Product Listing

Preview - HP Pavilion HDX Entertainment Notebook

By Vincent Chang - 3 Jun 2007

Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts

Although notebooks have generally been associated with mobility, it is perhaps not surprising that consumers are looking at bigger ones that can fulfill their needs. Speaking from experience, a large widescreen display increases productivity immensely and more users are concerned about this now. After all, the notebook population is expanding rapidly, as consumers abandon their dowdy desktops for more expensive but sleek notebooks. Not everyone will be enamored about mobility. To some, portability is a bonus rather than the most important requirement, as users want all the advantages offered by a desktop but with the caveat that it has the footprint and possibly the power savings of a notebook.

The HP Pavilion HDX does not exactly fit the time honored definition of a portable computer that is the notebook but it certainly offers more mobility options than the ordinary desktop. Given its performance and capabilities, this is a desktop in the form factor of a notebook, for those who like the elegance, integration and space savings of a notebook.

The HP Pavilion HDX Entertainment notebook is a desktop PC straitlaced into the form factor of a notebook. It is not easy to carry around with its weight and bulk and while not impossible, we would really not consider this a portable computer of any practical sort. However, the specifications, even the 'half-formed' ones found on our engineering prototype looks impressive, with the latest Intel Santa Rosa platform the foundation for all kinds of potential. Unlike our prototype unit, you can expect the retail versions to have options for a full HD panel or a HD DVD drive. Performance, particularly 3D graphics look decent with its mid-range Radeon HD 2600 XT chipset and there's the bonus of having Avivo HD present.

Implementation-wise, HP just about gets it right, from the choice of a HDTV tuner to having HDMI and eSATA outputs. The remote control is another nice touch, though the QuickPlay integration looks flaky at the moment and the remote itself may not be intuitive enough for beginners to get into quickly. The 20.1-inch UltraBright widescreen display looks great but we're still hoping for 1920 x 1200 native resolution in the final model. Even the battery life turned out to be better than expected. Only the hard drives look less than ideal, with HP still relying on notebook grade 4200 and 5400RPM drives in consideration, rather than the 7200RPM variety. In our opinion, HP should offer 7200RPM choices for consumers as it is the only component that is significantly inferior to a typical desktop.

As for the cost, we have picked up a few numbers online, which estimate it at around US$2500 onwards. Since the specifications for the Asia Pacific model have not been finalized, any talk of price is premature. However, we are not expecting it to be any cheaper. Instead of looking at the HDX as a notebook, one should consider it a powerful desktop machine, with the additional premium of it being in a notebook form factor. We'll be updating this once we get some confirmed details about the actual retail model but for now, the HP Pavilion HDX is certainly something to look out for in the desktop replacement class.

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