Archive for the ‘HP’ Category

HP has introduced an upgrade to the 2730p Elitebook aptly named the 2740p and featuring Multi-Touch.

The 2740p retains exactly the same form as the 2710p and the 2730p with the welcome addition of a multi-touch capacitive screen and the new Intel i7 processor.

Cheek out the gottabemobile.com review below:

The upcoming HP Tm2 Tablet replaces the long running Tx series, and it is certainly a massive improvement.

There are several major improvements for the TouchSmart Tm2:

• Wacom digitiser pen – better pen experience in general
• Capacitive multi-touch screen
• Intel Core 2 Duo Ultra Low Voltage – Cooler, quieter, better battery life
• Sleek new design – no optical drive cuts down size and weight
• Much better build quality – in line with the HP Envy series
• Dedicated ATI graphics – one of the only Tablets with this feature.

The Tm2 is still sports a glossy screen and is very much aimed at the consumer, but the move to Intel processors and Wacom Digitizers brings the Tm2 closer to the business market.

MobileTechReview.com HP Tm2 Video Reviews – 3 Parts

We’ll let you know as soon as it becomes available.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer introduced a new HP slate Tablet PC at this weeks CES Show in Las Vegas USA. HP have published a little teaser video, but not much more information just yet:

Welcome HP and others back into the real Tablet PC market! This year you will be spoilt for choice in buying a Tablet PC.

The out of the box experience of multi-touch in Windows Vista will be limited to third party software at this stage, but Windows 7 takes multi-touch the whole nine yards.

The following demos from Gizmodo are of the HP TouchSmart desktop PC, but you can expect the same experience from the HP TouchSmart Tx2.

Windows 7 Touch and Multitouch on HP TouchSmart PC from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

As you can see, the multi-touch experience is built into the system from the ground up… it’s even in good ol’ paint.

Multitouch Air Hockey in Windows 7 on a TouchSmart PC from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

Air Hockey on a Tablet PC! Now that will be something special! We’re excited just thinking about the possibilities of multi-digit, multi-hand and multi-user interaction…

There is a lot of buzz in the air at the moment about the new HP Tx2, and I have to say that we are a little caught up in it. Check out the video below from HP to see why…

I’m patiently waiting for our demo machine to arrive (really keen). Once we have it in our hands, we will have a hands on video review for you…

After spedning the last four weeks with the HP2730p Elitebook, it was very hard to let go.

The 2730p is super light, powerful and yet kind on batteries. We got at least for hours of full-on use from each battery cycle. The portable expansion base (with a tiny 7mm thich DVD burner in it) made it all very convenient.

Take a look at our video review here: 

The 2730p ticked all the boxes for us. If you want to know more about the HP 2730p EliteBook, visit our website.

It is only a couple months since we blogged about the future of Tablet PCs and Multi-Touch screens. We predicted 12-18 months before Multi-Touch would hit the market… how wrong we were.

“Multi-Touch” in this context refers to the new generation of capacitive touch screens that can detect multiple points of contact at once. The more commonly found resistive touch screens can only determine one point of contact at a time.

Capacitive touch is the hardware enables those iPhone style functions like:

• Two fingered scrolling
• Pinch zooming
• Two finger tapping
• Swipe style gestures

Unlike resistive touch screens, capacitive touch screen only require a negligible contact pressure to function. That makes capacitive touch much easier to use for finger functions.

There are two Tablet PCs that currently include capacitive touch screens:

• The new HP Tx2
• Dell Latitude XT2

We’ll have more details and video reviews on both models in the near future. Both are now available.

Of course, iPhone style functions require software support and both HP and Dell have enabled this to a certain extent.

The upcoming Windows 7 will also enable much broader support for multi-touch.

Over the last year, TX2500 users from all over the world contacted us with their reviews. For the most part, users praised the Tx2000 series as a great Tablet.

However, on occasions we have heard complaints of excessive heat and fan noise.

Take for example some comments from our Tx2000 post on this blog:

Webmonkey: “Fan noise; seems to vary for no apparent reason, even when idle reading a webpage.”

