Reviews: HP Pavilion tx1000 vs tx2000 (TabletPCReview)
February 14, 2008
TabletPCReview has put together a review/comparison of two of HP’s Tablet PC/Convertible lineups, the HP Pavilion tx2000 series and the model it’s replacing, the HP Paviliion tx1000. Both have a 12.1″ widescreen touchscreen display (the tx2000 has an active digitizer, the tx1000 a passive digitizer - the major upgrade of the tx2000 series from the tx1000), and both are powered by AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core processors. The specific models compared are the HP tx1001au (2GHz) and the HP tx 2011au (2.2GHz).
Full Review and Comparison: TabletPCReview.com
February 10th Odds and Ends
February 10, 2008
A roundup of interesting articles from the past week.
Wired Magazine: Like Apple, Intel Wants to Put the Internet in Your Pocket - Discussion of Intel’s Silverthorne and Intel’s efforts at pushing beyond that, to where we can have a near-desktop like internet experience in a mobile device we can practically carry in our pockets.
CNET Blogs: “Which is sturdier, a MacBook Air or an HP business laptop?” A quick first-look at the MacBook air at how it stacks up against an HP notebook and how sturdy it feels and how it’s handling heat.
Akihabara News: Evergreen’s Mini Trackball for Your Laptop - a very small trackball made for travelers and those desiring a very small device - weighs in at 77 grams/2.7 ounces.
Engadget: Dell XPS M1330 update BIOS hints at upcoming Blu-Ray/DVD combo drive - a new BIOS update for the M1330 mentions “Blu-Ray / DVD +/- RW Combo Drive”.
AppleInsider: Rumor: possible Apple event brewing for late February - Might or might not be somewhere around the 26th. Could it be time for Penryn-based MacBook Pros, etc.?
LifeHacker: Remove Stains from a MacBook with Toothpaste - apparently toothpaste can clean up white MacBooks
jkOnTheRun: HP wants to sell you a Tablet PC - HP has produced a cool little video detailing the advantages of convertible/Tablet PC laptops.
GottaBeMobile: How Cool Is The HP TC1100 Tablet PC? mentions that the TC1100 makes an appearance in the above video showing off the 2710p convertible.
Engadget: Dell further clarifies how and where it’s dropping AMD The Engadget crew spoke with Dell about whether or not Dell was dropping AMD CPUs from their lineup. There was an image that went up on a Dell site indicating that AMD CPUs were not going to be sold anymore (or rather Dell products with said CPUs). Dell’s response: Not sure how/why the image appeared, AMD-based consumer computers will be in stores only except for certain desktops and the Inspiron 1501 notebook. Business-oriented lines (including the Latitude) that have AMD CPUs will still be sold online, and so on. Read the full article for all the details. Kind of an interesting/murky situation if you ask me.
Finally,
CNET Blogs: Windows Vista SP1 - Benchmarks - Robert Vamosi has put Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) through it’s paces, including Adobe Photoshop CS3, file copying, iTunes encoding, and DVD battery life tests.
As you know, Vista SP1 has been released to manufacturing and some users are already getting their hands on it.
That wraps it up for this week in review.
Review: HP Pavilion tx2000z (Tablet PC User Review)
February 9, 2008
Tablet PC Review is running a user review of the HP Pavilion tx2000z, HP’s latest and greatest AMD Turion 64 X2-powered 12.1″ convertible Tablet PC. The HP tx2000z is just starting to arrive in peoples’ hands. The version reviewed had a 2.1GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 CPU, with graphics output provided by an NVidia Go 6150 graphics.
They have some good pics of the “Echo” imprint/finsh HP is applying to these. There’s also discussion of battery life (it’s good if you turn off certain things and remove the bloatware) and performance compared to similar tablets and ultraportable laptops in its class (X61, Fujitsu T4220, Toshiba Portege, etc.).
Full Review at Tablet PC Review
HP tx2000z Now Available for Order
February 5, 2008
A couple of people have emailed to say that HP is now taking orders for the HP Pavilion tx2000z, with a base configuration of $1299 and the recommended configuration of $2300+ (the recommended comes with Vista Ultimate 64-bit, a 2.2GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core TL-64, 2GB memory, Verizon Wireless V740 ExpressCard, and a 250GB hard drive). The tx2000z is their latest Tablet PC/Convertible laptop.
Both configurations are showing a build date of February 18, 2008.
The tx2000z is a sequel to the tx1000z (which are starting to be heavily discounted through Amazon and elsewhere). Some of the changes in the tx2000z include more base memory, larger hard drives, and faster base CPUs, along with an active digitizer.
You can view the options/sales page of the tx2000z here (Shopping.HP.com)
Deal of the Week: HP Pavilion tx1000z ($699)
January 22, 2008
Note: This deal is now over
Now that the HP Pavilion tx2000z, HP’s latest “entertainment” 12.1″ widescreen Tablet PC/Convertible Laptop is in production, prices on its predecessor, the HP Pavilion tx1000z, are being reduced quite a bit to clear out existing inventories.
You can now find (if you are in the US), the tx1000z on sale at Office Depot for $699.99 (before taxes, but has free shipping if you qualify) through January 26, 2008 (sale page at Office Depot).
The particular model on sale has these specifications:
Read more
AMD Mobile Roadmap 2007 - 2008
July 27, 2007
TG Daily has quite a bit of news about AMD’s next generation CPUs, including their mobile-oriented CPUs. AMD’s Chief Technology Officer outlined AMD’s plans to catch Intel sometime in 2009. One thing that might interest some who would like a bit more of a graphics punch when it comes to their laptops, is that AMD is going to have DirectX 10 support in some of their integrated chipsets.
Excerpt from the article:
Mobile and ultra-mobile
This segment is targeted by AMD with processors that will consume between 1 and 10 watts of power in the ultra-mobile segment as well as slightly more for notebooks. We already knew that 2007 will see a refresh of the Kite platform, which consists of Turion X2 processors with virtualization support, the M960 (SB600) chipset and ATI Radeon X1200 series graphics (or dedicated graphics processors) such as the Mobility Radeon HD. In 2008, AMD will release the Puma platform with the Griffin dual-core CPU, in combination with the RS780M chipset and the SB700 southbridge, which will support DX10 in integrated graphics. There will also be a new 55 nm discrete mobile GPU, codenamed M8X.
AMD is also going to produce what is being called the “Bobcat” CPU, which will compete against Intel’s “Silverthorne” CPU and will be geared towards ultra mobile PCs (UMPCs), but very little detail was given today about these CPUs. They also mentioned a mobile quad-core processor, but it’s doubtful that will find its way into ultraportable laptops (although dual-core CPUs would have raised many an eyebrow just a few years ago).
