It’s here! The HP Touchsmart tm2 tablet PC! This notebook has a 12 inch multi-touch display, an all new design (versus the old Pavilion tx1000, tx2000 and tx2), is powered by a Intel Core 2 Duo processor and has ATI graphics. Here’s a list of the Touchsmart tm2′s main features:
- Intel Core 2 Duo low-voltage processor
- ATI graphics
- Full-sized chiclet keyboard “borrowed from the Pavilion dm3″
- 12 inch capacitive multi-touch screen (you can use either your fingers or the included stylus) with swivel function
- 3 USB ports, VGA connector, covered LAN port, headphone jack (no microphone port, probably shared with the headphone port), HDMI output
- Buttonless trackpad like on the Envy 13/15: it supports multi-touch but can also be set to conventional “single touch” mode
- New Touchsmart UI and Bump Top 3D desktop interfaces for interactive multi-touch
- New, slimmer and more solid design (new imprint patterns too!)
- External optical drive (there’s none built-in)
- 9 hour battery life
- Sub-$1000 starting price
In my opinion, the Touchsmart tm2 is a whole lot like a ‘tablet Envy’ with its new design and specifications. You can see a lot of HP Envy design elements on the bottom half of the notebook (keyboard, palmrest, buttonless trackpad, rounded edges and simple port layout) as well as in its features list (long battery life, multitouch trackpad support, an Intel low-voltage processor paired with ATI graphics) which make it sound much like the Envy 13. The upper-half looks like a mashup of the original Touchsmart tx2′s glossy display with the slimness of the Elitebook 2730p tablet’s display. And there are buttons on the edges of the screen too, to be used when the Touchsmart tm2 is in slate mode. Thankfully, the price of the Touchsmart tm2 is more reasonable than the HP Envy series, with a sub-$1000 starting price tag. If you asked me, all of a sudden, the Touchsmart tm2 is starting to look real tasty… it’s almost the perfect ultra-portable notebook/tablet, save for the glossy display.
HP iPAQ Data Messenger and iPAQ Voice Messenger
Right, as everyone knows, HP announced two nice iPAQ devices last month, the iPAQ Data Messenger – which is like the iPAQ 612c with a slide out QWERTY keyboard, flush touchscreen (so it’s easier to reach the “Start” and “X” buttons at the side of the screen using your finger, instead of a stylus) and 2.5 mm headphone jack – and the iPAQ Voice Messenger, the direct successor of the iPAQ 510 with a larger screen and “half QWERTY” keyboard (as in QW-ER-TY, RIM Blackberry style). Both offer welcome updates over their respective predecessors.
Both the HP iPAQ Data Messenger and Voice Messenger Pocket PC phones currently list 2.5 mm headphone jacks built in. For the Data Messenger, the 2.5 mm jack a nice change from the “mini USB headphone jack” (can you believe it?) on the iPAQ 610 and 910 phones whose adapters to 3.5 mm were hard to find (HTC’s adapters are shaped with a slight difference and don’t fit). I don’t really have a big issue with 2.5 mm headphone jacks since I’ve been using a 2.5 to 3.5 mm adapter (see the picture above) with my HP iPAQ hw6915 to plug in my own set of headphones, and such adapters are easy to find…. but here’s an idea.
The 3.5 mm headphone jack is probably the most widely used port in the world for headphones (that’s why they’re also known as “the standard jack”) and allow users to swap out the pair of “in the box” earphones for another pair they love. Not everyone likes the “hang from ears” headphones usually included in the retail packaging of their mobile phone (I don’t!) and usually would want to swap it out for a pair in-ear headphones or “over the head” headphones.
I’m not complaining about 2.5 mm jacks since plenty of 2.5-to-3.5 adapters are available out there, for only 2-3 bucks too! As long as there’s a way to plug in my own set of headphones, I’m happy… But won’t it be more convenient if someone actually built that 3.5 mm headphone port right into the device? The old iPAQ h6310 phone (you know the one with the huge 3.5 inch touchscreen launched back in 2004?) had a 3.5 mm headphone jack, so why can’t the latest iPAQs have them too?
In addition, including a 3.5 mm headphone jack built right into a phone opens up the ability to tout the device to the public as a “music phone”, as what other manufacturers have been doing lately. So yeah, not only does it benefit users in terms of convenience, it also makes marketing sense to the company! Equals more sales.
Seeing that the iPAQ 910 announced last year had tweaks from the initial press picture, to the pre-production unit, to the final design when it was finally available in June this year; I hope HP does some tweaks for the better… at least on the iPAQ Data Messenger which is their current flagship iPAQ phone (based on specifications). Fingers crossed =)
