tm2 Review: Tablet PC 3.0

H

heatlesssun

Extremely [H]
Joined
Nov 5, 2005
Messages
44,154
I just got this beauty in yesterday and all I can say is WOW. I'm working on a full review but since this is [H] I'll be going a pretty extensive gaming review.

For a what is essentially an ultra-portable (it is a bit heavier than a true ultra-portable machine at around 4.5 lbs) it has decent gaming abilities if you go with the SU9600 CPU and HD 4550 GPU. I'm downloading BioShock 2 now and will be posting results this evening but having tried out Portal and Serious Sam HD its looking good so far. This puppy can MAX out Portal at its native resolution of 1280x800 and its basically buttery smooth.

More to come on this remarkable machine...
 
oh wow that sounds soooo awesome. cant wait for your review and for my tm2 to arrive.
 
I'm really interested in the wacom dual digitizer. How does it compare to n-trig found in HP TX2 or Dell XT and XT2.
 
Don't skimp on the rest of the laptop in the review; there's many items that are also critical in choosing laptops that you absolutely need to cover.

Battery life and heat, particularly.

Also, tell us if you can manage to play games like Civ4 on it with just a touchscreen.
 
Leman said:
Don't skimp on the rest of the laptop in the review; there's many items that are also critical in choosing laptops that you absolutely need to cover.

Battery life and heat, particularly.

Also, tell us if you can manage to play games like Civ4 on it with just a touchscreen.
Click to expand...

I just installed Civ4 on my TX2 a couple of days ago. I'll let you know how it plays via touch when I get around to playing it.
 
This thing can actually get playable performance out of every new release I've tried except Dirt 2 thus far.

So far that includes:

Mass Effect 2
BioShock 2
Modern Warfare 2
Serious Sam 2
Source games seem to rock!

Working on the review this weekend and hope to have a video play through demo by Sunday. I played ME2 on it for hour yesterday and enjoyed the game, plays around 25 FPS. Some people would dispute that is playable but for ME2 I think that overall performance was fine. It would hit mid-teens sometimes but most of the time is was in the upper 20's hitting the high 30's in places. So no not perfectly smooth. But for what is essentially an low power ultra portable I was impressed.
 
I'm looking forward to your review! I'm especially interested in the screen - is it extremely glossy?
 
SockMan! said:
I'm looking forward to your review! I'm especially interested in the screen - is it extremely glossy?
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Interesting that you mentioned that because I was going thorough my list of strengths and weaknesses and the screen is probably the weakest part of this unit. It is very glossy and it reflects a lot of light and the viewing angles are fine for a conventional laptop but not so great for a convertible tablet.

So is the screen bad? I don't think so. Overall it is better than any other consumer convertible TPC I've owned, the tm2 being the 6th since 2002. But everything else about the unit is OUTSTANDING!

Honestly I'm almost teary eyed over this thing. It really is a remarkable device. Unless you really have a problem with glossy screens there really isn't anything to ding the tm2 on.
 
heatlesssun said:
Interesting that you mentioned that because I was going thorough my list of strengths and weaknesses and the screen is probably the weakest part of this unit. It is very glossy and it reflects a lot of light and the viewing angles are fine for a conventional laptop but not so great for a convertible tablet.

So is the screen bad? I don't think so. Overall it is better than any other consumer convertible TPC I've owned, the tm2 being the 6th since 2002. But everything else about the unit is OUTSTANDING!

Honestly I'm almost teary eyed over this thing. It really is a remarkable device. Unless you really have a problem with glossy screens there really isn't anything to ding the tm2 on.
Click to expand...

too bad these won't be in best buy stores for people to see like the tx2 series, but maybe frys or microcenter will have some.
 
tybert7 said:
too bad these won't be in best buy stores for people to see like the tx2 series, but maybe frys or microcenter will have some.
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All of HP's other consumer tablets have been in retail though it takes a month or two to get them there. This is one thing that has always bothered me about tablet makers and retailers, they just just seem to be interested in getting them out in retail. I mean it can't be that expensive to have a few in the stores. And they ALWAYS sell out.

