Hewlett-Packard Compaq TC4400

A convertible tablet PC with a thoughtful design and long battery life, the Hewlett-Packard Compaq TC4400 should please tablet users in the market for a robust system. However, its steep price may deter some people.

Using the included stylus in tablet mode to make handwritten notes on the 12.1in screen was easy and thanks to conveniently placed buttons on the right side, switching the screen to tabloid view was a cinch.

To further assist tablet lovers, HP has situated the fingerprint reader on the top of the screen when it's in tablet mode. And a dedicated key for the Ctrl+Alt+Del function helps users make a quick restart without having to switch to notebook mode.

As a notebook, the TC4400 works well. Its keyboard was easy to type on, and the system comes with plenty of ports, including three for USB 2.0, VGA and one for S-Video, as well as microphone and heaphone jacks. It also has a single PC card I/II slot.

In our performance tests, the TC4400 turned in good results. It aced the battery-life test, running for almost six hours under a basic productivity cycle. With its 1.8GHz Core Duo T2400 processor, 80GB hard disk and 1GB of RAM, the TC4400 mustered a score of only 84 in our World Bench 5 test suite, which is on par performance compared with similar systems.

All the usual connectivity options are supported, with 802.11 a/b/g, gigabit Ethernet and a 50Kbps modem. Bluetooth and infrared are both also present.

Weighing 2.2kg (without PSU), the TC4400 is about average size for a tablet. It also lacks a built-in optical drive, which is an extra $375 for a DVD-RW. Add that cost to the base price of $3899 and it's a fairly expensive purchase.

Still, for a well-designed notebook with seamless tablet functionality, some users may find that cost acceptable.