June 29, 2009 8:28 AM

First, Its really not that bad. Part of the problem is that it was a tablet pc marketed as an entertainment PC, the general public just hadn't grasped the concept of tablet PC's as opposed to the business community.
It's packed with lots of very good features such as the active digitizer (pen) and the multitouch (finger) digitizer, which are at present only available in one other tablet, the very similar Dell XT.
There have been some problems with driver issues based on the touch digitizer from n-trig and n-trig has been slow to respond.
It has however, recieved accolades from the majority of the technology community and was rated very high by several publications in their reviews and was also picked as "TabletPC of the Year".
The screen issue is a matter of preference. Tablet PC's generally have grainy screens which makes them useable in most lighting conditions and cuts down on finger and palm prints. Most multimedia PC's use te more glossy "Brightview" screens which make watching movies a better experience. However, some got one type of screen while others got the other type of screen and that caused some unhappiness.
Fan noise also seems to be an issue but I have owned many tablets (more than 7) and its fan noise from what I have heard is average. I compare it to my very quiet Fujitsu and my very loud Gateway CX. My TX2500 (same platform, differnt digitizer) performs quite well and runs both Windows Vista and Windows7 very nicely.
Build quality is about what you would get form a consumer grade laptop. The plastic is a bit different than the business class and I'm sure it wouldn't survive a drop like a business class machine would. But quality and feel are good. I really like the keyboard a lot too and the touchpad is by far the best I've ever used.

If you are looking to get one, they are coming way down in price. I got an email today from ecost.com that had a nicely equipped one for 667.00. Thats about what I paid for my single touch TX2500.

David

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l299/xz550rj/HPMagicGiveaway.jpg

Woohoo! I won my Touchsmart!

June 29, 2009 5:44 PM

as for your specific questions.

The laptop does get rather hot, but not a lot more than most laptops. (macbook ect.)

The screen looks at first like it's damp, but I stopped noticing it really quickly and it doesn't bother me. I also have no problems using it outside on a sunny day so the screen is pretty good.

my main problems with it are...

many of the drivers are just unavailable or very tricky to get.

the "multi-touch" capability is a joke. there are 3 gestures that you can do with this. zoom in-out and rotate a picture. Thats it. nothing else don't get the idea that you can run multi-touch software at all.

The preloaded software is slow and filled to the brim with bloatware, and you must pay for a physical recovery disk. $15

and for me this computer will not just simply work. every day i have frustrating problems. today the USB ports have quit working and the trackpad scroller has been unresponsive for about a week. programs (including windows explorer) freeze on a regular basis. and i have had to re-install windows 5 times on this machine. I have owned it for 3 months.

the battery (4-cell) lasts about 2 hours, and takes atleast 4 hours to fully charge. therefore it is best used plugged in.

As a laptop and a tablet it's decent. if i had the choice again i would have bought a different laptop.

ΦΔΘ 143,OR ε

June 30, 2009 3:44 PM

Just received my tx2z two weeks ago. So far i love it, it is an amazing and beautiful machine. It gets hot but not extremely hot. I've owned a Toshiba for like 4-5 years (don't remember)and that machine got hot. The screen for the tx2z is not grainy or glossy. I believe mine is a matte and it looks fine to me. I had purchased an anti-glare photodon screen protector for it and you can't even tell it's on the screen! I'm running 64 bit, 4gb, RM-84, 320 GB, 8-cell battery. The only thing that kind of bugs me is the battery life. It's not superb. Maybe because with my blackberry I don't need to charge it for like two days and the battery is still great from running all kinds of apps and surfing the web. With my tx2z pen or touch input response does not lag. I'm really happy with this purchase, I had only spend about $850 from two coupons (15% and then 10% off) for the laptop.. maybe less, because I had got laptop case, and extra ac-adapter.

July 13, 2009 12:34 PM

Out of the box, my TX2-1270us was pretty disappointing. Luckily, I installed windows 7... now it rocks my socks.

It's the HP bloatware. It's horrible. I'm still debating if I want to install the touchsmart software, I'm pretty happy with the windows 7 install. I've had mine for almost a week and I love it! Currently, I'm trying to find an elegant way to play mkv files in MCE. It's a trivial issue and I'll probably resolve it once I get home.

HP must've been smoking some amazing crack when they decided to load up the Tx2 with all that bloatware!

July 21, 2009 5:25 AM

When I'm in a lecture university and don't want the fan to make noise I switch to a energy plan that sets minimum prozessor energy at 2% and maximum prozessor energy at 20%.
While it makes the system slower it also removes the noise.

When I do something that needs performance I just switch back.

July 23, 2009 12:07 AM

Digikid said: What is a prozessor? You mean processor. Lol

Ohhhh he made a mistake. How funny. Become a man kid. By the way in German a processor is called a "Prozessor".

January 9, 2010 11:37 AM

Petition for N-trig support on Linux: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ntrig-on-linux/