It would be EASY to double tablet sales with hardly lifting a finger.
 
theprophe said:
Can it play 1080p blu ray movies, or 1080p x264 on an external monitor smoothly?
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Yep, just tested that. Plays my ripped BDs to hard drive, still in original BD quality, know compression or transcoding, just ripped, perfectly on my external 1920x1200 monitor connected via HDMI.

For a device of its size its going to have all the power you need as long as you get the HD 4550 option. I have that and the SU9600 1.6 CULV CPU. Yes, it sounds slow, scores only a 4.8 in WEI. But the HD 4550 is score a 6 in gaming performance. But you have the option of falling back to the Intel IGP to conserver battery power. That's a sweet option.
 
Leman said:
Don't skimp on the rest of the laptop in the review; there's many items that are also critical in choosing laptops that you absolutely need to cover.

Battery life and heat, particularly.

Also, tell us if you can manage to play games like Civ4 on it with just a touchscreen.
Click to expand...

Hi Leman

I tried Civ 4 on my TX2 last night. The game itself runs pretty good on medium. Civ uses a lot of rightclicks though which makes playing it by touchscreen tricky (you can get rightclick by pressing the screen for a second or two).

Still, works good in laptop mode, and you can hit the icons pretty well with your finger (faster than trackpad in some cases). You can use the stylus button as a rightclick so you could prob play with the stylus OK.

I prefer laptop mode most of the time, unless I'm just websurfing my favorite sites/forums, surfing a pdf, or writing with the stylus. IMO standard laptop form factor works better in most situations (especially typing). Wish it had a backlit keyboard.
 
A 12" tablet with dedicated graphics, good battery life, and a price lower than most (if not all) comparable tablets on the market? Sounds like a winner in my book - except for the glossy screen. If it had a matte screen then I'd be ordering one right now.

Anyway, how do you like using it as a tablet? For you, is it a necessary feature or is it just nice to have? I always thought about getting a tablet because they looked cool but I always decided against them since I didn't think they would be good for anything aside from note taking.
 
no internal optical drive and the screen bezel is still gigantic... i suppose the tm2 is more of a proper tablet then the tx2z is, but i dont feel compelled to give up my tx2 for this at all....
 
SockMan! said:
A 12" tablet with dedicated graphics, good battery life, and a price lower than most (if not all) comparable tablets on the market? Sounds like a winner in my book - except for the glossy screen. If it had a matte screen then I'd be ordering one right now.

Anyway, how do you like using it as a tablet? For you, is it a necessary feature or is it just nice to have? I always thought about getting a tablet because they looked cool but I always decided against them since I didn't think they would be good for anything aside from note taking.
Click to expand...

This is my 6th convertible Tablet PC since they were introduced in November 2002 and its the only type of laptop that I buy personally. I use ink all the time and I've been using them as "surfpads" in the bed as well and I like to read and surf in bed to help fall asleep.

The screen is the weakest link in the tm2, but its still better overall than any other consumer TPC I've ever used. What's interesting about the glossy screen is that the tx2 started out using them when they first came out and then they switched over to a matte screen but everyone complained about that and so it looks like HP decided that overall the glossy screen works better for most. There will be aftermarket screen protectors coming and they may help with this issue for people some people. But for me its such a minor issue compared to everything else about this machine which is outstanding.

Not only does the unit have a dedicate GPU option, you can switch it back over to the Intel IGP for extended battery life, way cool.

But this is a 5 star device. It's simply too beautiful, powerful and flexible. I mean a TPC that plays Mass Effect 2? DROOL!!!:D
 
krupted said:
no internal optical drive and the screen bezel is still gigantic... i suppose the tm2 is more of a proper tablet then the tx2z is, but i dont feel compelled to give up my tx2 for this at all....
Click to expand...

I have the tx2 as well, the tm2 BLOWS IT OUT OF THE WATER! Yes way the bezel is done is much better than the tx2. For instance, when using touch and saying dragging things for getting the Aero effects, like Aero Snap, with the tx2 the bezel prevents you finger from sliding the window properly, at least it did foe me. The area surround the screen you smoothly glide you finger without the bezel getting in the way.

