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Opinion – Question: If you need a notebook for travel, and just don’t care for one of those 17” monsters that should not be called notebooks anyway, which one would you choose? I have been trying to find the perfect computer for more than 10 years and, finally, was certain I had found the best (note: I don’t say “perfect”) system last year: The HP Mini. Now AMD tells me there this a better option than my netbook – the slim HP Pavilion dv2. Are they right? Chime in to let me know what you think.
If you are like me and you value notebooks for their traditional characteristics – a small, portable form factor with decent battery life with a trade-off in computing capability - then you may have found yourself in the same dilemma. What do you buy in the 10.4” to 12.1” segment?
In general you have two very different options and I’ll focus on a new third option in this article. All three systems are HP systems - HP systems I have special and very personal relationships with. So take this article as a general view on notebook form factors that are a available to you today, from more than just one vendor.
Options 1 and 2
Two years ago, I purchased what I felt back then was the best 12.1” notebook - the HP Pavilion tx1000 “Entertainment” notebook with 2 GB memory, a 160 GB hard drive, an AMD Turion X2 processors and Windows Vista. It was the first generation of the convertible notebook without the touchscreen and I concluded after a few weeks of use that it was the worst notebook to have ever come out of HP.
A start-up time of three minutes, a battery time of less than 2 hours, a boatload of crapware, a weak CPU and HP’s strange love for glossy and girly surfaces that show every fingerprint left me with the impression that my $1200 had been a waste of money. At least the computer was portable and I could write articles in airplanes without having to fear that my screen would be crushed when the person in front of me leaned back. The tx1000 received a successor, called the Touchsmart tx2z series, which starts at $900. Its design and hardware still looks a lot like my tx1000.
The second notebook I bought from HP was a Mini 8.9” netbook, arguably one of the best portable computers HP has ever built for travel purposes. It runs Windows XP, has an Intel Atom N270 CPU and 8 GB SSD storage (extended with 2 GB USB flash + 16 GB SD card flash memory.) You can’t run the latest software on it, but it is sufficiently fast with Photoshop 5 as well as Microsoft Office 2003. With the exception of the girly glossy surface of the device (gee, HP, who comes up with those strange circle designs?) and with some flexibility to run older software, this is enough for most business travelers, especially if you choose the 10” version.
You can even do Powerpoint presentations on it. I still believe this is one of the best netbooks on the market and its keyboard is the best available, hands down (I will forget the smallish trackpad at this point.)
Option 3: HP Pavilion dv2z
So we know that AMD does not have a rival for Intel’s Atom processor and won’t have one for probably another two years. But AMD decided to challenge Intel with the Neo CPU. It is a 65 watt CPU based on the Athlon single-core architecture, which results in a chip that is considerably larger than Intel’s Atom chip. It also consumes more power - 15 watts vs. 2 watts for the Atom. These two circumstances mean you won’t see the Neo in netbooks. But the CPU is small enough to be integrated in “cheap” ultrathin notebooks, such as the HP dv2.
The dv2 is a 12.1” notebook that has a slightly larger footprint than the tx2z, but it is much thinner – in fact, it is thinner than the Mini. Performance and price-wise, it is designed to slot right in between $300-$500 Mini netbooks (some can actually cost up to $1000) and the tx2z. $750 buys 4 GB of memory, a 320 GB hard drive, a Radeon 3000 series graphics chip as well as the option to add an external Blu-ray drive.
So, with those three options in mind, what do you buy? The full-featured and 4.65 lbs heavy tx2z, the thinner and less capable 3.95 lbs dv2z or do you forget all performance options in exchange for ultra-portability and go for a 2.25 lbs light computer? Here’s my take. For travel purposes, there is no compelling reason to buy the tx2z, at least if you don’t need the touchscreen. Processing power and the battery do not live up to what we would expect from a portable notebook these days. We are left with the dv2 and the Mini. Is the dv2 a compelling compromise between the heavy tx2 and the netbook? Is the dv2 a notebook the mainstream market would want?
