What You Get
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The kit includes a molded plastic enclosure with two latch on covers, a silver version that matches the body of the enclosure and a black one, apparently for Oakland Raiders fans.  The latch has a lock on/lock off postition but the lock on position doesn't really do anything.  The cover is essentially snap on, pry off.

Inside the 6" x 3.5" x 3/4" body is a PC board with a soldered on female edge connector into which slides the HDD. One end of the board has a 5V DC power receptacle, mini USB jack, eSATA interface, plus a single lighted push button labeled BACKUP (not really sure what this does).  The board is attached to the enclosure by four philips head screws (mini screw driver and all screws included) and you must remove the board from the enclosure  to plug in the drive. Four screws attach the drive to the board itself.

Included are a 3' long mini-USB cable, 3'+ long eSATA cable, and an imitation leather/nylon black carrying pouch.  It comes with CDs containing Roxie BackOnTrack 3 LE (didn't install but maybe the button starts this) and PDF user documentation.

The drive is PlugNPlay over both the USB and eSATA interfaces.

Performance ( all benchmark taken using HD Tune 2.55 )
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Interface__________Drive____________________Max Xfer Rate(MB/sec)____Min Xfer Rate(MB/sec)__Avg Xfer Rate(MB/sec)___Access Time(ms)___Burst Rate (MB/sec)
eSATA RocketFish____ Hitachi 500GB 7200rpm________102.4____________________50.3__________________82.1___________________16.4________________84.5
Internal drive 0____ Seagate 500GB 7200rpm________101.2____________________30.9__________________74.7___________________17.8________________70
Internal drive 1____ Seagate 500GB 7200rpm________102.4____________________50.2__________________82.2___________________l7.2________________74.4
USB Rocketfish_______Hitachi 500GB 7200rpm_________29.4____________________19.6__________________28.9___________________16.9________________22.9

Cost
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This product is available over the net in a broad range of prices from $8 to $27.

Conclusions
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This kit is great for making on demand backups, traveling, or for isolating and working on projects with large amounts of data, like video production that you don't want cluttering up you main storage device.  I originally purchased this enclosure so that I could make a disk image of my HDX OS drive prior to shipping out for repair.  Sadly my other computer had only USB but I was able to save the image and restored it, no problem.  For backups, I like to put my HDD of the week in and fire it up to do a quick disk image or file backup after completing a milestone or prior to updating a device driver or some application software.  When attached to the eSATA interface this unit accomplishes any task as effectively as the internal drive except that you can pop the HDD out relatively easily and put it in a safe place when you're done with it. Ok, it's not an HDD docking station but it's way easier than popping out your laptop's D: drive for offsite storage. :)  I will certainly make sure any system I buy in the future has an eSATA interface on board and the RocketFish RF-AHD25 will be in my tool box.
 

This my video review of the HP HDX X18-1058ca, the big and beautiful desktop-replacement laptop from HP. If you haven't watched my unboxing video, be sure to check that out first. This laptop features an 18.4 inch, 1920 x 1080 (1080p), 16 by 9 aspect ratio screen, and weighs in at 8.9 pounds (4.06 kg). It features an Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 CPU (2.26 GHz, 3 MB L2 Cache, 1066 MHz FSB ), 4 GB of DDR2 RAM, a 320 GB 5400 RPM SATA drive, a LightScribe Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD±R/RW Double Layer, Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet, Intel WiFi Link 5100AGN (that's 802.11a/g/n), four USB ports, an ExpressCard 54 slot, and a 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT graphics card. Priced on February 3rd at HP.com, the laptop would cost $1363.99 USD. This exact model number is only available in Canada where it was available for $1599.99 CAD as a holiday special and at this point it's not being offered any more. The more commonly available version, currently offered from Best Buy Canada, is the HDX X18-1180ca, which is a quad-core CPU model and sells for $2199 CAD.

My video contains my opinions of this product, but it has what I call if the "Cursed Canadian Keyboard" and I wanted to expand on that part of my video a bit. I don't type in French (I took it when I was a kid, and have forgotten 99.9% of it by now), so it's a bit frustrating to have a smaller shift key, impairing my use of the keyboard, in order to provide an extra key that French users expect. I wish HP would simply make a French version of the laptop for the people that want it. The key is small enough to be an impairment for a touch-typist like myself that's used to a standard-sized shift key. I'm sure with enough use I'd get used to it, but many errors would occur in the meantime. Those of you in the USA won't have this problem - it's just us Canucks that have to suffer through the awkwardness of having two official languages.

Something I forgot to mention that I wish HP had added were small collapsable legs on the bottom of the laptop - it's nice to be able to elevate the keyboard by a few degrees. I do that with all my desktop keyboards, and like it when I can do the same with laptops.

All told, the HP HDX X18 does it's job very well. It's not meant to be portable, but with the flexible options for powerful CPUs, a big screen, lots of RAM, and dual hard drives, it's as good of a desktop replacement as you can get.

