Customer Reviews

HP TouchSmart tx2-1340EA 12.1-inch Touchscreen Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium, AMD Processor RM-77, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB SATA HDD, 802.11b/g, Bluetooth, 4 Cell and 8 Cell Battery, up to 12 Hours Life in Total)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have been using this tablet for just over a week now and the best way to sum it up is: WOW! This is the first time I've used a touchscreen laptop, so i thought it would take a while to get used to it. But within 5 minutes, I'd completely forgotten about the keyboard and track pad. for normal web browsing, if you see something you want to click, just touch it. I now find myself trying to poke the screens of all computers I come into contact with because it is much more intuitive than using a mouse.

For college, as I am in an engineering course, there are a lot of diagrams and graphs, that would normally need to be taken down on paper. But with this all of my notes are written straight onto the screen and saved with annotations of handouts etc. I shouldn't need another pen or piece of paper until exam time now.

As for the hardware, yes the fan is on most of the time, but you get used to it very quickly. the processor is speedy and there is more than enough ram. I have no problem running the latest CAD programs with the on-board graphics either. The battery life doesn't live up to expectations though. HP kindly provides both a 4-cell and an 8-cell battery. In total with both batteries I get about 6- hours use out of the machine, which isn't bad, but obviously nowhere near the 12 hour claim.

An HDMI port would have been nice, but I doubt I'll miss that functionality too much.

HP's bundled touch friendly software is a gimmick more than anything else, rather just stick with Windows 7 and Media center.

Not much more that I can say except that I highly recommend this machine.

I was waiting for this model to come out for a few months as HP waited for windows 7 for its release. The Laptop is sturdy and seems well built, the touchscreen is reponsive to the touch and no sign of lag. The keyboard feels responsive with just the right amount of travel. All in all at one months use no problems, but there are a few things to point out, it does get very hot and it is heavy having a double thickness screen. I give it four stars because of these little points. if you are looking for a touchscreen laptop then this one is better than all previous models. If you are looking for a touchscreen desktop then take a look at the 23inch Acer Z5600 or Z5610 available on Amazon but with a one to three months wait at time of writing this review. :) At time of review link to HP TouchSmart tx2-1340EA 12.1-inch Touchscreen Notebook (Windows 7 Home Premium, AMD Processor RM-77, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB SATA HDD, 802.11b/g, Bluetooth, 4 Cell and 8 Cell Battery, up to 12 Hours Life in Total) and link to Acer Aspire Z5610 23inch Desktop, Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 processor, 4Gb RAM, 750Gb HDD, DVD-ROM, Windows 7 Home Premium

I have HP TouchSmart tx2 over a month now and you know what? I love it. It's fast, small, easy to flip and use touch screan. Though it's not a lot of programs where it can be used fully. The other thing worth metioning is that sometimes the screen goes mad and kind of plays in the midle of the screen like someone actualy touches it in that way tampers with the programs I actualy use at that moment. But if the screen is touched it stops. And that is actualy the only annoying thing about this computer. Anyway it has remote control for whatching movies it works very well. The pen for touch screen is the brilliant idea as well. Almost everything that is written is easily recognised. Anyway it's great. I love it...

I have been considering a tablet pc for some time, as I mainly use my computer for illustration work and Photoshop manipulation. Previously I have used a Wacom tablet, and a desktop computer, but found the disconnection of screen and hand less than easy to use.
This is a cheap computer - that is to say, compared to many other tablets it doesn't cost as much. The other contenders I considered being over 30% more expensive (and with a lower specification in some cases).

Downsides first...
it is quite heavy, so I do tend to use mine on a table or desk most of the time. If you wanted to carry it about it might be less than the ideal choice.
The fan is on almost all the time - not something that bothers me but might be worth looking at (and listening to) one in action if you think it might be a deal breaker.
The usual 'bloatware' filling up the HD - easy enough to remove but still quite annoying (same with all new computers though so 'shrug').
It doesn't have pressure sensitivity (as far as I can see) so if you want to use 'expressive' paint programmes it might not be ideal for you. As a line artist it's not a problem for me - see sample image on product page.


