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HP TouchSmart TM2 gets Core i3 and i5 processor upgrade. Preorder available
Remember the HP TouchSmart TM2? It’s one of the best tablet PCs you can buy today and it’s priced conveniently at under 900 $ for the base version with an Intel ULV CPU and a fast 7200 RPM hard drive. It’s cheaper than a fully fledged touch tablet like the Lenovo X201T that will set you back around 2000$ and is more powerful than a netbook tablet PC.
Now it will be even more powerful thanks to the addition of Core i3 and i5 processor upgrades, slated sometime this summer. It’s not official yet, but since Intel is planning on ULV Core i3 and Core i5 CPUs it’s clear that HP has everything to win by upgrading one of the best rated tablet PCs to date.
HP TouchSmart TM2 to get CPU upgrades soon
The rest of the specs will remain unchanged (12 inch capacitive touchscreen is one of the best selling points of HP TouchSmart TM2). Hopefully the price won’t change for the worse either. I expect battery life to get a little lower but that’s not the most important thing about a touch tablet.
UPDATE: The Core i3 – 330M version of the HP TM2 can be pre-ordered now from Amazon for 950$.
Source: Engadget
John (Ionut Popa in Romanian) is the Editor in Chief at AllTouchTablet.com. He studied Computer Science and worked in IT press since 2002. He’s now involved in his own projects. My Google+ Profile, Twitter
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Looks nice, and some nice power adding to the system is always good.
though do any readers have any experience with those HP Touchsmarts? are they multi-touch and how well does it work? if you turn the screen and close the lid (screen on the outside) and carry it as a tablet, will that work well? i’m trying to get an clear image on them but don’t seem to.
Would love to hear other users opinion.
Regards,
Jeff
Jeff, the Touchsmart has multi touch and capacitive display so it will respond very well to your input. You could carry it as a tablet, but if you’re putting it into a bag is recommended to fold it like a laptop to protect the screen.
But is it usable compaired to the touch tablets? or is it just a fancy laptop that has a touch function on it?
Jeff, I’ve played with netbook tablets and they are very slow. An ULV CPU or a Core i3/i5 feels much faster and delivers a smooth user interaction with the OS.
You’re trading battery life and weight for that but is worth it, if you need to draw on a touchscreen, make sketches or Photoshop some images.
I’m using one right now and I love mine. I needed to replace my laptop (Dell Latitude circa 2001) and opted for a tablet. This thing does everything I need to for this format and has great battery life. On a recent trip I watched 3 movies (hard drive rips, no optical drive) and was just under 40% battery left. My company gave us the option to get an iPad or something similar and I chose this while my co-workers opted for iPads. This is a little heavier, and doesn’t have the polish of an Apple product, that much I’ll concede. But I use this tablet mostly on the couch in the evenings and while traveling to read websites like Fail blog and Cracked, and general news sites. All of which have embedded flash that Apple has thumbed their nose at. (I’m not in love with flash either, but its out there and the sites I visit use it, so I’m not going to choose a device that limits me in any way)
Plus, when I’m out of town and need to remote into home to grab a file or stream my home DVR with slingbox, or demonstrate how easy WEP is to break, or edit my photo album (photoshop), or shop for music (I’m anti-DRM so Amazon is my only source), or edit my music colleciton (that resides on my home file server and I use tag&rename to edit ID3 tags, or clean up my file server… the list goes on and on and on…
My co-workers at home use their iPads to surf, while using a laptop beside them to do the rest. That’s not good enough for me. I wanted a device that could do anything I needed to and replace my laptop.
If you just want a tablet for web browsing (only 75% of the web usable by my needs) and don’t mind still having a laptop or other computer close by for when you think “oh, I’ve got that picture from last night on my camera and want to upload it to facebook after I edit it a bit” then by all means get an iPad. But if you want a great tablet that does it all and by every measure of real usage kicks the crap out of an iPad – then this is your tablet. It’s certainly mine.
And I don’t hate apple, I envy their macbook pro (hardware at least) and I have an iPhone and will get the new one each time it comes out. But they just missed the mark with the iPad. If they would have made it an official macbook full fledged mac computer, then I’d finally own a mac computer. But I already have an iPhone, I don’t need a bigger iPhone. I needed a device that I could take with me and be able to do whatever I wanted to do at the time and that is a full PC. And this tablet format in the TM2 has served me very well.
