HP Pavilion HDX

Reviewed by: Mason Storm

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Speed, screen, media buttons, remote control, touchpad, keyboard, silence

Weaknesses: Expensive; screen often suddenly becomes very hazy and only a restart can fix it

Overall Evaluation: Have really been enjoying the speed (handles Vista Ultimate 64 without a hitch), the beautiful screen, responsive touchpad and buttons, HD-DVD, & fullsize keyboard. The hardware is fantastic, but I'm supposed to find some flaws to mention here; for the machine itself, that could only be its expense and short battery life (and weight for anyone who was thinking of actually transporting this around like a smaller laptop). The only flies in the ointment really come from the software; e.g. HP's media center, called QuickPlay, has an unintuitive DVD fast-forward-and-return-to-play button arrangement. When you've reached the point where you want to resume playback after fast forwarding, you want to press play (naturally); however, that enters a mode of choppy freeze-frame motion. To actually return to play, you have to keep pressing FF until it has cycled through all of its available FF speeds - and then it will return to regular playback. But that is a small annoyance in an otherwise fantastic machine that is probably powerful enough to be my principal laptop for 5-7 years.