HP TX2Z TouchSmart 12.1-Inch Laptop

2 comments

1. 

   Lawnmower Man on December 20, 2009 at 4:50 pm

   I’ll keep this short and sweet. **Do your homework before ordering this tablet**

   I bought mine in 7/2009 and am on my 4th one. Yes, I have sent it back for repair or replacement THREE times, and am waiting for the shipping box to return this one as well, as this one came back from repair with defective touchscreen, non-working fingerprint reader, buzzing power supply and an SD card reader which isn’t screwed in (so it doesn’t line up with the frame).

   Only HP could ship out such a POS.

   If this tablet PC actually worked as advertised it would be my dream notebook. It doesn’t. In fact, it doesn’t even come close.

   The problems which make this great idea a horrible notebook to own:

   – The mouse cursor jumps to a certain point on the screen over and over (sometimes clicking, which is always fun when that ’spot’ is over the X button). The ‘certain point’ varies by the notebook, sometimes it is lower left, some right,.. you get the idea. Add to this the makers of the touch panel, N-trig, have yet to make fully working drivers for any OS. N-trig, the company which tells you flat out that updating your tablet’s driver can render it irreparable.. and they mean it! TONS of people have had to return their TX2z to HP for replacement because the touch driver killed their tablet.

   – The power supply buzzes.. loudly! The buzzing varies by how bright the screen is. If you are superman and can see the screen turned all the way down, it is ignorable. If you want to see your screen, it buzzes to no end. If you want a bright screen, grab your ear plugs.

   – The fingerprint reader works.. sometimes. More specifically, it works about ~25% of the time. The other 75% of the time it completely ignores your finger swipes. That, of course, is assuming the software doesn’t crash (yes, even on a fresh install).

   – It’s a tablet, you can hold it at any angle.. you just can’t see it at any angle! The screen turns to a bright mush if you hold the tablet at any angle besides directly. If you are drawing, or writing, and want to adjust for your hand position, you no longer get to see the screen because it washes out.

   If you really love this tablet, you can buy mine, just as soon as HP sends it back from repair.. FOR THE FOURTH TIME.

2. 

   A. Spivak on December 20, 2009 at 4:59 pm

   I purchased this laptop in October from HP’s website. It came with a lot of bloatware, which really slowed it down. After removing many of the third party applications pre-installed on the laptop it was much more responsive. When I bought the laptop, it qualified for a free upgrade to windows 7 and after installing Windows 7 it was like a whole new computer. It boots up faster and seems more responsive than with windows vista.

   In contrast to LawnMower Man’s experience, my power supply is silent, the touchscreen responds well to my finger and stylus, and the laptop seems very sturdily built. The viewing angle of the screen could be better, but if the screen is facing you, you shouldn’t have any problems.

   I didn’t think I would find much of a difference between my old notebook and a tablet notebook, but it has completely changed how I browse the internet, read .pdfs, and take notes. The handwriting recognition software is pretty good out of the box, but you can train it to better recognise your handwriting so you can convert your hand written notes to text with few errors.

   I rarely ever use the touchpad mouse on the laptop. When using the tablet like a regular notebook, its much more convenient to move windows and highlight text directly on the screen than it ever was to manipulate a touchpad mouse.

   I’ve really enjoyed using this tablet so far. The touchscreen is responsive and accurate, and it was much cheaper than other tablet PCs on the market (e.g. lenovo).