HP Pavilion HDX User Review

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by Peter Shin, England

Overview

HP recently introduced their flagship laptop, the HP Pavilion HDX “Dragon”.* The laptop is within their consumer Pavilion line and carries over certain design cues recently seen in that line, such as the laser-etched laptop lid, touch buttons and dimpled touchpad.* The HDX uses a custom design scheme and I do not think it is possible to get the laptop in other colours or designs.* HP have been pretty active in their marketing for the HDX, which is suprising as this is a laptop that will appeal to a small niche market.* They have been advertising heavily in the London Underground and on TV.* I do like “The Computer Personal Again” slogans they have been using.*

Unlike the American market, HP do not allow you to customize the laptop here in the UK.* There are two pre-configured models, naturally one higher end and one lower end.*

• Screen: 20.1” 1680 x 1050 WSXGA+ High-Definition HP Ultra Brightview Widescreen Display
• Colour: Black with Dragon laser etching
• Processor: 2.20 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500
• Hard Drive: 400 GB hard drive (SATA, 2x200GB, 4200RPM)
• Memory: 2 GB RAM (667 MHz, DDR2 SDRAM, 2 x 1GB) -- 4 GB max memory
• Optical Drive: HD DVD ROM with SuperMulti DVD±R/RW Double Layer
• Ports and Slots: 4 USB 2.0, 1 HDMI connector, 1 eSata connector, 1 VGA port, 1 RJ45 ethernet connector, S-video TV out, Headphone out, 1 mic-in, 1 IEEE 1394, remote control infrared port (remote optional), integrated stereo mic, cable docking connector, One ExpressCard/54 slot
• Wireless: Intel® PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Network Connection (802.11a/b/g/n)
• Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256 MB dedicated video memory
• Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium
• Dimensions: 47.5 cm (L) x 33.95 cm (W) x 5.85 cm (min H/max H)
• Weight: 7.05 kg (15.5 lbs), 8 kg package weight

Reasons for Buying

I was looking for an all round laptop, something that could work as a solid gaming machine as well as being a good entertainment laptop for watching movies.* Initially, I considered the Toshiba Satellite X205 (X200) as well as the Dell XPS M2010 and XPS M1710.* I then heard some news about the HP HDX, but did not really consider it much until I saw it.* I saw an HDX in a showroom playing “Fast and Furious 3” on HD-DVD, and I knew I had to have it.

Where and How Purchased

When I was looking into buying the HDX, HP had only just released the laptop in the UK and so no retailers had any in stock.* The UK Price via HP is £1,699, which is around $3,400 USD.* That’s expensive!* But, I had the money and so I swallowed the cost and ventured onto the HP website to place the order.* To my surprise, on that particular day HP listed the item on their site at £1,349, over £350 less than their standard price.* I was sure it was a mistake, but I placed an order anyway.* Very shortly after that, HP restored the price to its £1699.* At that point, I was sure HP would cancel my order, stating it as a pricing mistake.

While it did not get cancelled, HP did delay the laptop delivery by over 3 weeks.* I’m not sure if this was an attempt to get those of us who managed to place an order at the cheaper price to cancel, but the HP Customer Service throughout the delay was shockingly bad.* They only informed me of a delay when I called HP to ask what was going on. It seems that HP like their rival Dell are not too good at handling delays.

Build &amp; Design

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The HDX laptop comes in a lovely big well designed box, and as you would expect from such a premium product, everything has an air of quality surrounding it.* I liked the effort they put into creating the manual (rarely seen these days), as well as some nice novel touches such as including a micro-fibre cloth (to keep it shiny) and a nice poster.

Notice the unique hinge (view large image)

Here is the HDX closing (view large image)

For a laptop of this size and cost, you would expect the build quality and design to be flawless, and it is.* The laptop is constructed using strong plastics and alloys for that all important hinge mechanism.* There’s no flexing or wobbling here.* Naturally, the design revolves around the screen and is beautiful.* I think HP are doing very well in their design for the Pavilion laptops, and I’m glad all the best features are incorporated here.* The use of the touch buttons also gives the laptop a good futuristic feel.* I mean, technically speaking, there is no need for the eject button as there is a good old fashioned eject button on the drive itself, but boy do I love using the touch button.* Volume touch controls are an especially nice touch.