The tm2 runs much cooler, it NEVER gets hot when while gaming, has much better gaming performance, is much studier as a tablet, and has 2 to 3 times the battery life. That's worth loosing the internal DVD.
 
Ive always been interested in tablet pc's but since im graduating in May and I cant really think of a reason to have one in the workplace (IT) Ill pass. If this were a year or two earlier id buy it though.
 
Cali3350 said:
Ive always been interested in tablet pc's but since im graduating in May and I cant really think of a reason to have one in the workplace (IT) Ill pass. If this were a year or two earlier id buy it though.
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Don't like reading or surfing in bed? Sometimes using a keyboard and mouse simply get tiring and its nice to have an alternative way to use a computer. Plus this is basically an ultra portable laptop as well and a damn good one.
 
Your really making me want this. Are you gonna put up the benchmark results for all the games this weekend? And if you can, can you run MW2 if you have it.
EDIT
Wow just configured one I would want and it comes out to almost 1500. :(
 
The one thing I worry about is the coming deluge of tablets. Everyone and their uncle is coming out with a new tablet to compete with Apple. I would wait and see.
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
The one thing I worry about is the coming deluge of tablets. Everyone and their uncle is coming out with a new tablet to compete with Apple. I would wait and see.
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Time is always your friend when it comes to tech no doubt. I've heard a lot about slates but not so much tablets and to be honest right now the CPU and GPU to build something significantly better than the tm2 with the same heat and power characteristics doesn't exist at the moment and probably won't for a while.

The only thing to improve on the unit that could make it really any better is a better screen. It's not a bad screen at all IMO but it is glossy and I know that bothers a lot of people but I've had glossy screen tablets before and it just isn't that huge of a deal. There have been other tablets coming out and this is the only one that I know of that offers a dedicated GPU. I'll take that a live with the glossy screen which is still a good sceen.
 
lillimon04 said:
Your really making me want this. Are you gonna put up the benchmark results for all the games this weekend? And if you can, can you run MW2 if you have it.
EDIT
Wow just configured one I would want and it comes out to almost 1500. :(
Click to expand...

I went to check to see if any of the coupon codes I had still worked, unfortunate they don't. But at $1500 you must have order a hell of a config. I just priced mine out which has everything you can put in this puppy though I went with only 6 GB and a 250GB and I can upgrade those things in the future if needed and right now they just aren't.

At that price you're talking about a machine very similar to an ugraded MBP 13 though it will be faster in CPU intensive situations but the 4550 will more than make up for that in gaming if you had an interest in it. Bottom line is that this machine is very comperable to a MBP in price, weight, battery life and overall speed. Same screen resolution just a smaller 12.1 which of course is the standard size screen on all tablets and most people like that size for a tablet.

And I have MW2 installed and configured for my benchmark video. Getting decent performance at 800x600 at low settings. The game still looks good and actually is fun to plat, at least in single player mode.
 
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SockMan! said:
How's the keyboard and touchpad?
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The keyboard is VERY nice, love the feel. Now they did take off a few things, no home or end, which kind of sucks but it does have a touch screen which do compenstate to a degree for the lack of those keys. But for all practial purposes the tx2, the older brother did have them either because the damn things were so small.

The touchpad is quite good, better than the multi-touch pad on my Eee PC. Personally I'm a mouse guy because I always accidentally hit the touchpad will typing though there is a nice on off toggle for the pad at the top left of it.
 
Yeah, and a tab that can game like this is pretty awesome. DAMN IT!
I think I will just buy a Zune.
 
should get mine next week hopefully. i5 450um, 6gb, 500gb drive, 5450ati/intel, 2 6 cell batteries, and a blu ray external for 1019 shipped :D
 
Hey there, looks like a good machine -- does it run cool? how is the screen compared to the x201t, 2740p, and did you consider those two when purchasing? My TC4400 is having mobo issues (random reboots, attributed to hard drive failure but a new hdd did not fix it) so i now need a new one, even though i was thinking of getting an exo-pc or nation ink adam as a lighter weight reading alternative to supplemement my 4.2 pund tc4400, i now need a new main machine. Yet i am loathe to go heavier than the tc4400 -- which was why the 2740 seemed interesting.
 
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