As the 2008 - 2009 school year approaches you’ll probably find yourself shopping around for a notebook and having one that functions as a Tablet PC is certainly an added bonus and well worth considering. The Pavilion tx2500 is actually no more than an update to the Pavilion tx line that HP introduced a couple of years ago. The tx1000 and tx2000 proceeded the tx2500 and the design has stayed pretty much the same (notable is that the tx2000 added Wacom pen technology whereas the tx1000 was touch screen only), what’s new and notable with the tx2500 is an AMD platform called Puma and an updated graphics card chipset from ATI that boosts 3D performance.
Specifications of tx2500z under review:The HP tx2500z covered here was ordered direct from HP and has the following specs:
- Processor: AMD Turion X2 Ultra dual-core Mobile ZM-86 2.40GHz
- Screen: 12.1″ diagonal WXGA HP BrightView widescreen (1280 x 800)
- Memory: 3.00GB DDR2 RAM
- OS: Windows Vista Business 32-bit
- Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 3200
- Ports: Three USB 2.0 ports, an ExpressCard/34 slot, S-Video, VGA, Consumer IR, 5-in-1 digital media card reader, Microphone, 2-headphone ports (1-SPDIF), Modem port, Ethernet port
- Wireless: 802.11 a/b/g/n , BlueTooth
- HP Imprint Finish (Echo)
- Battery: 6-cell
- Microphone + Webcam
- FingerPrint Reader
- Input: Keyboard (101-keys), touchpad with on/off button, touch-screen display and Wacom active input
The benefits of having a portable computer at school are obvious — you can take your laptop to class, the library, the student union, school yard or wherever you study or do work and be able to write notes, email and do research wirelessly. Most school campus’ these days are blanketed with hotspots. I’d say it’s almost a necessity for a student to be taking a laptop to college, and many schools in fact require them.
The one major drawback of using a laptop in class to take notes instead of a regular old pencil and paper is of course the fact it’s impossible to copy down certain items such as chemical formulas, graphs, math symbols, venn diagrams and so on. With a Tablet PC this limitation is overcome because you can simply draw on the screen in the same way you would draw and diagram with a regular pen and paper. Using applications such as Microsoft OneNote it is very easy to organize class notes and either type input or use the pen to write on the screen.
The input technology used in the tx2500z is powered by underlying software from the company Wacom. Wacom has years of experience and various patents related to electronic pen input technology. The pen input is so accurate and sensitive that it actually has 256 levels of pressure-sensitivity. Most people that use a Tablet PC for the first time these days are surprised at just how responsive the pen and screen is for writing.
There are several applications out there for the Tablet PC platform that can enhance the experience of using a Tablet. PDF Annotator, EverNote, drawing applications are some that come to mind. Specific markets such as medicine, industrial engineering and law have niche software products as well. As a student you’ll probably find that Microsoft OneNote or EverNote are important applications since they’re both geared towards taking and organizing notes.
Processor and Performance of tx2500z
With the updated AMD platform performance gets a boost. The AMD Puma is a dual-core 64-bit capable chip. HP offers a 2.0 GHz, 2.1GHz and 2.2 GHz processor — the notebook under review actually has an AMD ZM-86 2.4 GHz processor and it seems HP has since removed that processor selection from its site. While performance certainly is good with this fast clocked 2.4GHz dual core AMD, the heat it generates is not a worthwhile trade-off. Frankly, I’d be happier with a low voltage Intel Core 2 Duo processor. For my needs, a fast processor doesn’t buy me much performance gain in things such as blogging, surfing, researching or doing work. I don’t game at all so the ATI HD3200 graphics processor is not much of a gain. Where the improved graphics performance of the HD3200 will help is for students in disciplines such as engineering that need to render 3D CAD models. The ATI HD3200 is on par with about an Nvidia 8400 graphics card in terms of performance, so light gaming is even quite possible.
See full review>>
The one major drawback of using a laptop in class to take notes instead of a regular old pencil and paper is of course the fact it’s impossible to copy down certain items such as chemical formulas, graphs, math symbols, venn diagrams and so on. With a Tablet PC this limitation is overcome because you can simply draw on the screen in the same way you would draw and diagram with a regular pen and paper. Using applications such as Microsoft OneNote it is very easy to organize class notes and either type input or use the pen to write on the screen.
The input technology used in the tx2500z is powered by underlying software from the company Wacom. Wacom has years of experience and various patents related to electronic pen input technology. The pen input is so accurate and sensitive that it actually has 256 levels of pressure-sensitivity. Most people that use a Tablet PC for the first time these days are surprised at just how responsive the pen and screen is for writing.
There are several applications out there for the Tablet PC platform that can enhance the experience of using a Tablet. PDF Annotator, EverNote, drawing applications are some that come to mind. Specific markets such as medicine, industrial engineering and law have niche software products as well. As a student you’ll probably find that Microsoft OneNote or EverNote are important applications since they’re both geared towards taking and organizing notes.
Processor and Performance of tx2500z
With the updated AMD platform performance gets a boost. The AMD Puma is a dual-core 64-bit capable chip. HP offers a 2.0 GHz, 2.1GHz and 2.2 GHz processor — the notebook under review actually has an AMD ZM-86 2.4 GHz processor and it seems HP has since removed that processor selection from its site. While performance certainly is good with this fast clocked 2.4GHz dual core AMD, the heat it generates is not a worthwhile trade-off. Frankly, I’d be happier with a low voltage Intel Core 2 Duo processor. For my needs, a fast processor doesn’t buy me much performance gain in things such as blogging, surfing, researching or doing work. I don’t game at all so the ATI HD3200 graphics processor is not much of a gain. Where the improved graphics performance of the HD3200 will help is for students in disciplines such as engineering that need to render 3D CAD models. The ATI HD3200 is on par with about an Nvidia 8400 graphics card in terms of performance, so light gaming is even quite possible.
See full review>>
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