Back From Orlando ... Final HP TX1000 Impressions

I came home from Orlando Wednesday night, but with Thursday loaded up with a work back-log and classes, I'm just now starting to get back into the swing of things. I think I'll need the weekend to get off of East Coast time, though.

First thing's first, my partner and I managed to take Second Place in our International Marketing Case Study for Delta Epsilon Chi. We were a bit disappointed that we didn't get first, but from what I've heard in the rumor mill, the field was incredibly competitive. We'll have scores probably end of next month, so I'll just have to live in suspense for a while. Either way, second is better than third, so we'll take it. Another of our Huskies came home with both a second place plaque and a job offer from ESPN, and a fourth placed in the top ten in her subject, so it was a good trip. Sadly, that's pretty much the end of my DEC run, and I think I'm really going to miss it.

Walt Disney World was pretty much as I remember it, albeit with a few additions. Honestly, I didn't have as much fun as I would have liked; it was really difficult to try to enjoy myself without my wife to share it with. By the end of the trip, I was getting really lonely and just wanted to come home.

The HP TX1000 continued to both delight and disappoint in equal measure during the trip, however. On one hand, the small size and swiveling screen made it perfect for enjoying on the long plane ride, and the machine was great for our presentations. One small issue came up in that while the remote control could run our PowerPoint presentation, the angle of the machine made it impossible to get line-of-sight to the infrared receiver. HP should really consider a radio for future iterations of the remote, or just make it Bluetooth.

Sadly, while I loved watching movies on the machine while flying, the batteries, even the extended battery, just weren't up to the task. I was lucky if I could squeeze just about two hours out of either of them, and then only by lowering the brightness to the point where I could hardly watch the screen. (Having to switch the batteries out was a pain as well.) It's worth noting that running the movies as files off the hard drive might have been a factor, but I'd think it would be better than having a second spindle (the DVD drive) running. The touchscreen did make controlling the movies a breeze, and the machine definitely attracted attention from people who saw it on the plane.

Overall, I like the machine a fair amount. Would I buy it? If HP added an active digitizer, I'd probably buy it in a heartbeat. Other nice-to-haves would be a DVD drive bay battery option for those longer flights, a bluetooth remote, and a better amplifier for the headphone jacks (it was hard to hear the movies, even with noise-cancelling headphones). But I think that for many people, especially those not looking for a perfect ink experience, this is a great alternative to something like a UMPC, and a very attractive and capable machine.

Chris Aarons Leaves AMD

I'm a little late to the going-away party, but suffice it to say that I was thrilled when I heard that Chris Aarons was leaving AMD. Chris and I haven't worked together much (the HP TX1000 I currently have on loan was orchestrated by Chris), but the few conversations I've had with him proved to me that Chris is a man that "gets it" (to borrow Andru's wording).

Chris is starting his own "word of mouth" marketing company called "Buzz Corps". It sounds like a very exciting time for Chris, and he's going to be amazingly successful. I can't see how he won't. Companies need to understand that marketing changed into a collaborative process while they weren't looking, and no one can communicate that better than Chris. What's really funny is that it was one of Chris' "mistakes" (the free laptop debacle that was part of Vanishing Point) that proved both his own value and the message he was trying to send.

Congratulations, Chris, on the new adventure you're headed out on, and next time you're in Seattle, give me a ring!

More TX1000 Feedback Coming ...

I've written a fair amount about the TX1000 that I have on loan from HP (through AMD), and there's even more on the way. I'm heading out to Orlando next week on my first ever flight on Southwest, and I'm curious to see how the batteries (they provided two) hold up to a non-stop, cross-country flight in the cramped Southwest confines. I've loaded up some music and movies, and with two headphone jacks, I'll even be able to share it with one of my travelling companions.

