Along with the Acer Aspire 9813WKMi, laptops don’t come much bigger than HP’s Pavilion HDX9003TX. Both sport a gargantuan 20.1in widescreen LCD and a weight of around 7kg, making them ideal if you only need to lug the machine from room to room.

The HDX costs over $2000 more than the Acer, though, which means it has to work hard in this Labs. It’s better looking than the Aspire, with smooth curves like other recent Pavilions. It also packs a heftier punch in the number-crunching department thanks to a Core 2 Duo T7700, 2GB of RAM and an ATi Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT. In our 2D application benchmarks, the HP scored 1.12, while in Call of Duty 2 it managed 51fps at our low quality settings. Stepping up to medium settings – at 1280 x 1024 – it still managed 19fps.

We also like the way the screen hinges from its centre, allowing it to sit just in front of the keyboard for a more comfortable working position. There’s also a remote control that stows on the left of the keyboard. Its buttons are quite small though, making it fiddly in use. Along the top of the keyboard are touch-sensitive buttons for quickly adjusting volume, controls for media playback, a wireless switch and a fingerprint reader. The keyboard is solid and well laid out, while the flush touchpad also deserves praise, as do the solid but soft mouse buttons.

The 20.1in panel employs a glossy finish to increase the apparent contrast. It shares the Acer’s 1680 x 1050 resolution, which isn’t quite enough for full 1080p playback of movies (more of an issue for the $1000-dearer, HD DVD-ROM-sporting HDX9004TX). Nevertheless, it’s a great screen.

There’s no parallel or serial port, but you get both VGA and HDMI outputs. Wi-Fi includes draft-n support; main storage comprises two 200GB hard disks – the biggest capacity on test. Finally, there’s a hybrid TV tuner, eSATA port and a webcam.

While the HP is better value than the Sony, it’s still
very expensive. If you need the power, the disk space and the larger screen though, it’s a good choice.