having the extra 1GB of Ram under normal use, especially in a laptop (Vista x32 will only recognize up to 3GB); (3) No noticeable benefit in an extra 0.1 GHz in speed, but the trade off is probably more heat output / shorter battery life; and (4) Cost!! This one is ~$120 cheaper, which can go towards a second battery, or a nice case and accessories.

The unit is available at AMAZON, which means free shipping, no additional sales tax, and you can actually have it in your hands in less than a week (and return it if you don't absolutely love it)!

Preferred over Gateway C-141/142XL: (1) Gateway is flimsy, and at this rate, may not be around in the near future due to terrible customer service and business practices, and non-existent support (I ordered the C-141XL mid April: first they delayed my order without informing me, then they canceled my order without informing me or ever explaining why after I called twice, being transferred 6 times, and spending approx. 2 hours with customer service/sales/parts(!) and dealing with RUDE and UNHELPFUL employees, and they would refuse to ship my order unless I went to my bank and wire-transferred funds into Gateway's account first!! I figure the reason Gateway canceled my order (and probably many others) was because it was selling the unit too cheaply ($200 off base price, plus $50 coupon), so it introduced the "new" 142XL as of May 1st, which is identical to 141XL in all respect, but costs $150-$200 more (no coupons/incentives when I last checked); (2) C-142XL does have a larger screen (though with a worse resolution than the HP), as well as the much faster Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz and a dedicated GPU, but it does not have the latest wireless adapter (802.11N), nor the very useful remote control that comes with the HP, and is much heavier, almost too large to be ultra portable, only has the active digitizer but no touch-screen capability, and costs $300-$400 more (add another $50 for shipping and $100-120 for tax), that's IF you ever get one... (see blogs for Gateway's massive delivery delays on this product).

OTHER REMARKS:

Preferred over all the other ones I researched: Lenovo (cheap-looking IBM legacy laptops with the red "zit" in the middle of the keyboard + made by a Chinese manufacture who insists on installing Vista, but only includes 1 GB of RAM = NOT a winner), Toshiba (generally nice products, but unnecessarily expensive), Dell (great products and wonderful customer service, but the current convertibles are not fast enough for my use and too expensive), Apple (does not make a convertible, yet), Panasonic (excellent products, surreal prices), Gateway (forget about it!), Sony ($$$), ASUS ($$$), etc.

This is a quick review of the TX2110US. I've had this for over a month now and I couldn't be more satisfied with this purchase. I'm glad to report that this computer "just works" -- everything was as advertised and it certainly doesn't have the "cheap" feel and subpar assembly quality of other computer manufacturers. The keyboard is ergonomically designed (full size keys with nice response), it doesn't get hot (the TL-62 runs cooler than other AMD processors), the finger print reader, bluetooth, wi-fi just works flawlessly. I can't even stress how cool the active tablet mode works -- my handwriting on the tablet looks exactly like what I have on paper... and windows journal recognizes it! Really cool!

I've also had a few pleasant surprises: A full version (with license and all) of Microsoft OneNote 2007 and Corel Painter Essentials 4 comes free with this computer. Another surprise was the screen quality; I was expecting it to be subpar because of the tablet feature, but it isn't. The text, graphics, and video quality is as crisp as any LCD at the same price range.

There are also a couple of negatives: the GeForce 6150 card is a couple of generations older (why was this not updated?), because of this most modern games will almost be unplayable. The viewing angle of the screen (while comparable or slightly better than an entry-level Macbook, Toshiba, or Dell), could use further improvement. The weight is also rather heavy for its 12" frame.

For the price, a great value oveall. The pros outweighs the cons by magnitudes. Highly recommended especially for casual, academic, and business use.

This is my first Tablet PC. I mainly bought this unit for that capability, but I was also purchasing it because it advertised itself as a completely loaded Vista experience, usable in everyday computing and more equipped than it's competitors.

I've been very pleased with the purchase. Not only does the unit have excellent versatility in tablet usage, but it is indeed loaded with small extras both in function and in software. It's comfortable to use as an everyday laptop, but capable of performing in tablet and touch mode in seconds.

Running Vista is no effort with the extreme amount of ram and sufficient processor. ReadyBoost is at hand to make the machine even quicker. While it is true it's not primarily a gaming machine, within the BIOS the video card is easily set to 128mb, which is not cutting edge but superior to any convertible tablets I was shopping for.