Sorry, one last thing. Price. This thing set the company back almost twice what the iPads did (before accessories anyway) but it was well worth it. If it had been my own money, then I certainly would have made the same choice. One of these could be had for less, but I opted for a top model because it wasn’t my dime. *smile*
I will add that while I chose the top model with the dual video card (one power efficient and one high power) I have kept it using the efficient intel card almost 100% and I’ve not been disappointed with it’s performance. I thought I would be switching back and forth (and the computer will do it for you automatically if you so choose) but I’ve opted to stay with the efficient one and haven’t seen a single lag with full screen video. I don’t play real games on it so I can’t speak to that.
The model as I configured it ended up $1300. And I have a 3G USB aircard already so I have the mobility of the 3G iPad with that. Yes it’s an addon, but that’s a moot point for me. A tiny usb key doesn’t phase me.
One note about using the 3G radio both in the iPad and on my tablet. It is a POWER HOG. This tablet claims 9 hours of usage, and I have gotten around 7 or 8 with real usage and 80% brightness. But when I use my usb 3G aircard (that takes 100ma on the usb port) my battery life drops to less than 4 hours. The same is true on the iPad. The whole device running at normal load takes less power than just the 3G radio. So if you plan on getting and using either device on 3G service, expect less than half the advertised battery life.
Shawn..how do you do this? “Plus, when I’m out of town and need to remote into home to grab a file or stream my home DVR with slingbox, or demonstrate how easy WEP is to break, or edit my photo album (photoshop)?” also guys, what is the best way to clean my fingerprints off that is safe for this tm2? Are the pre moistened wipes good or not? I am using mine mainly for school and I love it so far except for not knowing how to get to the pen quickly when i want to take notes on my profs ppt and word docs…any tips are very welcomed and appreciated.
Bryan:
How do I do which part?
I remote into my home network with a VPN and browse my file server in explorer mainly but also use webex smart tech to access my desktop if need be.
I stream my home DVR with slingbox. Google it. It’s an awesome product. When I travel I never have to worry about getting behind in whatever I’ve got recorded at home. And yes an iPhone/iPad client exists, but it’s an additional cost (like $30 or something) when the PC client is free – and the iPhone/iPad client will only work on wi-fi. Which is USUALLY where I’m using it, but from time to time I use a 3G USB dongle and it works great where it wouldn’t even try on an iPhone/iPad.
To break WEP, there are a ton of tools out there. I use a security suite called BackTrack that has WEP tools as well as many others to help harden your own security or show others how weak theirs is.
Using Photoshop or any other photo editor on a PC should be self-explanitory.
I hope that answers your question.
As for fingerprints. Just like my iPhone – they are just a constant issue. And my co-workers who have iPads will attest to the new “fingerprint resistant” screen not meaning anything. Touchscreens get nasty, it’s just a fact.
Personally I use wet wipes (any kind is fine) or a damp paper towel. Care should be taken to make sure whatever you use is soft though. One plus with an iPhone/iPad is that the screen is glass and so it’s actually pretty hard to scratch. A cloth of any kind will not scratch them. Dirt, rings, watches, and other hard metal things that often are near one’s fingers are dangers, but not a cloth.
With my tablet (or most any other) since the screen is plastic it is a little easier to scratch. A paper towel and windex works very well and I’ve used that plenty of times while out and about because it’s the only thing available.
But truly I only clean my screen once in a while because it’s just going to get dirty again. I’m a stickler on my desktop computer screen and people touching it or it getting dusty. But on a tablet, you just have to get used to it. Unless you want to wear some kind of glove, but that’s overkill as far as I’m concerned.
I already ordered the HP Touchsmart TM2 on the base configuration. i want to know if I could possibly take it back to the store to upgrade it. And @ Shawn Wilson, please how do you mean when u talked about breaking WEP and how do you get connected to Internet without the Bell or Rogers sticks. Thanks
Mawealth, you can connect to the Internet via wireless, or a wired connection.
To upgrade your configuration you have to talk to the store you’ve purchased the TM2 from. Also you can do it yourself. I mean the RAM and hard drive are easily changeable, but look for any stickers underneath the tablet to see if you’ll lose warranty or not.
hi guys i am laith and i have new hp touchsmart tm2 core i5 but but it is really slow and what i can do from the bigening
Does it seem to be a problem with the hard drive? You can see that especially when launching apps.
Also, do you run the original software, or you have installed your own version of Windows?