MEDA CALDERON: “My problem is the fan noise….as i open the laptop the noise at the fan doesn’t stop until i put it off… What should I do?”

Joachim Schneider: “If you’re in a loud environment, it’s a great laptop. The build-in speakers sure can overcome the fan noise. But if you need it quiet, get something else.”

On the other hand, Tablet PC review reported that heat was a problem, but were less scathing about it:

Heat and Noise

The tx2500 does tend to get warm, especially when running benchmarks or working hard. I didn’t notice much heat when browsing the Web or going through emails, but the bottom does get a little warm. When the tablet is running multiple applications or benchmarks the fan kicks on and the heat comes blowing out the vent and it is hot to the touch. This is after a few hours of being on though. I didn’t notice any part of the tablet to be so warm it was uncomfortable though, except for the bottom under extreme working conditions.

I didn’t notice any noise from the tx2500 either. The only time the tablet was noisy was when I ran benchmarks and that is when the fan kicked on high. It was annoying and sounded like a hair dryer. Besides that the fan didn’t kick on much and even when it ran on a low setting it was quiet.

The heat generation on this unit is undoubtedly linked directly to the AMD Turion processor. Whilst it is a great mobile processor, it doesn’t compete with the power saving performance properties of Intel low voltage Centrino Core 2 Duo processors found in higher end Tablet PCs.

In this case, power consumption results in heat generation, and therefore fan noise.

Fortunately HP have published some advice for those who want to keep their TX tablets quiet.

According to HP:

The electrical components in a PC generate heat, and fans inside the PC help move the air to keep the components cooled to normal operating temperatures.

Inadequate cooling can cause excess heat which forces the fan to run constantly, can damage components, and limit the speed of the CPU. All of these problems with high power and high heat will cause applications to work slower than normal.

So, if you want to have a go at cleaning your HP Tx series to keep it running fast and quiet, check out this article on the HP website.

We have 2 landings from HP this month. First is the newly release HP2730p EliteBook. We notice that HP are shying away from calling this a Tablet PC, but it is a very good one!

The good news is that HP Have listened to users in the development of the 2730p. The 2730p looks much like the 2710p, but there are some subtle changes that make a big impact on the experience in use.

There are 2 key changes that we really like with this Tablet:

1. The inclusion of a side jog dial control for scrolling. This was a really awesome feature of the TC1100. We didn’t realise how useful it was until it was gone!
2. The pointing stick mouse has been supplemented with a touch pad.

Nice work on that HP! Check out the video below from the HP product manager.

HP 2730p EliteBook is a great choice for mobile professionals. This Tablet PC is powerful enough to replace your current laptop or desktop and it is ideal for anyone working in an office environment.

Details and specs in our shop…

HP 2730p EliteBook Tablet PC

The HP TC1100 was the carrot that got us into Tablet PCs. In fact, the first Tablet PC that we had was the woeful HP TC1000. It was terribly underpowered with a Transmeta Crusoe Processor. It left a bad taste for many.

Fortunately, HP quickly got their act together and fixed the TC1000 by putting a decent Intel Centrino processor in it. The result was the TC1100, which is still today a very capable and sought after Tablet PC.

What was so good about the HP TC 1100 you might wonder? Well, it was the only Tablet PC to come in a Hybrid form factor. It could be both a convertible tablet (With a keyboard attached) and a slate.

In slate mode, you had a powerful and lightweight portable device weighing just over 1 kg. With the keyboard attached, you had a Tablet PC that also functioned like a laptop. 

Unfortunately HP decided that the TC1100 wasn’t important enough in the scheme of things. They continue to develop Tablet PCs, but have taken the safe road of laptop style convertibles like the HP 2710P.

Enter Motion Computing. To be honest, Motion have been around in Tablet PCs since the very early days. So we may be a little slow in reporting this, but we think that Motion have had an alternative to the TC1100 form factor for quite a while. It’s the LE1700 with convertible keyboard.

We put together the following video to demonstrate the similarities.

To see the Motion LE1700 Tablet PC in more detail, visit the LE1700 page on our online shop.