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Monday, April 14, 2008

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More Early Thoughts on the HP TX2051

I’ve been really enjoying both the Inking and the Touch capabilities on the HP TX 2051 that I’m evaluating (when I can keep it out of Rob’s hands). But I do have a few niggles.

The screen is my biggest one niggle. The layering that gives it excellent touch and active digitizter capability makes the screen a bit grainy. Add to that the glossy finish on the screen and you’ve got some pretty severe limitations on viewing angles. If you’re in a room with flourescent lights, you’ll have difficulties viewing the screen. At least I do. If you tilt the screen away from you while in slate mode then you’ll see an immediate degradation of what you’re viewing.

This is a heavy Tablet PC, and that of course is due to everything that is loaded on it, especially the extended battery. With the standard battery it is listed as 4.3lbs, but with the extended battery it feels closer to 5lbs.

The glossy case is pretty and has a nice etched design in it. It does attract quite a few fingerprints and smudges though and it can get pretty dirty relatively quickly.

There are a light of little Blue LED indicators on this device. Several of them are for media playing. The one to repeat a song looks very similar to the rotation button for screen orientation and both Rob and I have hit it unintentionally when we were trying to rotate the screen.

These are just a few thoughts and niggles as I continue to work (and play) with this evaluation of the HP TX 2051.

Tags: HP+TX2051

Hardware | HP | Tablet PC

4/14/2008 11:42 AM MST

More Early Thoughts on the HP TX2051 Comments [11] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Monday, April 14, 2008 11:58:25 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I share the same concerns. I hated tx1000 because of dim screen, and tx2000 doesn't seem to improve much on that area. If you have a chance, would you compare tx2000 screen to 2710p? I think the viewing angle and color saturation on 2710p are rather poor, so if 2000 screen is worse than that, it will be out of my consideration.
Other concerns about 2000 are fan noise and battery life. If those three things are taken care of in maybe tx3000, it will be a hot tablet PC, IMO.

ignar

Monday, April 14, 2008 12:42:32 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Keep the comments coming! The price is right on this sucker.

guthrie

Monday, April 14, 2008 1:14:13 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

"The layering that gives it excellent touch and active digitizter capability makes the screen a bit grainy." -- Are you sure that's the digitizer and not the BrightView coating? My understanding is that BrightView cuts down glare, but adds to the various issues you've named. Not that it matters in the end, but still...

Sumocat

Monday, April 14, 2008 3:22:39 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Just turn up the brightness to eliminate most of the glare/grain issues. I work under FL lights for hours at a time and just punching up the brightness level seems to fix the issue.

After 3 months, I still like the machine and enjoy using it. The screen did take some getting used to, but i don't find it to be a severe annoyance. I tried a toshiba tablet last year and the screen just made my eyes hurt after an hour or so, the Tx2000 does not.

I don't find the fan to be an issue, unless something hangs up in Vista and causes the fan to go to full speed. For me, the culprit is usually an HP printer driver that hangs up and starts eating CPU cycles. Once I kill the offending process, the fan slows down. . .

jberger

Monday, April 14, 2008 4:57:30 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Can the DVD be removed to lighten the everyday load? (does it have a cover if removed?)

Stevew

Monday, April 14, 2008 8:59:16 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Stevew,

Both the TX1000 and the TX2000 come with removable DVD drives and a plastic blank to put in the slot when it is removed. With the TX1000, I found that this was a pointless exercise, because the DVD drive was so light, I really didn't notice any difference when I removed it. I suspect the experience is much the same on the TX2000, because most of the specs are quite similar (with the obvious exception of the digitizer.)

sbtablet

Monday, April 14, 2008 9:07:21 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

You can actually get a nicely spec'd tx2000 with 2.2 gold, 64bit home, draft n, 100G+ 5400 drive, 2G, litescribe dvd/rw, 8 cell. $998 shipped with the latest 30% off coupon. Then NewEgg a real HDD and more memory later (RAM now, SSD in a year) Coupon NB3098

I'm deciding between this and the Dell thru the outlet at $1500-$1600 pre-tax. Same deal, upgrade a bit later.

Would like to hear more on build quality of each for a professional traveller, presenter, meeting goer.

Cheapy McB@stard

Monday, April 14, 2008 11:58:21 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

We'll keep the comments coming don't worry. Sumocat, if the screen viewing quality is due to Brightview, in my opinion, Brightview fails as a technology.

@jberger: I've turned up the brightness to full and still have bad glare issues under fluorescents and also find that that has no impact on the viewing angle.

Warner Crocker

Tuesday, April 15, 2008 9:13:10 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

It looks like a fantastic machine, except the provisos on 64 bit drivers, including Send to OneNote. Are you finding those limitations as irritating as much as James Kendrick? Like you guys, I live in OneNote, and dump stuff in there all day to work on.

bluespapa

Tuesday, April 15, 2008 10:30:03 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

If you see the guys at the OneNote team during the summit, could you kick them about the 64-bit driver?

(I am only half-kidding.)

Paul

Cuhulin

Thursday, April 24, 2008 1:18:44 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Have you tried to connect a MediaCenter Extender to the TX2000 series? My xbox 360 won't connect to it, and I'm thinking that both the fingerprint reader and the Wacom digitizer drivers may be interfering. I'd like to know whether you have the same problem.
BTW, I hated the screen when I first got it, but i've gotten used to it, and now I don't notice how grainy it is. It's also fairly heavy, but overall, i love the machine. Taking out the dvd saves about half a pound.

Kelvin

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