HP TouchSmart TX2 Multitouch Laptop | LarryLarsen

Ian2
Proud to geek ..

Cool, I picked up a TX2 last year* and have upgraded it to 64 bit Windows 7 - it works like a charm. A couple of weeks ago I dropped it onto a stone floor, I thought it was broken - the lightscribe had been thrown clear, as had the remote, but I put it back together and it carried on as if nothing had happened! GREAT! I'm playing with BumpTop at the moment (great fun), and also using it to develop touch apps (latest is http://FromtheMalverns.com) . I'm hoping that Silverlight 4, when it arrives, will make this kind of stuff a little easier!

* Only 4GB RAM on mine!

Larry, how do I get the upgraded Windows 7 application suite that you mention?

figuerres
???

Yeah, my unit arrived Monday morning. Next week I will take it to the local microsoft "Loadfest" to ugrade it to Windows 7!

I wanted to pick options so it took 2 weeks for it to be built in china and then shipped to me.

the shipping was kind of a pain... I got 2 day shipping and at one point it looked like it was going to be 5-6 days but then monday it got to me on the 3rd day.

got most of the "badges" off ok but one of them left nasty glue I am trying to remove w/o messing up the finish.

nice system so far.... learning how to write long hand -- hardly done that for years.

Microsoft / HP perhaps a tool / game / utility might be added to help folks practice writing cursive?

like how we used to see "typing tutor" games in years gone by....

"writing tutor" or "pen tutor" ??

LarryLarsen
A new world man putting the new world in order.

In reply to Ian2

#Oct 13th @ 9:57 PM

That's a good question, I'm trying to find that out myself. I'm going to try calling tech support in a few weeks and being very nice.

LarryLarsen
A new world man putting the new world in order.

In reply to figuerres

#Oct 13th @ 10:36 PM

Yeah, I had the same problem. I ended up using some Goo Gone to get it off. Didn't hurt the finish on mine at all. I should probably mention the things I don't like about the laptop for full disclosure. As Ian2 mentioned, you don't want to drop it. It feels like the plastic would be brittle, so you want to be a little more careful with it than your average laptop. The plus side to that is that it is very lightweight. My biggest pet peeve is that the mouse buttons are a little small for my tastes. And finally, I'd like a better utility to toggle on/off touch functions. If you're going to sit down and paint in Art Rage, you don't want touch enabled because when you rest your hand on the screen it will draw things where you touch. So when going nuts with a pen I want a better/faster way of turning off touch and turning it back on when done. An enterprising coder should be able to fix that one in an afternoon though. Wink

dentaku

Oh, so the screen is good enough to use painting software like Art Rage with the pen.

Did I see a Wacom logo on the laptop?

figuerres
???

In reply to LarryLarsen

#Oct 14th @ 12:37 AM

interesting... my pet peeves with new pc's in general are the Norton they load.

in fact you can't even close the activation form w/o having them open a web page asking why you don't like them!

I removed them and load the MSFT security addon Smiley

Droping - yeah I was amazed when Ian siad his survived .... I am not about to test mine that way Expressionless

the writing / printing recognition is amazing! I had heard that is was really good but now I am practicing my skills and getting used to what works and what letters i need to work on.

I do not think I am skilled enough to write the app but I can see a great use for the tablet in teaching penmanship to young folks and offering refresher courses to not-so-young folks who wan to write better for any reason.

from the first time I saw pen / stylus input I have felt that that should become more mainstream.

that plus multitouch IMHO are things that should be as common as the keyboard and mouse are today.

each has it's strong areas... and can becomplimentary to the others in some cases.

figuerres
???

In reply to dentaku

#Oct 14th @ 5:05 AM

as far as i can tell the tx2z does not use Wacom, i have not seen them in the drivers etc...

as far as i can tell the pen is *VERY* accurate.

figuerres
???

In reply to Peace

#Oct 14th @ 7:37 AM

to be honest i would expcect to pay more like $1,000.00 US unless you really strip it down to the bare bones. or get a deal from a store on clearance or a sale.

i think the top end price with all the options will be below $2,000.00 US or right at that.

my build was about $1,300.00 after the hp store discount of $200.00

that was with several options, finger print, wireless n, 320 gig 7200 rpm drive, 8gigs of ram and the cpu is one of the large cache ones in the list. oh and the large battery.

the large battery is a bit bulky, i will get the std battery in a few weeks and then i have the small one for carry around use and the large one for when i need more runtime.

BSalita

I agree with Amazon and other review sites, both user and pro reviewers. TX2 is not a slick product. I defintely don't recommend buying one especially at this time. It is way compromised and there's better options announced. Read the reviews.

I've used a TX2-1020US for about a year. I bought thinking I would develop touch apps. Instead, I'm really turned off due to TX2 design choices and impracticality of convertibles. Convertibles can be ok for OEM applications or development. I just can't see much uptake in today's designs.

I do like multi-touch tablets and multi-touch touchpads. They definitely have good usability.

The video presentation is too marketing oriented. I don't think Channel9 should be presenting 3rd party product pitches on mediocre products.