Upsides...
Two batteries - so you can actually get a lot of work done when you're away from the office. Nothing like the 12 hours claimed but still plenty of time and certainly a full working day.
Well specified - 4Gb ram, 320Gb HD (and 7200 HD at that), 2.3Ghz chipset.
Nice looking - and you learn to live with the rather odd case logo quite quickly!
Feee neoprene slip case to keep it scratch free.
Windows 7 - installed and running - actually the best Windows yet in my opinion.
Decent sound for a laptop.
Pen clips neatly into the main casing and is less likely to get lost as a result.
Fast enough to work with video as well as still images.


Neutral...
You need to get used to working with the tablet The screen has a 'thickness' and it takes a while to learn how to place the pen on the screen to ensure it is the right place. It does have adjustments to enable you to set a nice 'target' which helps.

I am happy with this computer overall, and especially when you consider the price. It has a good range of features and does most things well. Recommended.

I had this device for a few weeks and I'm generally happy with it.

I'll start by stating that if you need handwriting and touch functionality, you're not going to find best value for money other than the TouchSmart from HP. The problem for this device is that HP has just announced a new one that fixes this one's flaws and costs pretty much the same: HP TouchSmart tm2-1010ea Notebook PC (12.1-inch Touchscreen, Windows 7 Home Premium, Intel Pentium SU4100 Processor, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB HDD, ATI Radeon HD 4550 Graphics, External LightScribe DVD Drive, up to 6 Hours Battery).

Now, my evaluation of the device itself is:

1 - Performance: It performs well. I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate with all the eye-candy enabled, Office 2010 Beta and some other common applications and all of the perform fairly well, little lag, etc. Video playback is also good except when on battery power in power saver mode.
2 - Weight, build quality and ergonomics: The device is quite heavy, at nearly 2 Kg. Holding it with one hand and writing with the other can be challenging for some people. Build quality is good. Some of the plastics and the hinge feel a bit cheap and loose but nothing that will bother you.
3 - Battery life: Not good. Compared to laptops with the Intel CULV processors this one lets down quite badly. It comes with two batteries, a 4-cell one that fits the laptop well and an 8-cell one that protrudes quite a lot out of the laptop. Combined they will give about 6 hours of battery life, a far cry from the 12 advertised by HP.
4 - Screen quality: The screen is very grainy and colour distortion is very steep with even low angles. The screen feels sturdy and can take a pounding from handwriting.
5 - Operation: This device will get hot and the air vents will usually be pointing towards your arms so it will get uncomfortable. It is also noisy and in a silent class room for example it can be quite inconvenient.

I think what lets this device down is the AMD CPU. For the performance it gives it consumes far too much power and dissipates far too much heat. The Intel CULV SU4100 that will be fitted in the new TouchSmart has scores about 4.5% lower in benchmark tests over the web, but can consumes less power, operates cooler and makes for a much better experience in my opinion.

Just overall a great laptop. Yes it can get a little hot if you have the computer running in High performance mode which most of the time you dont need however i did purchase a cooling fan for the laptop

I have been using the laptop for a month or two for software development when I am offsite and it is a good power/features/size compromise. I replaced the hard drive for an SSD but the original hard drive is good enough for most things since it is a 7200 RPM disk.
The only downside is the fan noise that can be annoying in quiet environments but is fine in an office. On the upside the tablet functionality is very responsive and useful. These days I find myself poking at other monitors by mistake...

I spent a long time searching around for a new laptop to use at university for taking notes, organising coursework and running engineering CAD software and went for the TX2 based on the good spec and numerous features.
It has proved itself more than competent in running GPU-heavy 3D modelling software smoothly whilst at the same time being a fantastic home laptop which copes marvellously with all types of media.
The TouchSmart functionality which works across the installed HP software makes browsing music and video libraries a breeze, the LED display much clearer than my last LCD latpop not to mention running a much lower temperature. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the laptop itself, which runs it's fan constantly which has earnt me a lot of personal space in lectures!