Reading back over some of my impressions, it strikes me that I might have been a bit harsh on the Tablet features of this particular unit. Let me just say that the Tablet features all work, and for someone who's never used a Tablet PC before, they would likely not have the same issues that I've had with it. That said, if you have experience with an active digitizer in a Tablet PC, or if you're primarily looking at the machine as a way to add ink to documents or to take ink based notes, the experience is sub-par.

Most of my Tableteering comes by way of Microsoft OneNote, which is an absolutely fantastic note taking application. The big advantage for me is the ability to have all of my documents, notes, research, web links, etc ... all catalogued in one location, and be able to search through it all. In order for OneNote to be truly useful, however, you really need to be able to write into it as effortlessly as you would a regular notepad, and that just isn't happening for me on this machine.

It's only my opinion, but I still believe that the Tablet functionality is a by-product of having a screen that turns around (bringing the screen closer to you for watching video) and a touchscreen (for easy media accessibility with the screen turned around), and that it was never really intended to be a selling feature. That's fine, and if you treat the added features as a bonus, you won't be disappointed.

That aside, my trip next week won't have me needing to take a bunch of notes. I'll be using it primarily for web research and for giving a short presentation in close quarters, and it'll be interesting to see how it does in that capacity. I expect that being able to turn the screen towards the evaluators will be very helpful. I don't know yet if the included remote control will be able to run Powerpoint, but I'm hoping it will ... it'll be one less thing to bring with me. I might even try Vongo a bit and see how it fares. Edit: Maybe I won't try Vongo after all ...

Nearly forgot, I promised some feedback from my wife, and here it is ...

It's a nice machine, but the screen is too small.

I finally got her to elaborate (sometimes you have to drag opinions out of her), and she said that while she really liked the overall size and weight of it, some of the web games that she likes to play had elements that were too small to see clearly. She likes the layout of the keyboard far more than my current tablet, but like me, didn't like how difficult it was to get an ink stroke out of the tablet. She likes the funny sculpted trackpad, but found the mouse buttons to hard to hit by feel. She thinks that the texture of the trackpad desensitizes you to being able to easily find the buttons by feel (and she doesn't like to just tap the trackpad). All in all, she'd have probabaly bought the machine after her experience, but not for the features HP was trying to sell it on.

Yeah, once you get her talking a bit, she does OK. :)

I don't have a problem with the screen size/resolution like she does, but then again, I have perfect eyesight and she doesn't. I hate the trackpad intensely, and really miss my like track stick nubbin thing. I do think that her insight about buying the machine for purposes other than HPs intent are pretty interesting though. As a marketing guy, I had felt that the machine was sort of at odds with its positioning, and that statement from Annie made me realize that it was true ... there's a market for this machine but it's not the one HP might think it is.

Update on the HP TX1000

Tuesday was my first day of classes of my last quarter at the UW. I took HP's new machine to class and received a lot of interested questions from people, which was cool, but the way I grabbed their attention wasn't exactly ideal. Most people in a class won't even notice that you're writing on your laptop screen over the course of the class, but when you "break" the screen to put it in tablet mode, that will usually attract a few glances. Although in my case, I was pulling the screen back up because I just couldn't stand to keep trying to write on it.

Since the TX1000 is using a touchscreen rather than an active digitizer like my Tecra M4, HP had to turn the touchscreen sensitivity way down to compensate for the tendency for you to rest your hand on the screen while you write. The unfortunate side-effect of this is that you have to use a significant amount of pressure to get a smooth, unbroken stroke. The effort required to do this is not insignificant. Unfortunately, when you're trying to multitask during a class (especially late classes when you're pretty tired), you have to put as much effort as possible into thinking about the class and not thinking about writing. While the HP rep that I talked to last week said that it only took him a couple of hours to adjust, I'm finding it much more difficult. So sadly, I've gone back to my Tecra M4 for the time being.

This isn't to say that the TX1000 isn't great in every other regard, quite to the contrary, it's a great little machine. To make sure that you get a fair representation of the machine, I've decided to try something new: I gave it to my wife.