The laptop runs very hot. I find that it can become uncomfortable on the lap or in the arm in convertible mode, if you are not conscious of airflow. Luckily there is more than one vent, so I didn't fear for the innards.

Battery life is so-so. I prefer to use at least balanced setting in the power options, and I'm lucky to get 3 hours, 2 1/3 being far more likely. Again, HP offers a better battery which I will probably purchase for trips, etc.

Tablet and touch usage is fantastic, and frankly better than I thought it would be for such a hybrid. I love the option of interface here, and putting the laptop into different positions for writing, drawing, or watching media is great. The only difficulty for me was remembering that the touch is active when the pen is not near the screen. I've adjusted to this new (to me) feature.

The machine is loaded with software, some good, some bloat, as with most Windows machines. I'm a tweak-happy user, so no issue there. The licensed copy of OneNote was a great surprise. I'm also more of a fan than I thought I would be of HP's resources and the fingerprint reader utility.

I love having the USB ports, card reader, camera and DVDROM drive available on a good tablet (the DVD is removable for weight if you so desire.) Truly it's an everyday machine. The keyboard is quite sufficient, but I feel it pales in comparison to my Macbook. The display is fine, if a bit finicky about viewing angles. Still, like all the features on the machine I find it quite changeable on the software side. You can tweak the feeling of all tablet and display methods quite nicely.

So a solid machine that largely hits the target of jack of all trades that so many laptops miss. It would not be my first choice without tablet/touch capability, but the fact that it performs that function so measurably and accomplishes the others with few drawbacks makes it a great purchase. I'd highly recommend it to someone looking for a mid sized convertible tablet pc, with a bit of ooomph inside. If you want all the tools included, it makes the least sacrifice.

+
Very nice tablet / touchscreen usage.
Nice power and media options for convertible laptop.
Many features in hardware and software.
Very competitive pricing.
The design isn't horrid for portable pc ;)

-
Runs quite hot.
Viewing angles are suspect at times.
Typical Windows tweaking/bloatware issues.
64bit gives with one hand (ram) and takes with the other (driver compatiblity)

Recommended Purchase.

I'll start with the good part first --- Fingerprint reader makes it easier to login to windows, keys are tactile, screen is really bright and touch sensors have improved drastically over the previous model(the tx1000us which i've used before)..this one is touch sensitive. The good part is that it can tell that you're using a pen while your hand is still on the screen which gives a close to real experience in note taking. Browsing with fingers instead of the tablet was a great experience over the last model -- You don't have to dig you finger all the way in the screen like you would in tx1000. The pen that comes with it is really cool..use one end to take notes, flip it and voila..it can now erase.

On the negative side..there are about 70-80 processes running to support all the functionalities of the tablet (although it doesn't take up more than 40% of 4GB RAM..its stills bugs me big time)...next it heats up so much that the fan is continuously on..makes a whirr sound which may not go unnoticed if you're in a quite environment. Talking about heat..the charger heats up too...i think this product significantly contributes to global warming ;). The graphics card has only 64MB dedicated memory which is a big disappointment for hardcore gamers. And finally, it is NOT intel..would have made things cooler from inside.

If you go for this one..get a battery with higher capacity...i have 6 cell and it doesn't last more than 1.5-2 hours. It has lightscribe dvd burner on it..but i haven't used it by far. There is tiny media control remote which is fun to use for a day or so..but atleast for me..the remote just stays in the slot. In-built card reader, camera and mic are good to have even if i don't use them much. Speakers are nice.

Overall its a good notebook/tablet for "price over feature" factor. The only concern I have is the screen..if something happens to it i would end up paying a lot..so am going for the full protection which includes the replacement clause. That's brings it to $11?? + $2?? = $14?? with features that I am sure to use and peace of mind just in case something happens to my screen.

I have had this computer for a couple of weeks now and I am happy with it. It looks like there are some detailed reviews already so I will try to keep this one brief. The good: computer works well, the pen and touch screen are neat (it remains to be seen if I use the features all that much). The keyboard feels nice. The one tiny hinge for the screen actually feels pretty solid. We just set up skype and the camera and microphone appear to be just fine. I have not yet noticed any compatibility issues with Vista64, but I don't have a lot of extras installed.
The bad: The computer does stay pretty warm. I got a Belkin laptop cooler (Amazon, 20 bucks) and I think it helps. With the cooler the computer fan usually stays in the off or low mode. When the fan in the laptop goes to high speed it is pretty noticeable. It does seem like the fan doesn't run as much when I am holding the computer vertically in tablet mode with the exhaust at the top of the computer. Now here are a couple of nitpicky ones: Where my right hand rests on the computer for typing (right above the wireless switch), there is a creak in the case, this might just be my computer. The power switch on the front of the computer is an odd and cheap feeling slider, but not a big deal.

