Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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55 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great product once its configured properly, July 18, 2008
Pros:
I think this system is probably the best deal you'd get in a TabletPC.
The top-notch Wacom 'Penabled' tablet hardware is a real nice bonus, because it supports pen pressure & it has an eraser.
The Fingerprint Reader is a real bonus, It makes me want to have one on all of my computers.
It comes with Corel Painter 4 Essentials, and Microsoft OneNote 2007.
It will play DVD-RAM discs that my Panasonic DVR creates -- Nice surprise.
Cons:
The AMD processor is not as good as the Intel Core 2 Duo, but you are paying a lot less.
The battery protrudes from the back, and the screen is smaller than the base.
I did a speed test with a friend, against a 2 year-old MacBook Pro (Boot Camp running Vista Business)
We compiled a very large software project. His was 25% faster.
Screen is glossy.
Remedies:
When I first bought this machine, I noticed that this thing would not stop accessing the hard drive -- It didn't make any sense to me. I thought Vista was at fault. So, I started out with the intention of getting rid of Vista. However, with a bit of research, I found that Vista was not the problem with this machine, It was HP's bloatware. Once the basic startup programs and services are properly configured, the system runs fairly efficiently. Vista also has the added benefit of tweaking minute details in how power gets used in their 'Power Plans'
Update:
After using this for a couple of weeks, I find the fan and heat output to be annoying, I adjusted my 'Power Plan' to run the CPU at 50%, even when plugged in, so it generates less heat. I just switch it it 'High Performance' when I need full speed.
I also purchased an anti-glare screen protector (photodon.com) and the screen glossiness is pretty much gone. This is a great improvement.
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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
How it works as a PDF reader and editor, August 25, 2008
I got this mostly to work with PDF documents, so the review is based primarily on how it functions in this mode.
In general:
* tablet features work well in combination with Adobe Acrobat Professional 8; it cannot run version 6.
Specific to the tablet:
* a one-button Quickplay feature on the perimeter of the touchscreen allows the view orientation to be rotated through 90 degrees while in flat tablet configuration.
* battery pack extends about 2 inches from the long side, acting as a handy handle.
* tablet surface is easy to write on, at least for me - functions are available to change the line width and color of the script, and makes written text more realistic to view.
* tablet pen has soft nibs which don't appear to scratch the tablet surface - also comes with several replacement nibs - I leave the string off the pen for convenience.
* text entry can be freehand or typewritten - the entry box and keys can be expanded so that the tablet surface can become a keyboard for touch-typing with all fingers and without cramping.
* script to font conversion is good, and better than any other machine I have used.
* screen resolution is quite high - as high as the wxga sony mininotebooks of three years ago - easy to read any fonts down to about 5 picas easily.
* microphone and webcam/cam app features make it easy to make sound and video files to embed into PDF.
* feels as heavy or light as a medium textbook.
Specific to tablet-Acrobat integration:
* finger touch or digitizer pen make it very easy to flip pages in Acrobat full screen mode
* writing onto any of the Acrobat commenting features (sticky notes, annotations) can be done easily with digitizing pen using pen-click pop-up text entry boxes
* Vista file system and the Acrobat organizer work well to collectively organize multiple PDF documents
* Loading speech services allows PDF documents to be read back to you.
Other:
* the graphics card is Shader 3.0.
* has DVD playing software that can be activated from the tablet perimeter buttons; runs DVD movies well, and youtube/google video well
* comes with adequate RAM; compare with stingier and more costly IBM and Fujitsu models
Drawbacks:
*machine runs hot in high performance mode - it is possible to customize the specifics of the performance mode and then select the one you want from the task bar with a single click - might be a bonus in the wintertime though.
*in medium to low performance mode, which is fine for reading PDFs, there is barely any heat production
* battery life is fair to good at medium performance levels
*Vista can be dodgy - uninstalling or improperly installing programs can lead to registry errors that require **system recovery**
*Vista won't run many of the programs you may have used under XP.
Conclusion:
A versatile timesaver that incorporates many desirable functions at relatively low price.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great laptop and tablet for the price, August 2, 2008
HP Pavilion TX2510US 12.1" Laptop (2.10 GHz AMD Turion X2 ZM-80 Processor, 3 GB RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive, DVD Drive, Vista Premium) Black
I had purchased the original TX1215 a while back, and that laptop was terrible. Although it was considered a tablet, it was not WACOM enabled and you had to press hard on the screen to write. The processor was slow and at times the machine was unusable. I sold it on eBay within 2 months and forgot about it.
However, I was impressed by the reviews of the TX2510us, and after trying it out and finally buying it, it is a terrific little machine. Leaps ahead of the tx1000 series, it has the WACOM tablet, the processor is MUCH faster, and it has great features. I recently used it to take notes in a week-long training class and I was amazed at how well it worked. Handwriting training also helped minimize conversion to text errors, which was impressive. Surprisingly, graphics were much improved as some (but not all) of the RAM was dedicated, and the rest can be allocated up to a gig. Running games are NOT an issue any more. Another surprise is if you up the machine to 4GB, it will still recognize ALL the RAM even though you have a 32-bit OS. The OS only uses about 3.2GB of RAM, but the rest can be allocated to the video card without regard to the OS (this is actually handled in BIOS).
The laptop does run hot, but not as hot as the TX1215. The form factor is basically the same but I never had an issue with that. Also, the screen is a bit cloudy at times but with brightness turned all the way up it still looked fine. Finally, I found that battery life, a problem with the TX1000 series, seems to be improved. Got almost 3 hours with Wi-fi and Bluetooth on and pretty close to full brightness. Using the included battery as well.
I think I got my money's worth with this one. Highly recommended.
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