That in itself is a bit of a funny story. When I told her that HP was sending me this laptop to review, the first words out of her mouth were, "Goody! Now I get a laptop." Then I explained that it wasn't really going to happen that way. "So what, you get all the laptops and I get no laptops?" (I can always tell when she's irritated, but still playing with me, because she'll use just atrocious grammar.) "Yes, sweetheart, that's exactly what that means." So when I told her she was going to get a week or so to play with the HP, she was pretty excited. Maybe I'll even let her make a blog post to two about it ... we'll see how it goes.

One last note: in my conversation with HP a few days ago, I asked why they didn't include both digitizers (active and passive) in the machine. They said it was a cost issue, but when I asked them about thier target market, it seems to be targeted at segments that wouldn't be as price sensitive, so I'm not sure that I buy the explanation. Regardless, it seems that Annie is closer to the sort of person that they want to approach with the machine, so her feedback should be interesting. I know that she absolutely loves the size, and I don't know that she'd care so much about the touchscreen being less than ideal for writing, but we'll see how it fares with her under more strenuous use.

More Impressions of the TX1000

The more I work with the HP Pavilion TX 1000 Entertainment Notebook (and I just now decided that I'm never typing all of that again) the more I realize that despite having tablet functionality, this machine was not designed for me. This is not a "Tablet PC", and I think that the lack of Tablet PC branding on the machine should have been a huge clue. In fact, I'm seriously debating at this point if I should even try using this machine at school next week. You can't write on it ... well, you can in a technical sense, but it requires so much effort to write anything legibly enough that it just isn't worth it. Ever try to write on the screen of a PDA? It's exactly the same thing.

It's clear now that HP knew this, and thus the "Entertainment Notebook" branding. So what exactly is that supposed to mean? It means that it's designed primarily as a computer you can watch movies on. So why can you turn the screen? Because it's actually easier to watch a movie when you swivel the screen and put the keyboard behind the machine. The speakers are part of the screen, so they'll always be posititioned correctly for you. Combine that with dedicated DVD playback buttons, DivX codec preinstalled, and a free trial for Vongo, and you've got a capable entertainment device. So what's up with the touchscreen and stylus? Well, it looks like the touchscreen is for ease of video watching when you've got the screen turned, and the stylus is for fingerprint prevention. The only problem is that the touchscreen turned on the Tablet features and that causes a bit of an expectations issue for someone familiar with a Tablet PC feature set.

I'm going to talk with an HP representative later today, and will probably adjust my review plan to focus more on the entertainment features, but that will depend on whether or not HP really wants to position this machine in the Tablet space or not.

The TX1000 is here!

Despite a minor shipping snafu (involving FedEx leaving the package at the completely wrong address, and about two hours spent trying to track it down), I've got the HP Pavilion TX1000 Entertainment Notebook sitting here in my hot little hands. I should have some unboxing shots later (when I get home and can re-create the experience for you), but for now, here are some initial impressions ...

First, this thing is tiny! It's about the size of a small folio (about the same footprint as an 8.5"x11" sheet of paper), although fairly dense. The screen is touch only, which means that it does not have an active digitizer. The extended 6-cell battery gives it a nice little handle by which you can grip the machine in portrait mode. The screen resolution is lower than I'd like (1280x800), but in a 12" size it's fairly serviceable.

The machine is covered in what HP is calling their "Imprint Finish". They should call it the "Fingerprint Finish" because it'll be covered in them before too long. Note to HP ... when you have a device with a fingerprint reader and a touchscreen, expect to combat prints, not enhance them. Seriously though, the keyboard area has this interesting pattern embedded under a clear coat and it's fairly attractive. Perhaps not so much to dissuade potential Mac buyers, but it is attractive with the lid open or closed.

