HP Pavilion tx2000

Hewlett Packard Pavilion tx 2000

I have had this little laptop for over a year now. I feel it was quite expensive compared to what is available now; I think I paid about £600 from Staples for the laptop and three year warranty. It is not exactly a net book but it is a small laptop. The screen size is 12.5” diagonally and the keyboard is a decent size with a laptop type mouse pad in the middle front. I have weighed this (very important when travelling) and it weighs just under 2kg with one battery and just over that with the larger battery. The CD drive is also removable and can be replaced with an empty plastic cover which also reduces weight when travelling. It is small, neat, shiny black with rounded corners and silver keyboard. The screen swivels round completely and will lie flat as a tablet style over the keyboard.

TABLET AND STYLUS:

When the screen is in tablet form you use the pen and tablet input keyboard or the writing pad which recognises letters as you write them and then you click to add them to a standard document such as ‘word’ that you are using. It is very simple to use but complicated to explain. I find it quite cumbersome to write with the pen but do use it occasionally when in tight places – on a plane or train usually. The pen/stylus fits in neatly into a slot on the right hand side of the machine and it is also on affixed string so you can’t lose it easily. I thought this would be useful than it has been but it may be my uselessness again at the writing/using stylus thing

FINGER PRINT READER:

On the right of the screen is a finger print reader. I got very excited by this when i first got the machine but after about 500 tries at having the scanner read my print and failing miserably. I believe you have to have 10 correct readings before it can accept the scan and I was useless – failed at least 8 out of 10 times and so I could not use this function. I don’t believe i am that hopeless so i feel it is a fault with the scanning facility – so a bit of a waste of time really. I thought it would be a pad that read it but it is a strange metal reader that you have to pull your finger over at a very specific speed and pressure. Total waste of time in my case as i couldn’t achieve the correct number of decent scans!!

REMOTE:

There is a remote for using when watching a film but I never watch anything on the screen as it is rather a small screen to watch a full length feature on and certainly too small for my husband and I to both see.

BATTERIES:

The laptop comes with two batteries. One small one only lasts about 2 hours on full power. It lasts a little longer on power saver but I find it strains my eyes if I use it too long in this mode. There are three modes – High performance, balanced and power saver. The balanced is okay but the power saver makes the screen very difficult to see in dull lights. The larger battery sticks out with a lump on the back and tilts the laptop forward, the smaller one fits flush. The larger battery doeslast about twice as long but again this depends on which mode you are running the laptop. They are really easy to swap around with a couple of catches on the bottom on either side of the battery and it takes a couple of seconds only.

THE SCREEN:

Because the screen is a touch screen it has quite a thick cover which makes it really hard to see if there is ANY sunlight on it at all. I certainly can’t use it outside if it is a nice sunny day. In Crete I had to sit inside not on the veranda which was a bit miserable as I wanted to enjoy the sunshine with the laptop under a sun umbrella but that was not possible; I couldn’t even tell if the laptop was one when it was in the sunlight.
You can however use the screen as a touch screen when the laptop is open but bizarrely not when it is in tablet form for games like solitaire and then it when I probably would want to use it most.

VITAL STATISTICS:

My laptop measures 22.40 cm width x 30.60 cm depth and weighs in at a surprisingly heavy ( when you are carrying it in planes etc) 1.95Kg. So at the moment I am reading lots of reviews about mini notebooks to try and find one that will travel more easily but still offer me the same sort of experience of use that I enjoy with this laptop which I do really enjoy using.

SOFTWARE READY INSTALLED:

Adobe Acrobat Reader

HP Games - useless – you have to pay for most if you want to play longer than two games

HP Help & Support Center, HP Easy Setup, HP Photosmart Essential,
HP QuickPlay Windows 3.6, HP Software Update
Macromedia Flash Player,

Muvee AutoProducer Basic Edition (with 20 day trial full version) – not really looked in to this at all

Symantec™ .

Norton Internet Security 2008 consumer (60days live updates) – this I never installed although it was available as it was hells own job to get it off our previous laptops when we no longer wanted it
Norton AntiVirus Definition Files Update – same with this – did not agree to the installation

Cyberlink DVD Suite, Sun Java VM, Symantec™, User Guide Documentation, HP Wireless Assistant,

Microsoft® Works, Office Trial: Microsoft® Office 2007 Home/Student (60 day Trial), Office Ready: Microsoft® Office 2007 Pro (60 day Trial) - Annoyingly after the trial period I tried to install the office suite we already had and it would not install as it was not compatible so I had to pay some huge amount of money - well over £100 if I remember to get the full version of this despite having two copies of a previous edition of office with certificates and everything. This I did find a bit annoying and probably if I had a bit more computer savvy I could have altered something but being of limited technical ability I paid for the upgrade just so that I could use the office suite and access the stuff I had already saved ( mainly my South American trip diary)

SOUND AND PICTURE QUALITY:

I have no problems at all with the sound it is loud and clear and for the most part when travelling I keep the sound off as I do not want to disturb fellow travellers. I have watched BBC iplayer programmes and occasionally films on DVD but not often as we have a large computer at home and when travelling I am usually too busy to watch films. I do have a lot of music saved on my hard drive to enjoy while working/writing/playing on the laptop and this plays really clearly through the integrated speaker system.