I got a screen protector from a company called strong engineering, it wasn't all that expensive and I don't have to worry about the screen. One of the reviewers mentioned that a full version of OneNote came with the computer, on my computer it appears to just be a trial version. Also, one of the reviewers said they think this computer with 3G RAM, Vista32, and the slightly slower processor might be better, if that is your preference check out Costco, they were selling that computer for a little less than this and it came with a bit longer warranty. Once the various taxes, fees, and rebates were figured in I elected to pay 50 bucks more for one more gig of ram and the slightly faster processor.
Overall I like this product and would recommend it. Good luck with your computer shopping!

Buyers Beware!

I bought this exact model in June of 2008 and for a short time everything ran beautifully.
After about 6 months I noticed my tablet started running hot and my wireless card was acting up.
I had been instructed by HP to update to the latest BIOS (More on that later), and reset my power
settings to HP "Balanced". For a short time these fixes seemed to work. At 1 year, just before my
warranty expired my wireless card went out and HP took my computer in for repair and replaced the
Mother Board! Now 7 months later I decided to get some temps on my GPU and CPU and at several points
my GPU temp is as high as 214c!

Now on to the BIOS. HP has known that these computers have a defective NVidia 6150Go Chip Set and run hot,
so rather than recalling, refunding, or replacing them they updated the BIOS so the FAN within the tablet
would stay on ALL THE TIME, prolonging the life of the Mother Board and thus getting people out of their
Warranty Periods. Neither Nvidia or HP have come clean about which "Chip Sets" were affected by the bad soldering
but NVidia has been sued by it's share holders because of the defective products and Apple and Sony both ran
their own investigations and did right by their customers! HP on the other has not. There are entire websites and
forums dedicated to HP customers trying to get their money back because of the scam HP is running (selling defective product then charging for repairs), and many people have started to take HP to small claims court and are winning.

As a side note I am currently dealing with HP regarding my TX2120US issues and I am pursuing a full refund because I will NEVER by HP again!

If you don't believe me just do a simple Google search for defective Nvidia 6150go HP and follow the trail that HP has known about these issues and refuses to recall these machines. I wonder if someone's house needs to burn down before HP gets the message?

I bought the HP tx 2120 us at Fry's in Phoenix in early June, 2008. When I got it home, I could go no further than turning it on because someone at the factory had swiped their finger across the reader and it would not recognize anything I did. If I lived closer to Phoenix, it would have gone back to the store that night. Instead, I spend hours on the phone with an Indian tech who was worse than worthless. Then I spent more time with an on-line chat tech who was equally as bad. These people had no idea what to do other than to send out some recovery discs. I told them to send the discs but they never came. I decided to run all the diagnostics I could find and eventually, I was able to get it to allow me to swipe my own finger and I was finally able to use it. The next issue was when I tried to connect to my HP Laserjet printer. Nothing I or a local tech did helped get the two connected. Finally, I tried the on-line chat again. This guy was at least as bad as the others; he kept sending me to a site that had no way to download anything. Again, on my own, I finally managed to download the drivers and get connected.
The machine itself is a good one. I hear others complain about it getting hot and the "crapware". This one does not get hot and the stuff I did not want was fairly easy to get rid of. I am certainly not a a computer geek, but aside from what I mention above, this is a good easy to use machine and I am getting to along with Vista just fine. The only reason I do not give it five stars is the support. There is none. If you want a good machine, this is it. Just be aware that you will be entirely on your own. HP apparently is not interested in anything resembling support for their products.

Got a TX2110US model, AMD Dual core X2 with 3 gigs of RAM and the 250 G HDD and boy am thoroughly disappointed with it or what? Should simply have stayed with an Intel based Dual Core. This system produces a lot of heat (will literally burn off your lap, if you hold it as a laptop!) and not to mention the fan noise; far from quiet by any means and only gets a Vista Performance score of 2.4 and you will easily notice how slow it runs when running even simple video editing or Photoshop editing.