What isn't attractive, however, is the ridiculous amount of pre-installed utilities and software. Call it "scumware", "bloatware", whatever you want, but there's a lot of it. How much? On first boot, there were 16 shortcuts on the desktop, not counting the Recycle Bin, which is the only icon put there by default in Vista. The rest were links to MSN, eBay, Vongo, Rhapsody, and a bunch of HP utilities. But that's not all! You also get two completely redundant icons for pointing devices and sound utilities in the tray, things that Vista does better by default. I'm really not a fan of this trend towards tons of pre-installed crap, and I wish manufacturers would simply include a disc that will allow customers to install it if they wish. Hell, label it as a "must install" if you want, but allow us savvy users to opt out!

Using a finger swipe to login is pretty slick, and should be especially useful in portrait mode. What isn't so useful is the touchscreen, however. It requires a very firm press to activate, and writing on it seems like it will be uncomfortable as a result. I'm going to reserve judgement until I've really put it through it's paces, but so far, I'm not overly impressed with that feature. That said, this device is supposed to be primarily an "entertainment" machine, and the datasheet highlights the swivelling screen as great for DVD watching, which I can confirm that it is. Heck, don't even bother with DVDs ... the 160GB drive has tons of space for downloaded movies as well, so use the weightsaver and save some battery life at the same time!

Another thing that strikes me as being sub-optimal for a user expecting a tablet ... the microphones are placed flanking the webcam on the top of the screen. Ideal for video conferencing (does anyone even do that?) but not at all where you'd want them if you want to record a lecture and write on the screen, since your left arm (if you're left-handed) will be rubbing all over them the entire time. I'd love to see a tablet manufacturer have a second set of redundant microphones on the left side of the machine (which becomes the top in portrait mode) for just such an occasion. Even one on each side of the screen would be sufficient.

That's all I've got time for right now, but I'll be back with more impressions as I put the device through the ringer and see what happens. If there's anything you want to know, leave a comment and I'll be sure to answer your questions for you!

Specs on this model

• AMD Turion64 X2 (2GHz)
• 12.1 WXGA (1280x800) "High Definition" BrightView Widescreen with Integrated Touch-Screen
• 160GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
• 2GB DDR2 SDRAM
• 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN + Bluetooth
• Lightscribe Super Multi 8X DVD+/-RW with Double Layer Support
• 6-Cell Lithium Ion Battery (plus optional 4 Cell battery)
• HP QuickPlay
• HP Mini Remote Control
• 5-1 Digital Media Reader
• ExpressCard/34 PC Card Slot
• Nvidia GeForce Go 6150 with shared graphics memory
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• 1.3 megapixel Webcam
• Fingerprint Reader
• Stereo Earbuds (2 pairs!?)

HP Pavilion TX1000 Entertainment Notebook PC en route ...

It's been a while since I got a new piece of hardware to play with, and very shortly I should receive a new HP TX1000 Tablet PC (which oddly bears no Tablet PC branding) to run through the ringer. Big shout out to Chris at AMD who worked out the details for me, after hearing what a big fan I was of the Tablet concept.

I'll give you a bit of the "out of the box experience" in terms of how the pre-load runs, then I'll load it up with my standard config and see if it holds up to my work and school schedules. I love my Tecra M4, and it'll be interesting to see how a smaller unit puts up with me. This won't be your typical review, but it'll give you an pretty good picture of how this machine lives up to the expectations of a serious tablet user.

The new machine should be here sometime today, so expect some first impressions this afternoon. I've heard Andru over at GearLive should be getting an identical unit around the same time, and I'm sure he'll have all the great unboxing shots and that sort of thing, but maybe I'll have a few as well.

Fair Disclosure: This laptop is a "loaner" and will not be kept by me unless I pay for it in some fashion, unlike the "free" laptops some bloggers received a few months back when Vanishing Point began. Should this change, for example, HP decides to let me keep it (highly unlikely), I will make a full post disclosing the fact.

Update: The Tablet is actually arriving Tuesday morning, so the first impressions will be delayed a pit. Patience, grasshopper.