When we are travelling I upload our photos on a daily basis and label as many as I can and there are a few thousand still on there and it is not causing any slow down as there is such a huge 250GB drive.

INTERNET AND WIRELESS:

I have never had a problem accessing wi fi when travelling so long as wi fi is available. I have had to pay huge sums for it sometimes but that is not the fault of the laptop. In some hotels you have to use a wired connection so I carry a cable and just connect with that and again I have never had a problem. The webcam is another little feature that I have no real need for but my boys have tried it and seemed quite thrilled with the way it worked. Personally I do not want people seeing me in my pyjamas ,with a green face pack on and hair in a towel on the webcam I prefer to remain invisible and keep everyone under the impression that I am young and gorgeous.

OTHER FEATURES:

I do not make use of a lot of the other features such as the muvee programme so cannot comment on these features.
Next are the technical details please feel free to skip over these if you are not looking to purchase one of these yourself! These are the sorts of things you only need to study prior to a purchase for comparison and so on.

INSTRUCTION MANUAL AND SUPPORT:

I found everything really easy I jut followed on screen instructions after the initial simple start up paper ones. I have not really needed any support. I made three restore discs as instructed should I ever need to do a full restore to factory settings but touch wood I have not needed any . It has sometimes sorted itself out from 'fatal errors' but again I just let ot get on with it and it memded itself.

I have a paid version of Macafee and run CCleaner also and I' careful with opening emails etc but so far I have not had a ny need to get support from hp or Staples.

Interestingly Staples say bring the laptop in to the store whereas PC world insisted on collection from home or work which sounds great until you realise that you have to be there in person for pickup and return and they do not tell you when they are returning so we have missed them several times. Then you have the expensive phone calls to organise collection etc so I prefer the take it back to store option. vcollect

SPECIFICATIONS: - The Technical stuff

This part is not mine and taken from the handbook

“Processor, operating system and memory
Operating system installed : windows Vista® Home Premium
Processor type: AMD Turion™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-60
• 2.0 GHz, 512 KB + 512 KB L2 Cache, Up to 1600 MHz system bus running at AC/DC mode 35 Watt
Standard memory : 3072 MB
Memory type :DDR2 667 MHz
Memory layout; (1 x 1024 MB + 1 x 2048 MB)
Maximum memory: Supports up to 4GB DDR2 memory (Dual Channel Memory Support; For 4 GB memory configuration, up to 1 GB may not be available with 32-bit operating systems due to system resource requirements)
System features
Internal drives :250 GB
Hard disk drive speed :5400 rpm
Optical drive type : LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD±RW with Double Layer Support
Lightscribe :Lightscribe included
Display size : 12.1” WXGA High-Definition HP Brightview Wide with Digitizer Touchscreen Display
Display resolution : 1280 x 800
Graphic subsystem name :NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 6150
Video RAM : Up to 527MB Total Available Graphics Memory
External I/O ports : 3 USB 2.0, 1 VGA port, 1 RJ11 modem connector, 1 RJ45 ethernet connector, S-video TV out, Expansion Port 3, 2 headphones-out one w/ SPDIF out, 1 microphone in, 2 Consumer IR, integrated stereo microphones, integrated fingerprint reader, AC adapter
Expansion slots : One ExpressCard/34 slot
Speakers and microphone : Altec Lansing® speakers
Webcam : HP Pavilion WebCam with Integrated Microphone
Network interface : Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN
Modem : High speed 56K modem
Wireless technologies ; 802.11a/b/g WLAN”
Back to my writing again....

CONCLUSION AND SUMMARY:

I really love this little laptop and find it serves all my needs with regard to photo storage and editing, writing reviews, using the internet and listening to music. I am not into games much although I enjoy brain games, mah-jong and solitaire and the like but this does not require huge capabilities from a machine. I do like the fact that I can jump between internet sites easily and search quickly and this machine is wonderful for that. My only wish is that it was a little lighter. The size if fine but it is a little heavy for travelling – perfect for using round the house in different rooms or for taking in the car around the UK but when your hand luggage is weighed then 2kg plus the power lead as extra can be a large part of your luggage weight allowance.

Thank you for reading and hopefully this will be useful to someone looking for a high spec but small laptop. This may be posted by me on other sites under my name.

© Catsholiday