HP is trying something new -- on one hand the TX1020ea is a Tablet PC, and on the other it's a Media Center laptop. Does this juxtaposition of business-like touchscreen and home-use Media Center work, or is it the digital equivalent of the chocolate hot-air balloon?
Design
The TX1020ea is a nice-looking unit. The silver highlights and glossy black lid are somewhat cliched (and prone to picking up smudges), but you won't be ashamed to use it in public. Our only gripe is that the tight-fitting keyboard and assorted shortcut buttons that litter the screen edge give it a slightly cluttered look.
It may be small, but it's pretty heavy. The chassis and battery clock in at 2.55kg, which is what we'd expect of 14- or even 15-inch laptops. We attribute this to the heavy hinge mechanism that transforms it from standard laptop mode to tablet mode.
The hinge allows the screen to be rotated through 180 degrees and placed, facing upwards, against the keyboard. You can then use it as a sort of digital notepad, controlling the software with the stylus or your fingers. Unlike lesser laptops of this sort, the screen doesn't feel as if it's going to fall apart in your hands and there's a locking mechanism to prevent it from flying open.
Unless you're showing off to your mates, most of you will be using the TX1020ea in the standard laptop mode. Here, we found the mouse trackpad to be of the highest calibre -- its mottled swiss-cheese-style surface feels good to the touch and it's highly responsive without being too sensitive.
Features
Rather than use an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, HP has given the nod to the less trendy AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-50 chip, clocked at 1.6GHz. It's a dual-core processor, so you needn't worry -- it's not as slow as its modest clock speed suggests. The CPU is backed by 1GB of RAM, although the Nvidia GeForce Go 6150 graphics card borrows 128MB of this for its own use. You may want to make use of Vista's ReadyBoost feature or things will get sluggish in memory-intensive applications.
The 120GB Fujitsu hard drive is something of a slap in the face. It's fine for business users and anyone who doesn't intend to hoard media files, but it's too small for a multimedia laptop. Spend any significant amount of time on file-sharing networks and you'll run out of room quicker than you can say, "Who's got the next series of Lost?" DVD playback and recording is made possible thanks to the LightScribe-capable LG GSA-4084n optical drive.
Unsurprisingly, the TX1020ea doesn't have a TV tuner card. You can add one yourself, and control the whole shebang via the bundled HP Media Center remote. It may be a tad difficult to see what's on the screen from a distance, but it's possible to connect the laptop to a larger screen, via the D-Sub or S-Video ports on the right side.
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