Performance scores reported in Vista are below:

Processor calculations per second - 4.8
Memory operations per second - 4.6
Desktop Performance for Windows Aero - 2.8
3D Business and gaming Graphics - 2.4
Disk data transfer rate - 5.2

Vista seems to be worse than Windows ME with its intermittent "Auto restarts" and crashes, leaving one clueless most times. The HP Advisor program is the main culprit most times when it does leave a clue. The tablet drivers don't load up one or 2 out of 10 reboots.
(so much for using the tablet). The SD card reader quit in a month and had to mail the system for repairs. They had to replace the main board and ship back. After shipment arrived, there is a ding on the case! Now going through "Claims". HP customer service really sucks if you think Dell was bad! Do yourself a favor. don't fall a prey to its size and mobility. If you really need mobility, buy yourself a decent PDA. This can't stand upto the high demands of today's applications.

HP Pavilion TX2120US 12.1" Laptop (AMD Turion 64 X 2 Dual Core TL-64 Processor, 4 GB RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive, DVD Drive, Vista Premium)

First the negative.

1. Because the HP Pavillion TX2120US comes pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit operating system this has limited this hardwares ability to run some of the best Tablet PC software out there, such as Education Pak, Ink Desktop 2.0 etc... which are all Microsoft Products. I hope in the near future that Microsoft updates their software to run on their new 64 bit system.

2. Stylus: It's not that the stylus is super cheap but there are other stylus' out there that are definitely higher quality. ;)

3. Sound: Sound isn't horrible but it definitely doesn't deserve to get a "Great" rating either. Fact is anybody buying this tablet should know that the fingerpring reader, the screen, several buttons, the mic, the camera, and the sound all come from the screen which pivots on a very small joint. Which by the way is not cheap or flimsy.

4. DVD Eject Button: Now I understand that as a manufacturer you need to put the button in a place that if it accidentally gets bumped it won't pop open your drive but if you have big hands like I do than you might want to consider creating a DVD eject shortcut on your desktop like I did by downloading nircmd.dll. There are tutorials out there if you need help.

Now for the positives.

1. Screen: 5/5 Bright, clear, responsive to the touch and large enough to satisfy any user.

2. Battery: 4/5 I have read many places that the battery is only good for 3 to 3 1/2 hours of batter life but after I purchased mine and conditioned the battery (correctly) I was able to get between 4 and 4 1/2 hours of battery usage on "BALANCED" power setting.

3. Processor, RAM, and HD: 5/5 As far as a pc/notebook I don't think I could have asked for more in such a small machine. AMD Core Duo 2.20ghz / 4GB RAM / 250G HD... compare that to other machines in $1150 - $1400 dollar price range and you might find something with 160G HD and 2 maybe 3GB RAM. Not to mention the added bonus of having a touchscreen. ;)

4. Keyboard, and Ports: 5/5 I have read other reviews calling the keyboard "Cheap" or stating there aren't enough ports on the tablet but when you consider the size and portability of this machine it has more than enough to do the job. This machine has 3 USB, 5in1 Reader, 34mm Express Card, Expansion Port 3, Ethernet, Tele, S-video out, 2 headphone, and 1 mic slot. It also comes with a remote control that easily stows in 34mm express card slot.

5. FingerPrint Reader: 5/5 Before I purchased this machine I thought to myself what a waste this addition would be... WRONG. With the additionof the fingerprint reader it quickly and efficiently gives you access to your computer, files, email, banking, etc... and is easily programmable with their preloaded DigitalPersona software.

6. Loaded Software: 5/5 The reason I am giving this a 5/5 isn't because the software is so good it's because there isn't much "bloatware" at all. ;)

Final Thoughts:

This is an excellent machine for the price and I had been hard pressed in finding a machine that had as much goodies packed into it for the price. Whether you use it for business, education, or just for leisure I think you will find this to be more than a suitable choice for all of your pc needs.

I hope this helps!

So far I am very impressed with my new HP tablet notebook. Many other reviews highlight all the positive features. There are a couple of negative features though. One is Vista 64bit. If you have older software you will run into compatibility issues and if the software works it will run significantly slower than when running under Vista 32bit. I have an Avertech Notebook which has a slower processor and less memory, but is running Vista 32bit and it runs circles around my new HP tablet notebook on a lot of the software I use. I purchased and returned an older model of HP's tablet notebook. The tablet screen was a joke. However this model has a Wacom touch screen which is unbelievably more impressive. The only other negative is the screen is grainy. You get used to it, but when you see another screen next to it you are reminded of how bad it is. Saying all this I would still highly recommend this product and am giving it five stars. Most people aren't going to have the older software so this won't affect them. As far as the screen it is a trade off of having a touch screen tablet.