HP Pavilion TX1000
Starts from $2,299
Available from authorised HP Compaq dealers

The HP Pavilion TX1000 is a notebook, but it features functionality normally found on a tablet PC.

For instance, the unit employs the same twist-and-turn design of the slate of a tablet PC rather than the conventional fliptop cover of a notebook.

And there's also a touch-sensitive screen. While it shines in the way that it allows you to navigate Windows, the screen fails to make the mark in handwriting recognition.

Unlike tablet PCs, on which you write with a stylus (it uses electro-magnetic technology to capture your scribbles), the TX1000 allows you to use any part of the body to touch and move the pointer. So you could use your finger to write or draw on it.

Unfortunately, it is overly sensitive to touch, so even an accidental brush of the wrist or forearm against it will immediately be captured as either a big onscreen shift of the pointer or a different scribble on a different part of the page.

The rest of the notebook is pretty standard, but what is worth mentioning is the gorgeous metallic cover and the keyboard area.

The finish is decorated with faint, fluid graphic lines that remind me of a Japanese Zen rock garden.

The touchpad is also unique in that it is not sunken in or raised. Instead, you see a simple array of dimples like that on a golf ball.

The TX1000 uses an AMD Turion 64 X2 processor operating at 1.8GHz. The unit also has 1GB RAM, a 120GB hard disk drive, Super-Multi DVD Re-writer drive (for dual layer writing), Wi-Fi, built-in webcam, Bluetooth and a host of other ports to make sure you can connect to just about every device - either wirelessly or via a cable.

As the unit runs on Windows Vista, it was not possible to run the usual SysMark 2004SE benchmark software. Instead, Futuremark's PCMark2005 was used to provide a benchmark score. Unfortunately, this benchmark does not have a test for battery run time.

PCMark2005 does not use a baseline system to compare and generate the final benchmark reading. Instead, PCMark2005 uses a geometric mean applied to the individual test scores of specific benchmark tests for CPU (processor), memory, graphics and disk performance. The TX1000 scored an overall PCMark score of 2,960.

The individual test scores:
CPU: 3555
Memory: 3100
Graphics: 1074
Hard drive: 3266
Higher values mean better performance.

FINAL SAY

The fit and finish of the HP Pavilion TX1000 conveys a touch of class. It is a little more expensive than a similarly outfitted notebook and this can be attributed to the included touchscreen, which also made the unit fun and intuitive to use.