Earlier this year we looked at the HP HDX16-1005ea and went away very impressed. It was the first 16:9 aspect ratio notebook we'd seen from HP, but the company was able to distil all the things we expect in a multimedia notebook into one cohesive, classy and reasonably priced machine. Now we're looking at the HDX16's larger sibling, the HDX18 - an 18.4in machine with an identical focus on multimedia, albeit in a much larger frame.

Aside from its greater size you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between the HDX18 and the HDX16. It has the same basic design down to pretty much every detail and this is definitely no bad thing, since the HDX16 was a very good looking machine. All the visual elements, from the imprint design and "liquid metal" accents to the backlit HP logo and edge-to-edge screen cover, work seamlessly together to create one cohesive and sophisticated whole that will look the part in any modern home.

Looking inside the HDX18 continues to share the same basic layout and features; including the keyboard, which looks a bit weedy inside the 436mm wide chassis. Nonetheless, it offers an excellent experience. On the far right there's a full-size number pad and the layout doesn't feature any of the pitfalls some suffer, featuring a nice large Return key and right-Shift key. Keys have a nice, crisp and positive feel to them and though there is a little more flex than we'd really like around the Return key and number pad, it doesn't have a detrimental effect on typing.

Above the keyboard is an identical set of touch sensitive media controls that are backlit behind a frosted glass-like effect. These encompass all the usual things, such as playback controls, volume, an eject button for the integrated Blu-ray ROM/DVD+/-RW drive and a wireless radio switch, as well as a secondary slider where you can adjust treble and bass independently. This is a nice touch and is especially useful when listening to music, where you might want to adjust things to find the right sound for a particular genre.

This brings us neatly onto the subject of audio and it's an area where the HDX18 excels. With speakers from Altec Lansing and Dolby Home Theatre audio processing, the HDX18 delivers an impressive amount of detail in action scenes, with Dolby's Natural Bass and Sound Expander technology doing a particularly good job in acoustically complex action scenes. With Dolby Headphone also on-hand for virtual surround sound you can enjoy excellent audio when plugged in.

Overall, then, in terms of audio the HDX18 comes out very well, proving slightly better than the HDX16 and only really bested by the likes of the Toshiba Qosmio G50-115, whose lack of a Blu-ray drive means it only offers indirect competition.

Just as important as audio in a multimedia notebook is the visual performance and the 18.4in screen on the HDX18 doesn't disappoint, either. Sporting the essential Full HD 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, it offers pin sharp visuals and text production and plenty of space for productivity when more boring tasks are the order of the day. And, when you want to watch a Blu-ray film or DVD, it delivers smooth motion, good detail and well defined colours. Black levels aren't astonishing, but are still more than adequate, while we found the 18.4in acreage a good size for comfortable viewing of films - a point further enhanced by reasonably good viewing angles that should ensure a minimum of neck craning. Our only caveat would be the predictably reflective glossy screen, which makes keeping ambient light to a minimum necessary.

Also included as part of the multimedia bundle is an integrated TV tuner and HP has included not one, but two remote controls to deal with it and all the other multimedia features. One is an ExpressCard style remote that's useful when taking your machine out and about, while the other is a larger full function remote complete with a number pad and other TV centric controls. Both are very good, with logical layouts and responsive buttons, while the 360 dial on the ExpressCard remote is particularly handy when navigating Media Center's menus.

Connectivity, meanwhile, is just as thorough as the rest of the feature set. You get four USB ports in all, one of which is a combined eSATA and USB port, there's an HDMI output (as you would expect), as well dual-headphone outputs and a microphone input. One slight annoyance is how the IR receiver is hidden beneath the trim at the front, which can make line of sight awkward when standing up, but otherwise there's little to complain about.

On the inside the HDX18-1005ea features largely the same components seen in the HDX16 with the same model designation. Processing is handled by an Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 running at 2.26GHz, there's 4GB of 800MHz DDR2 RAM and all the basics, such as Gigabit Ethernet, Draft-N Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, are present and correct. Graphics are handled by an nVidia 9600M GT with 512MB of dedicated memory, which is enough to handle some light gaming duties if you turn the effects down and perhaps the resolution, and there's the added bonus of 64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium, so all that system memory doesn't go to waste.

Indeed, the only real difference is the hard drive configuration, where you get two 250GB 5,400rpm drives instead of a single 320GB one. Also available in the HDX18 range is the HDX18-1103ea, which boasts a 2.0GHz quad-core Q9000 and two 320GB drives, though this configuration comes in at just under £1,500 so is significantly more expensive than the model we're looking at today version. Moreover, unless you're doing a lot of video processing, you'll probably find the higher clocked CPU in the HDX18-1005ea will make it faster in most tasks, so it's worth thinking about what you need if you're tempted by the idea of a quad-core processor.

As you might imagine given the very similar specification, the HDX18 performs more or less identically to the HDX16 and the Acer Aspire 6935G in all of our tests. All told, though the HDX18 is no powerhouse, it's more than powerful enough to deal with all the things most users will throw at it. Moreover, having a 64-bit OS and 4GB RAM means any memory intensive programs won't suffer.

