A new tablet PC

These days I’ve been playing with a new toy: HP Pavilion tx1316au Tablet PC!

 

My original plan was to get rid of my old Toshiba Tecra 9100 (model PT910L-004HU), who had been a great companion when I studied in Singapore. It was a gift from my aunties that also showed their supports to my undertaking. When I bought it in 2002, it was the best model available in the market at that time, at the student’s price of around S$3,200. The Tecra 9100 was not sold in my home country Indonesia, a Toshiba sales officer in Jakarta said when I asked about purchasing an extended warranty.

Last year after I downloaded a series of updates from Microsoft website, the laptop suddenly lost its sound. I tried to reinstall the driver, got the computer experts to check on the volume control, the device manager – where it said no sound and audio devices were detected although the driver was listed – and the BIOS but to no avail. Finally I read in some online computer forums that the weak sound connector was Tecra 9100’s major shortcoming. I wished I knew it long long time ago… The Wi-Fi was not working too. Apparently, I was not alone the only Tecra owner who get this problem.

I tried painstakingly to find the online customer service on Toshiba website but this function is strangely not functioning. I sent emails several times to their PC Support address in Singapore but I never receive any response, not even one that says ”We cannot deliver your message … the address is not listed anywhere…”. I called the Toshiba service center in KL but they only opened during the weekdays and I am not available on the days. Sigh. So I took the PC to a regular computer shop offering repair service and after two weeks they gave up. I am not a techie but as I understand it, they said they had to change the audio chip but they did not want to do it because the chip was located on the same board with other important chips. The same computer shop owner finally agreed to buy my old Tecra for RM500, saying “it’s a good machine …” but he said he would pay RM1,000 if the notebook worked properly. Whatever.

Defying all these troubles, I still plan to buy a Toshiba – the ultraportable Portege model. But while we were strolling around Low Yat Plaza, an IT center in Kuala Lumpur, a couple of weeks ago, we found this interesting machine, the HP Pavilion Tablet PC. I was quite confused at that time as to which laptop I should buy or whether I needed a new notebook; it was him who mentioned about the Tablet PC. He was attracted to its touch screen. And we saw a demo at another shop where the sales rep rotated the screen of the Tablet PC so we could read like a book. He fell in love in an instance with this machine because he said he could read newspapers in various position, unlike on a normal laptop. Of course I didn’t see it like that until later. And anyway, I’ve got a good experience with HP service in the past with my HP Pocket PC, so I decided to give it a try.

I bought the tablet PC from an authorized reseller at a slightly lower price than the other computer shops offered, and got these extras: an HP carrying case, an optical mouse, the RAM upgrade from 1 GB to 2 GB and a notebook cooling pad. The last item was new to me — but I knew that laptop heat up fast so this pad might be helpful. I later used the Tablet PC with the cooling pad on my lap and thankfully no single inch of my skin was burned. But on the right side of the tablet PC we could feel the heat blown out through the vent.

The Windows Vista has a fresh and clean look, but the look itself drains the power. The battery lasted for about two hours of non-stop Internet browsing and I wished it could last longer for extensive mobile use. I like the Windows sidebar where we can put lots of gadgets including the RSS feed. The graphic is reasonable but the laptop sometimes freeze or become slower when I ran several programs at the same time.

The weigh is my main consideration when purchasing a notebook. This laptop weighs at less than 2 kilograms as advertised but it could be lighter when the optical disc drive and the batteries are removed. With a lightweight machine, reading and writing are more fun as well as full of surprise. The wireless network devices (can also use WWAN and WLAN Mini Cards) enables us to connect from any wireless internet points.

Unfortunately, Microsoft does not provide the Office application for free. A 60-day trial version of Office 2007 is pre-installed and then you have to buy the Office application for future use. We bought the Office 2007 for Home and Students which include the Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote in one package. I thought it is good enough to do regular office works and presentation and of course, to write. This application is only valid for 3 homeusers.

Specifications: 

• Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor TK-55 1.80 GHz
• OS: Windows Vista Home Premium (pre-installed)
• Standard memory: 1024 MB DDR2 667 MHz
• Hard Disk Drive: 150 GB SATA
• Optical Disc Drive (detachable): Lightscribe Super Multi DVD-RW
• Memory card slot: 5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Readers
• Modem: High speed 56K modem
• Network interface: Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN
• Wireless technology: 802.11 a/b/g WLAN
• Infrared and Bluetooth wireless networking
• External I/O ports: 3 USB 2.0 ports, 1 BGA port, 1 RJ11 modem connector, 1 RJ45 ethernet connector, S-video TV out, Expansion Port 3, Stereo Headphone out, Integrated Stereo microphones, Microphone in, Audio-out (headphone) S/PDIF jack, External monitor port, Integrated fingerprint reader, security cable slot, external WWAN antenna connector
• Expansion slots: One ExpressCard/34 slot
• Display size: 12.1 WXGA High-Definition HP Bright View Widescreen Display with Inegrated Pen Input optimized
• Display resolution: 1280×800
• Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150
• Control Panel: HP QuickPlay media player software and menu controls, music and DVD buttons.
• Remote control: HP Mini Remote Control
• Internal audio: 3D Sound Blaster Pro compatible sound 16 bit integrated
• Speakers and microphone: Altec Lansing speakers
• Keyboard: 101 keys
• Pointing device: Touch Pad with on/off button and dedicated vertical scroll up/down pad, volume control, mute buttons, 3 Quick Launch buttons, touch screen (selected models only)
• Power supply type: 65 W AC Power Adapter
• Webcam: HP Pavilion WebCam with integrated microphone
• 1-year International Warranty