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HP’s Pavilion-alike Touchsmart tx2z has been thoroughly groped by Laptop Mag, with the sticky-fingered results (above) posted for our voyeuristic pleasure. The $1300 tx2z is HP’s first consumer level tablet notebook and features an AMD Turion X2 processor (hence the name) and a variety of custom finishes.
But the important part is the screen, a 12″ capacitive swiveller. The capacitive screen, like that of the iPhone, allows multi touch gestures, and the swivelling hinge means that those gestures might actually be useful as you don’t need to hold your arms out straight to use it.
So, how does it fare? According to reviewer Joanna Stern, the touch works great, but is still limited by drivers. The advantage of the iPhone is that it was conceived from the beginning to be controlled by touching the screen. Any PC maker needs to hack together custom controls for any existing applications that aren’t built with touch support. So, swiping up and down works fine for scrolling web pages (despite a spotty Wi-Fi connection), and “double tapping the screen and then drawing the letter M, brings up the multimedia touch panel”.
The conclusion? Promising, but flawed. There’s one oddity to Sterns’ review which makes us think that the Laptop Mag folks have access to some secret, thought control tech:
Since the debut of the Apple iPhone, people want to use their fingers to control their technology
Just what have they been using up ’til now, Joanna?
Hands-On With the HP TouchSmart tx2z [Laptop Mag. thanks, Avram!]
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