A close-up view of the new &quot;Dragon&quot; high-impact Imprint finish. (view large image)

Screen

Here’s the unique selling point of a laptop like this, its huge screen.* If the screen was poor, then this laptop would make no sense.* Thankfully, HP does not disappoint.* The 20” screen is absolutely gorgeous with brilliant colours, brightness and flawless viewing angles.* There are rumours that HP are working on a full 1920x1200 resolution screen version of the HDX, but personally, I find the current WSXGA resolution more than enough.* Also, in terms of HD-DVD playback, 1080P is not shown to be hugely advantageous in quality terms on screens less than 32” and bigger.* The screen is the best I have ever seen on a laptop.

I’ve taken some pictures of the screen at varios viewing angles.* Seen in the images is Transformers the Movie on HD-DVD.* Sorry about some blur and grain in some photos.* I didn’t want to ruin the photos by using flash, so I had to use ISO200 with no flash, so some blur is inevitable.* Hopefully, from the photos, you can see the screen is excellent.

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Speakers

The inbuilt speakers are very good for a laptop.* There are four speakers built into the monitor, as well as a subwoofer underneath the laptop.* The speakers are made by Altec Lansing and sound superb for onboard sound.* I would say that they were better than most average 2.1 external speaker setups.* They are not comparable to high-end external speakers, and nor did I expect them to be.* For laptop speakers though, sound is very good.

Processor and Performance

The 2.20Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor is very speedy indeed.* My last laptop had a Core Duo 1.66Ghz, and the difference is very noticeable when doing CPU intensive tasks such as Photoshop work or Video compression.* The weak point of this laptop are the hard disks, spinning at a lowly 4200rpm.* This is unfortunate, and if I had the option of configuring faster hard disks, I most certainly would have.* General performance is very good, with no noticeable slowdowns during normal or even quite extensive use.

Benchmarks and Gaming

Super Pi

The table below compares the HP Pavilion HDX SuperPi score with some other notebooks:

Notebook	Time
HP Pavilion HDX (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo T7500)	0m 54s
Dell Latitude D830 (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo T7500, 800MHz FSB, 667MHz RAM)	0m 53s
Zepto 6024W (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7300 with 800MHz FSB and 667MHz RAM)	0m 59s
Samsung X60plus (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7200 with 667MHz FSB & memory speed)	1m 02s
Dell Vostro 1500 (Intel Core 2 Duo T5470 1.60GHz)	1m 16s
Samsung Q35 (1.83MHz Core 2 Duo T5600 with 667MHz FSB and 533MHz RAM)	1m 16s
Samsung R20 (1.73GHz T2250 with 533MHz FSB and memory speed)	1m 23s
Toshiba Satellite P205-S6287 (1.73 GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T5300)	1m 24s
Samsung X60 (1.66GHz Core Duo (T2300) with 533MHz memory speed)	1m 29s
Sony Vaio TZ90HS (1.2GHz Core 2 Duo ULV U7600)	1m 50s
HP Compaq 6515b (1.6GHz Turion 64x2 TL-52)	2m 05s
Fujitsu S6120 (Pentium M 1.6GHz)	2m 29s
Dell Inspiron 2650 (Pentium 4 Mobile 1.6GHz)	4m 05s

*

3DMark06 comparison results:

Notebook	3DMark06 Score
HP Pavilion HDX (2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7700, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB)	4,205 3DMarks
Dell XPS M1330 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS 128MB)	1,408 3DMarks
Samsung Q70 (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7300 and nVidia 8400M G GPU)	1,069 3DMarks
Asus F3sv-A1 (Core 2 Duo T7300 2.0GHz, Nvidia 8600M GS 256MB)	2,344 3DMarks
Alienware Area 51 m5550 (2.33GHz Core 2 Duo, nVidia GeForce Go 7600 256MB	2,183 3DMarks
Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Xi 1526 (1.66 Core Duo, nVidia 7600Go 256 MB)	2,144 3DMarks
Samsung X60plus (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7200, ATI X1700 256MB)	1,831 3DMarks
Asus A6J (1.83GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 128MB)	1,819 3DMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)	827 3DMarks
Sony Vaio SZ-110B in Speed Mode (Using Nvidia GeForce Go 7400)	794 3DMarks
Samsung R20 (1.73GHz T2250 and ATI 1250M chipset / GPU)	476 3DMarks

*

In terms of gaming ability, I have played Stranglehold, World in Conflict, Medal of Honour Airborne, Dirt, and Call of Duty 4 demo.

I play all the games at 1280x1024 resolution, with details all set to high.* World in Conflict on the whole is very playable, with only extreme slowdown when I zoom into a nuclear explosion.* Generally, framerates are silky smooth.* Call of Duty 4 demo runs superbly.* I played Call of Duty 4 on 1680x1050 res, with most things on high with the exception of Anti Aliasing.* Again, looks and runs great, with FPS feeling like its always above 30.* Dirt plays well and looks great, with the FPS I feel being somewhere around 25-30.* I’ve heard this is a very taxing game, so I’m happy with that.* Strangehold ran great, but I got bored of the game quickly so only played the first few levels before uninstalling it.* I was surprised MoHA ran as well as it did.* It ran at solid good framerates, at 1280x1024 on high settings.* It doesn’t let you change specifics so I don’t know what was going on in terms of AA or filtering. *This is a solid gaming machine and so far, I am happy with the performance of the ATi HD2600XT.* Hopefully with updated drivers, the performance will get better.

Heat and Noise

The fans on this laptop are never really audible.* You can occasionally here a whisper of the fans if you sit silently next to the laptop.* However, even when playing games or long periods or watching HDDVD’s, the fans never really spin to an audible extent.* There is a steady stream of warm air out the back exhausts when you are playing games.* Otherwise, there is no real heat output from the HDX.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The full keyboard is lovely.* The buttons have a great feel to them and it’s very enjoyable typing on it.* It is a full keyboard so there is a numpad as you would expect.* Fittingly with the HDX’s sleek design cues, the lights to indicate CAPS/NUMS lock is discretely hidden and glows blue when turned on.*

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The dimpled touchpad seems to be a debate for all that have used them.* Personally, I like the design and feel of the touchpad, but I usually use an external wireless mouse at home.* A very nifty feature HP has incorporate here is a button above the touchpad that turns it on and off.* This is very useful if you are using an external mouse and don’t want to accidently hit the touchpad while typing (a big issue on my old laptop as the keyboard was much smaller).

The backlit touch-sensative media buttons. (view large image)

The touch sensitive quickplay buttons are just fantastic.* They are just so nice to use and some very useful.* The mute button and volume controls being the most useful buttons.* The touch sensitive buttons are not really necessary and don’t improve functionality by much, but I do love HP for using them as it makes the HDX that bit more luxurious.

A remote is included (view large image)

Input and Output Ports

The HDX has the most extensive port selection I have ever seen.* With the exception of PCMCIA (uses ExpressCard instead), I think it has everything.* The two ports that grabbed by attention were HDMI and eSATA.* eSATA is something I have never seen on a laptop, and am looking into an external drive that uses it as I understand its a lot quicker than USB2.* On the back of the laptop, you’ll also find an extensive optical audio output ports.* The HDX caters for 2.1 / 5.1 and 7.1 systems, so that you can take full advantage of your external speakers.* Again, I have never seen such specialised audio outputs on a laptop.* The laptop has a built in infrared sensor on the front, as well as coming with an IR extender to be used with remotes or connecting to a satellite set top TV box such as Sky.