Read on the next page: What makes the dv2 an interesting choice for the mainstream and why it won't kill the netbook
If you are like me and you value notebooks for their traditional characteristics – a small, portable form factor with decent battery life with a trade-off in computing capability - then you may have found yourself in the same dilemma. What do you buy in the 10.4” to 12.1” segment?
In general you have two very different options and I’ll focus on a new third option in this article. All three systems are HP systems - HP systems I have special and very personal relationships with. So take this article as a general view on notebook form factors that are a available to you today, from more than just one vendor.
Options 1 and 2
Two years ago, I purchased what I felt back then was the best 12.1” notebook - the HP Pavilion tx1000 “Entertainment” notebook with 2 GB memory, a 160 GB hard drive, an AMD Turion X2 processors and Windows Vista. It was the first generation of the convertible notebook without the touchscreen and I concluded after a few weeks of use that it was the worst notebook to have ever come out of HP.
A start-up time of three minutes, a battery time of less than 2 hours, a boatload of crapware, a weak CPU and HP’s strange love for glossy and girly surfaces that show every fingerprint left me with the impression that my $1200 had been a waste of money. At least the computer was portable and I could write articles in airplanes without having to fear that my screen would be crushed when the person in front of me leaned back. The tx1000 received a successor, called the Touchsmart tx2z series, which starts at $900. Its design and hardware still looks a lot like my tx1000.
The second notebook I bought from HP was a Mini 8.9” netbook, arguably one of the best portable computers HP has ever built for travel purposes. It runs Windows XP, has an Intel Atom N270 CPU and 8 GB SSD storage (extended with 2 GB USB flash + 16 GB SD card flash memory.) You can’t run the latest software on it, but it is sufficiently fast with Photoshop 5 as well as Microsoft Office 2003. With the exception of the girly glossy surface of the device (gee, HP, who comes up with those strange circle designs?) and with some flexibility to run older software, this is enough for most business travelers, especially if you choose the 10” version.
You can even do Powerpoint presentations on it. I still believe this is one of the best netbooks on the market and its keyboard is the best available, hands down (I will forget the smallish trackpad at this point.)
Option 3: HP Pavilion dv2z
So we know that AMD does not have a rival for Intel’s Atom processor and won’t have one for probably another two years. But AMD decided to challenge Intel with the Neo CPU. It is a 65 watt CPU based on the Athlon single-core architecture, which results in a chip that is considerably larger than Intel’s Atom chip. It also consumes more power - 15 watts vs. 2 watts for the Atom. These two circumstances mean you won’t see the Neo in netbooks. But the CPU is small enough to be integrated in “cheap” ultrathin notebooks, such as the HP dv2.
The dv2 is a 12.1” notebook that has a slightly larger footprint than the tx2z, but it is much thinner – in fact, it is thinner than the Mini. Performance and price-wise, it is designed to slot right in between $300-$500 Mini netbooks (some can actually cost up to $1000) and the tx2z. $750 buys 4 GB of memory, a 320 GB hard drive, a Radeon 3000 series graphics chip as well as the option to add an external Blu-ray drive.
So, with those three options in mind, what do you buy? The full-featured and 4.65 lbs heavy tx2z, the thinner and less capable 3.95 lbs dv2z or do you forget all performance options in exchange for ultra-portability and go for a 2.25 lbs light computer? Here’s my take. For travel purposes, there is no compelling reason to buy the tx2z, at least if you don’t need the touchscreen. Processing power and the battery do not live up to what we would expect from a portable notebook these days. We are left with the dv2 and the Mini. Is the dv2 a compelling compromise between the heavy tx2 and the netbook? Is the dv2 a notebook the mainstream market would want?
Read on the next page: What makes the dv2 an interesting choice for the mainstream and why it won't kill the netbook