Design and Features

A difference between the HP tx2000 and most other tablets is that it's an entertainment-focused laptop aimed primarily at home users. It has speakers built into the display hinges and comes with HP's Quickplay software, which is similar to Windows Media Center and as a result a bit superfluous since you can't use it without starting up Windows. If you just look at the design, you'd be hard pressed to find any differences from last year's model, but why change a winning formula? It's a good-looking tablet laptop by any standards. If you take a closer look, you may notice that HP has used another imprint finish - apparently called "Echo," instead of the "Wave" finish used on the tx1000. Black and silver details have also been switched around on the tx2000, but in general the impression is the same, which is a good thing. Also returning are the keyboard and touchpad; the keyboard is very comfortable to use, and so is the excellent HP-unique touchpad with a separate scrollbar.
The 12.1-inch widescreen with a 1280x800 resolution is bright and offers good clarity, but the viewing angle is somewhat limited. Seeing as it's a tablet laptop, you can rotate the display, and it even has an emblazoned arrow indicating which way to turn it, so you can't get it wrong.

Tablet

That brings us to the most prominent feature of the tx2000, which is of course the tablet mode. The active digitizer provides more accurate ink lines than the resistive digitizer of the tx1000. However, in spite of its accuracy, the display occasionally has a hard time interpreting what you write - especially when you write at a normal pace. If you slow it down it will do better, but it's still an obvious usability problem. One helpful tool in getting to know the display and what it can do is the tablet training mode. You can also calibrate both the stylus and the screen via the tablet and pen properties. Once you get used to it, you will eventually be able to use it more efficiently.
If you happen to be of the male persuasion and plan to have children some day, you should also be aware of how the fans are placed: When you use the computer in tablet mode on your lap, the fans will blow hot air right on your scrotum until it's eventually reduced to a small heap of smoldering ruins of what once was your manhood.

Performance and Battery Life

The HP tx2000 is equipped with a 2.3 GHz AMD Turion X2 (dual core) processor, which is not quite as fast as its Intel Core 2 counterpart, but still more than sufficient for just about anything you would consider running on a small tablet PC. Our test unit also came with an impressive 4GB of RAM and a 64-bit edition of Windows Vista that can actually use the full 4GB. As for graphics, it's equipped with an NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150. The name NVIDIA might be synonymous with high-end graphics cards, but this is actually a low-end integrated graphics solution, so it's safe to say you won't be playing any recent games on the tx2000. Then again, hardly any 12-inch laptops employ discrete graphics, as it comes at the expense of long battery life, which is usually an essential prerequisite for an ultraportable. The battery lasted for almost four hours during casual use, which is great considering that we only used the small 4-cell battery. A 6-cell battery is also available that should improve battery life even further, although this will slightly increase the weight and raise the unit's height. This could be a detail worth noting, as the device is already a bit heavy for a 12" ultraportable, weighing in at 4.26 pounds (1.92 kg). Wireless performance is impeccable, thanks to the inclusion of draft-n support in the Broadcom wireless adapter. HP has also included a Bluetooth module in the package.