Front

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On the front, we have an IR sensor, microphone input, and two headphone output ports.

Right Side

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Two USB ports, and the HD-DVD/DVDRW drive can be found on the right side.

Back

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The four ports on the right are the optical sound outputs.* Used to optimise sound output for your external speakers. On the left, is the coaxial input to attach an aerial to the integrated HD-TV tuner, IR extender, S-Video.

Left Side

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2 more USB ports, RJ45 Ethernet Jack, Expansion Port 3, External Monitor, eSATA, HDMI, Firewire, MultiCard Reader, Expresscard Slot

Wireless

Being built on the Intel Santa Rosa platform, the wireless card includes support for the draft n standard.* Unfortunately, I don’t have a n standard router so I can’t test this.* Naturally, Bluetooth is also built in and is activated by the same wireless touch key to turn on and off.

Battery

This is something I have not yet tested as I keep the HDX plugged in. I would imagine most people buying this would do the same, you can't expect much in the way of battery life from such a large screen device with high-end components. I have heard that battery life is just under 2 hours.* This drops significantly when doing computationally intense tasks such as playing games or watching HD-DVDs.

Operating System and Software

Windows Vista Home Premium comes pre-installed.* While HP don’t provide any recovery disks, they have quite nicely setup a recovery partition on the laptop, which contains all the needed files for a complete system recovery back to factory default.* Fortunately, HP also provide instructions on how to create recovery disks if you want to make one.

Customer Support

I am currently just on the standard HP warranty, although I am considering getting a three year full coverage extension.* So far, HP customer service has been way below par. The laptop for some strange reason did not have the fingerprint reader software installed.* When I called technical support, I was put through to some out sourced call centre, who gave me the advice of “go to the hp.co.uk/support website”.* Fortunately, I am technically proficient, so I managed to find the Verisoft Installation program hidden on the laptop.* It’s curious why they forgot to install it, but the so called technical support was terrible.*

On a plus note, I had some issues with the HP Quickplay software (it kept telling me to activate it, and then sent me to a dead link).* This time, I used the HP technical chat, which was fantastic.* The HP technician quickly sent me the link to the latest version of Quickplay which works perfectly.* I’m not sure why HP did not install the latest version in the first place, but I was happy the issue was quickly resolved.

Conclusion

The HP Pavilion HDX is truly a wonderful “do everything” laptop.* It was designed by HP to be an entertainment powerhouse, and they have succeeded in that respect.* The laptop has good gaming ability, as well as stellar multimedia features.* The beautiful huge screen and HDDVD make for wonderful movie viewings, and this really does do everything well.

Pros

• Gorgeous design
• That lovely lovely screen
• Superb build quality
• Quick processor and Graphics making it very capable under any environment
• Cool Touch sensitive buttons to control
• HDDVD capabilities
• Very exhaustive list of ports, most notably HDMI/eSATA/optical audio outputs
• No real bloatware installed (Office Trial being an exception, although some may find that useful).
• Much better equipped than rival Dell XPS M2010, which costs the same (usually more).

Cons

• It is indeed expensive (but worth it).
• Rather heavy too
• Can’t seem to find anyone who makes carrying cases for 20” laptops.

 

Impressive review!

Watching Transformers on hi-def must have been fun, I would imagine.

 

Nice review, thanks.

Couple of questions.
1) What's this sentence about ?

2) Does this computer allow a RAID 0 config?

 

any chance of finding out the clock speed on the HD2600XT?

 

Thanks for the review of quite an unusual notebook - or rather I think it should be called a desktop replacement, considering its size and weight. Funny thing is that it weighs exactly 5 times as much as my ThinkPad X61.

It would be a valid alternative for those who really want the screen real estate and seldomly/never bring the system with them. But as a normal notebook/laptop I can't really see how it would work. Otherwise many smaller/mainstream sized notebooks do exactly the same job - except for the screen size of course.

I'm curious: Do you plan to carry this around often or just for the occational transport to friends for gaming and watching movies?