Good Points:
- Touch screen runs smoothly across the system
- The laptop runs the excellent Windows 7 smoothly and without much hang
- Rotating the screen in tablet mode using the hot button at the edge of the screen to portrait gives allows notes to be taken with Microsoft Office's brilliant OneNote 2007 as though on an A4 page making note taking in lectures and seminars a doddle
- Screen is sensitive and precise enough to allow freehand drawing of diagrams which are as concise as on paper
- The handwriting to text software is fantastic; it is worth spending half an hour training the software to recognise your handwriting. It sometimes amazes me to see it converting some of my worst scrawlings into the correct words!
- I cannot recommend OneNote 2007 enough for students, I promise it totally eliminates that growing mountain of unfiled handouts and notes which gather under your bed!

Bad Points:
- Despite Windows 7 being in my opinion the best and most reliable Windows OS yet, Hewlett-Packard in their infinite wisdom felt the need to install a mountain of useless bloatware which is well worth uninstalling; the wireless manager, assistant and advisor tools are all pointless and were causing some conflicts for me from the off, not to mention making startup sluggish and bombarding me with endless notifications!
- If you use Opera as a web browser the fingerprint reading software refuses to recognise login screens on a lot of sites
- Fan runs constantly
- Viewing the screen portrait in slate mode limits the viewing angle because of the filter
- Combined battery life is nowhere near 12 hours even in power saver mode. Expect 6-8 if used frugallly.

In conclusion, the TX2 is a brilliantly spec'd laptop which is perfect for students... if you can stretch the budget thinly enough to get it!

Nice but Noisy - very

I bought two of these machines, (slightly different model - tx2 1015ea) being impressed by the specification and functionality for the price (I always wanted a touch screen /tablet machine).

Build quality: very good. Sturdy construction ans solid feel.

Performance: very good. Including its ability to play new 3D games at relatively high detail and smoothly e.g. COD MW 2, & Left 4 Dead 2 with reduced graphic quality in both instances but still looking good. Quite a capable ATI graphics card,the HD 3200!

Bundled software & bloat-ware: Poor. One of my major gripes is the bloat-ware, some people might find the additions useful and the touch screen utilities can be very helpful, but there is a huge amount of HP customised software and utilities on this machine, most of which I uninstalled in the first week, quite annoying and they slow the machine down.

Functionality: I don't use the Touch screen ability as much as I thought I would but, I'm glad to have the option available anyway. Presently, I'm happy to comprise screen clarity (as you will) to have this functionality. The Light Scribe DVD layer is decent for movie watching and writing DVDs, although I've yet to use the light-scribe ability itself. The sound system is very good however and this is a big however you'll barely hear it!?

Operational Temperature: Very poor. The machine can run very hot, (too hot to comfortably touch some areas of the chassis although not necessarily the wrist rest. The problem is more apparent under load, playing a 1st person shooter game for example. The knock on effect is the cooling fan will be constantly whirring, and generating a huge amount of noise in overdrive mode (automatic switching). It can be so loud you can hardly hear anything else in the room even the TV. I certainly couldn't use this in a presentation.

Consequently, I returned the nosier of the two machines and updated the BIOS firmware in an attempt to improve the situation on the other one, it didn't! To be fair HP were very good in the support efforts and would have accepted the returned machine and offered a refund if I desired.

The TX2 really is almost perfect! It features multi-touch, Windows 7 and unlike its successor which I could have had (and the TX2 was far harder to find so thanks Amazon!) the TX2 features a DVD-RW drive, an Expansion Connector (type 3) and the cool little remote control. I owned a HP Pavilion DV6285 (one of the first Windows Vista notebooks from HP) before this and my brother owned a TX (from the week it was released) for sometime and I really liked the convergence of a slate PC into a notebook PC to make a convertible tablet. For £800 this is a steal! It really should be priced way higher but isn't. I would defo recommend upgrading to Windows 7 Ultimate or Pro if you get the chance because XP mode is so much use here. The main issues for me however were the fact that they sealed up the S-Video connector, there is no FireWire or HDMI and the graphics card is integrated (unlike the TM2). I am also going to upgrade my wireless card to 11n when I get the chance. I also thought I'd say that I own an XB3000 (which I bought from Amazon as well) for my previous laptop and it works brilliantly with the TX2 as expected.

So out of 10 a 9, and out of 5 I'd give it 4. Mainly for the reasons stated above.