The HP HDX: a laptop in name only
Weighing an amazing 15.5 pounds and sporting a desktop-sized 20-inch LCD, the HP Pavilion HDX is truly a laptop in name only. This semi-portable home theater system has a Media Center remote that docks right next to the full-size keyboard, an HDMI output, and an optional HD DVD drive.
We first got a glimpse of the massive HP Pavilion HDX system back at CES 2007 and have been eagerly waiting for a review unit ever since. Some system highlights include:
The HDX meets the specs for Intel's revamped Santa Rosa platform, so it has a Centrino Duo sticker. Our preproduction unit also had a top-of-the-line T7700 Core 2 Duo CPU, 3GB of RAM, and dual 100GB hard drives.
(Credit:
Hewlett-Packard)
Taking the HDX for a test drive, we loved the removable remote control and the touch-sensitive capacitive media controls. The trickiest part was the giant hinge connecting the screen to the rest of the system. The hinge is attached to the middle of the lid, allowing you to angle the display slightly. When closing the lid, you have to make sure the rear of the screen is pushed all the way back against the hinge, or it'll hit up against the body of the system and potentially crack something. Opening the screen is equally tricky--if you lift from the top of the lid, as is common with laptops, the bottom of the screen will suddenly swing out when it has enough clearance, whacking against the bottom of the chassis. A little practice had us opening and closing the lid with ease, but those first few times were white-knuckle experiences.
(Credit:
Hewlett-Packard)
The HDX probably won't ship until at least July, and it starts at $2,999. Fully loaded, it'll run closer to $4,500. If this oversized design looks slightly familiar, that's because you're probably thinking of the lap-busting Dell M2010, released around this time last year.
New York native Dan Ackerman, a former radio DJ turned journalist, has written about technology and music for publications including Spin, Blender, The Hollywood Reporter, and USA Today. He hosts the weekly Digital City podcast and the New York edition of Editors' Office Hours. Dan's new album, Tales Out of Night School, is available now. E-mail Dan. 
iMac, but then they do stupid crap like giving it laptop HDDs.
The form factor is interesting, and the idea of being able to
move it around fairly easily sounds like a good idea, but the
usage of laptop components and small storage is not appealing.
Any one that has dealt with external drives knows that this is not
the best course to take when it comes to storage solutions. That
is the one extremely nice thing about an iMac, which is that they
use standard SATA HDDs, allowing up to a 500GB drive in the
unit. Since this laptop is supposed to be semi-portable, having
external drives rolling around is not what I would think of as a
logical idea. The fact of the matter is that this computer will be
purchased by people as a desktop replacement, and as such, HP
should have just taken the plunge and put a normal PC HDD
inside. If somebody is really that into digital entertainment, you
can bet that they will already have close to 100-150GB of
movies, music, and photos, meaning that they will have to
purchase external drives, which means extra cost.