In any event, I hope it will serve you well.

 

Nice review and HUUUGE DTR. Do you have anything to do comparison shots with, like a smaller laptop or something? I wanna se just how large it is.

 

That thing just seems so massive, yet so not practical. I also don't think the sepcs are all that wonderful, you would think with that much space to work in, you could pack more punch into it.

 

The only way to "pack more punch" into this thing would be to start using desktop components rather than notebook parts ... and then this thing becomes even larger and heavier and stops being a notebook.

The HDX barely qualifies as a "notebook" given how massive it is. You basically need a small suitcase to haul this thing around. It's really more of a "portable desktop replacement" than a true "laptop" ... unless you want some very sore legs.

Yes, it's not exactly "practical," but the closest competition is the Dell XPS M2010 and that beast is even LESS of a notebook. In fact, I think the fact that Dell calls the M2010 a notebook should be considered false advertising. That thing is a compact desktop and not a notebook.

The HDX, on the other hand, is just a rediculously HUGE notebook that is so massive it only appeals to a small target audience.

 

I agree, I would have liked to have seen a more powerful graphics card and a higher resolution screen. WUXGA would have been perfect for a 20" screen. On the other hand, I have used a 20" HP L2045w desktop monitor, and despite being WSXGA+, it looks fantastic; i.e., the resolution looks just right. But yes, a WUXGA option should be made available.

EDIT: I also noticed that the remote looks slightly different than what I've seen before:

 

nice review! the 2600 xt came out looking pretty good there. seems a bit expensive though, but i guess it is a niche product. i'd consider it if it were maybe US$1000 less.

 

Nice review! At 20 inches it is almost time to be thinking about getting a desktop but for those who want a high-def screen they can move around the house with little clutter this is a great option for the very small niche market About the HD2600XT, if you were truly even able to play WiC at 1280x1024-high settings and/or CoD4 at WSXGA+ with high settings at ~30FPS then it is a great card.

< $1000? , I wish laptops were that cheap.

 

Thanks for the review.

Wow, that's big! You need a large or empty desk to hold it, and it's definitely not a "laptop". But if you want a big screen, then this is a more portable option than a real desktop with a 20" screen.

John

 

Nice review...that thing is huge!

 

I agree that a WUXGA screen (which is available on the xps m1710 and m1730) would have been nice. I also think the HDD should have been 7200 rpm or even 5400 rpm instead of 4200 rpm. I think this laptop is more geared toward entertainment use and moderate gaming than hardcore gamers with the single gpu design.

 

"Unlike the American market, HP do not allow you to customize the laptop here in the UK. There are two pre-configured models, naturally one higher end and one lower end. The higher end Screen: 13.3-inch screen WXGA (1280 x 800) with XBRITE-ECO (glossy finish)"


I don't see how this fits into this review at all...

 

Wow...for that much I would much rather get the 17" widescreen Alienware m9750 with MUCH better components... Just my $0.02.

 

Same here... 20" is too big(though so is 17", but its atleast manageable) and the specs arnt anything special. If they can fit SLI 8700gt's in a XPS 1730, they shouldnt have any trouble putting the same config. in a laptop thats 3" bigger.

I do like the layout and double hinged design though. Much better then the XPS 2010 which as someone else said, isnt really a laptop, as much as a fold-out all in one.(like an iMac or the Gateway One)

 

copy&paste maybe

 

Ahh. Here's my personal credo with the classification of notebook computers.

< 15.4" Laptop (because you can use it on your lap. )

> 15.4" Notebook (because it's not really a literal "laptop" anymore, but it still has the "notebook" form-factor)

Anything more than 17" (or the D901C) TEXTBOOK.

The HDX is indeed a textbook computer. And yes, it is indeed impractical, however, remember that he saw this thing in PERSON, and having done the same, I can say it is gorgeous, even though it's huge...

 

Hey guys. First off, I noticed a mistake.

