HP Pavilion tx1080ea

Microsoft has had a hard time selling the tablet PC concept. For all of the theoretical benefits of it, using a stylus is nowhere near as straightforward as using a finger. With its TouchSmart IQ770 PC, HP has made a breakthrough in touchscreen usability, and the tx1080ea is its attempt at convincing us that it's possible on a convertible tablet laptop too.

The tx1080ea looks almost nothing like a standard tablet PC, and HP has been keen to distance itself from the "t" word altogether. Unlike previous efforts, this is being pushed as a consumer entertainment device. The hardware is much the same, with the single hinge at the base of the bezel to rotate the screen for tablet mode, but the overall feeling is one of glossy, shiny plastic. The corners of the notebook are curved, and the edges of the screen festooned with buttons to control media playback.

After seeing the IQ770's innovative screen, we were disappointed with the Pavilion's: the touchscreen is no more advanced than that on any other convertible tablet laptop, and there's no chance of using the pad of your finger on the screen. Instead, you'll have to rely either on the stylus, which pops out of the side of the unit, or a well-manicured fingernail. The screen itself also has a few problems worth bearing in mind: it's too glossy, and using it in an office was little short of a nightmare thanks to background reflections. In a living room, we had far fewer problems, but the lower the lighting, the better. The resolution of 1,280 x 800 is par for the course.

Most disappointingly, there's no sign of HP's customisable TouchSmart software. HP's QuickPlay software makes an appearance, but this has taken something of a step backwards from previous versions. The software used to be built on top of a pre-boot Linux kernel; now it's exclusively a Windows application, so booting the laptop straight into the software still requires you to load up Windows and then start QuickPlay.

The tablet format does have some practical uses, though. The screen rotates 180 degrees, which is useful on plane and train trays, not only protecting it from the person in front suddenly reclining their seat, but also in moving the panel closer. We also like the speakers. The stereo units are better quality than the tinny speakers we normally expect on laptops, and they're built into the bezel: when you turn the screen around, the speakers come with you.

The tx1080ea's suitability as an entertainment laptop is complemented by the inclusion of an ExpressCard/34 DVB-T TV tuner. There's an infrared remote control included, which lives in the slot when the tuner isn't installed. Unfortunately, HP's careful design with the speakers hasn't quite carried over to the placement of the infrared receiver, which is on the very front of the chassis. When the screen is turned around for TV- and DVD-watching, you'll need to use the bundled external infrared, but it isn't exactly an elegant solution.

Inside, AMD's Turion 64 X2 Mobile TL-56 processor does the leg work. It's a respectable, dual-core part with a clock speed of 1.8GHz, backed up by a practical 2GB of RAM - enough for applications and full use of Media Center. Our application benchmarks returned an overall score of 0.95. The Nvidia GeForce Go 6150 graphics card is less impressive - you'll need to stick to the most gentle of 3D games, as it struggles to get above single-figure frame rates in our normal 3D tests. Storage is provided by a 160GB hard disk and a LightScribe-capable DVD drive that will burn all formats of disc excluding DVD-RAM.