The line some of you were confused about

"The higher end Screen: 13.3-inch screen WXGA (1280 x 800) with XBRITE-ECO (glossy finish)"

Thats not meant to be in there. Its a mistake. I must of copied some wrong info from somewhere. Apologies.

Someone asked what the clock speeds were on the ATI HD2600XT. These are the standard clocks.

Core 680Mhz. Memory 750Mhz.

I havent dabbled in overclocking yet. Might do in the future. The remote is the same as in the promo pic. Its good overall, but I wish it was either bluetooth/wifi, rather than IR.

Despite the laptops size, it is rather thin I think. Much thinner than the Toshiba X205. Also, if they started adding SLI graphics, I think the cost will be driven up too much.

I totally agree guys, this is an impractical laptop. It is not really a "laptop" in any sense, although I can use it on my lap (not sure if I ever will have reason to do so). But, it perfectly suits my needs. Was looking for a large-ish laptop that can do everything, but didnt want a desktop as I will move it from time to time.

For sure, it wont appeal to the vast majority, but HP have done an awesome job in designing it. Making a 20" laptop look good is not an easy task. Look at Acer's 20" laptop, thats ugly.

 

Oh also, I got this beast for less than what the Toshiba X205 retails for here in the UK. So from that perspective, its an absolute bargain.

It is more geared towards overall entertainment abilities rather than pure gaming. I'm sure HP will come out with a pure gamer machine soon, as they acquired Voodoo for that purpose I imagine. Maybe they didnt want the two to compete.

Also, I think a WUXGA screen version is in the works, as well as possible Nvidia graphics options. Its early stages for this beast. You can spec the hell out of it in the US, I think you can add the quad core Intel, which is insane. But doing that makes the price somewhere near $4500

 

wow, nice review! i've seen that laptop in store the other day, and it is indeed HUGE!, not a laptop, but certainly can be carried for short distances.

HP really is really doing well lately

 

i would love to see that thing in person...

Thanks a lot for the review-- interesting read.

 

Nicely done .

Even though I'm stay put DTR user I find these 20"ers to be too big and heavy .

My 2nd problem with them is the price and value , besides the bigger LCD panel those "notebooks" usually have sub par specs compared to strong 17"ers giving less bang for buck .

Put in SLI / desktop 8800 GTS ( battery life is zero anyway ) at a reasonable price premium over the smaller 17" and it will look much better .

 

dabm
thanx alot for the great review

what is the driver version of the video card??

thanx in advance

 

thanks
it would have been nice to add a clear picture of the keyboard layout and maybe a picture that shows the relative size of the machine (by showing the machine with a person using it for instance)

 

The U.S. version already has a $150 WUXGA option, as well as processors up through the X7900 (an extra $725). The U.S. site also has a slight misquote on the price right now:



That quickly jumps back up to $3K when you click configure, though. $1111 is the actual starting price for the dv2500t. Too bad it jumps up to $3K, I'd consider buying it if it were just $1111 !

Nice review. I saw the Acer 20" in the store last summer, it was indeed very large. Should've asked them where you'd get a carrying case for it but didn't think to then - maybe I will if I go back sometime.

 

hey guys.

here's a link to the review of the HDX done by laptoplogic. They have a comparison shot of the HDX with a 14" HP Laptop. Should give you an idea of size.

http://laptoplogic.com/reviews/detail.php?id=169&page=2

 

Hi Peter,

Yes, you can now get a case for your HDX ...

... Try:

http://www.shopeezee.co.uk/proddetail.php?prod=SE-DI-N16178P&cat=712

One less con methinks

Best Wishes

Siobhan

 

Does anyone know where I can get a 20" Laptop Bag from? I was in the UK, and the website above http://www.shopeezee.co.uk was out of stock at the time, now I am back in France on vacation for a few months, and cannot find anyone out here that has any 20" bags, i came across a site called http://www.nextdaybags.co.uk and they appraently also have 20" bags, but they are in the process in re-designing their site, anyone heard of any sites in France? Nilesh