In gaming, meanwhile, the HDX18 is a capable performer, even if it lacks the graphical grunt to play some of the more demanding titles - you can forget about Crysis for certain. In Trackmania Nations Forever, however, we managed to get a playable 31.1 frames per second (fps) at 1,920 x 1,080 with detail set to high. Adding 4 samples of anti-aliasing brought this down to 23.8fps, while at medium settings with 4x anti-aliasing the HDX18 produced a smooth 37.7fps.

And, while battery life isn't a major concern in a machine such as this, the HDX18 didn't perform too badly lasting just over two and a half hours in the Productivity segment, two hours and 48 minutes in the Reader test and one hour and 48 minutes in DVD test.

In reality, though, the HDX18 is bound to spend most of its life sitting on a desk and plugged in and for this it's very well suited. It's got just the right balance of components and features, ensuring it can do everything you're likely to want without slowing to a crawl, while also keeping the price down to an acceptable level.

Verdict

If you're after a desktop replacement with all the trimmings but don't want to pay the earth, the HP HDX18-1005ea should definitely be on your list. It has all the features a multimedia machine should have, looks the part and makes for an excellent day-to-day family PC.

 

One trend that started to gain momentum last year was the move to 16:9 aspect ratio displays for notebooks. Despite the wide adoption of 16:10, with an increasing amount of people using laptops as entertainment devices and Blu-ray appearing more often every month it makes sense to improve the viewing experience. With some notebooks touting 18- and 16-inch displays the focus on outputting video to a television is diminished as well–they still can, but an 18-inch, 1920×1080 display is good enough for most people.

Click to enlarge

HP’s HDX18 is their newest entertainment powerhouse. It, along with the HDX16, is it the company’s first 16:9 offering, marking one of the earlier releases in what will be a major trend. The HDX18 is a do-it-all computer that HP is hoping will appeal to people who want to accomplish a lot with one purchase, from a Blu-ray player, to a media PC, to an entertainment hub, to an HD television. They made sure to keep the starting price reasonable ($1299) and keep the complex options to a minimum.

The HDX18 (the specific model is the 1001xx) shipped with a high-end Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 processor, 4GB of RAM, NVIDIA 9600M GT 512MB graphics, wireless N, and dual 320GB hard drives. It runs Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit. Buyers will be happy to know that the Blu-ray drive is standard, though it is possible to upgrade to a Blu-ray super-multi drive for an extra $100. Also included is an HDTV tuner, and two remote controls, one which fits inside the ExpressCard slot for easy storage. All told, it came out to be a $1878 package (after a $200 instant rebate). If you want to cut down on the price you could easily drop down to the T9400 or P8700 and lower the amount of on-board storage (you can use eSATA instead) and still have a very capable system.

From a design standpoint, the HDX18 (and also the HDX16) is very reminiscent of HP’s other consumer-focused notebooks. This is to say that it’s built well enough for home use and light traveling, but it doesn’t compare to something like the company’s Elitebooks. This approach has generally been more than sufficient for consumers. The 8.82-pound notebook is on the thin side for what it is, but the 18.4-inch display is going to ensure that it doesn’t get moved around much. Inside the notebook is a generously sized keyboard with a full numberpad and a shiny trackpad that features HP imprint graphics. Above the trackpad is a button that will disable it, in case you want to use your mouse instead. The light next to the button turns from blue (active) to orange (inactive), and is somewhat distracting.

Above the keyboard is a touch-sensitive panel where users can adjust the volume, use media controls, and toggle WiFi. It uses stylish white LEDs along with blue/orange for the WiFi indicator. This panel was actually the part of the HDX18 that gave me the most trouble. The problem was that our test system kept adjusting settings for no reason. When this happened HP’s software would be triggered and it would say that the volume, bass/treble, or WiFi status had changed, which would interrupt a movie or gaming session. HP’s Assistant software could be removed to stop these pop-ups, but it didn’t seem to fix the touch strip. Anyway, WiFi still toggles itself off and then back on occasionally but, from my research, this problem appears to be isolated to our test system.

From a performance standpoint, the HDX18 did quite nicely under most circumstances. The T9600 processor did its job well and combined with 4GB of RAM and 9600M graphics means 1080p playback goes very smoothly. You can upgrade to quad-core, but it’s not necessary for the vast majority of users. Desktop work, even intensive tasks, can be handled with relative ease. Light to moderate gaming is also well within the realm of the HDX18 and I was able to play most games though generally not at 1920×1080 (full screen). If you want a serious gaming machine you’ll want to move to something with a 9800M graphics card, but this setup will suffice for all but the most demanding games (like GTA IV, which was one I tested with).

This is not a system that you’ll want to take on the road much, but it is under the nine pound mark, so it’s better than some other “luggable” systems. As far as battery life goes, expect the HDX18 to last about 2.5 hours, depending on what you are doing. This is a respectable number for a system this large, but nothing amazing.

As far as mid- to high-end entertainment computers go, the HDX18 (and by extension the smaller HDX16) is worth keeping an eye on. The use of a 16:9 display along with included Blu-ray makes it a great system for watching television and movies. Throw in a remote controller, better-than-expected sound, and a setup powerful enough to playback 1080p video and you have yourself a very nice media machine. On-board Firewire, eSATA, and a TV tuner all help complete the experience. The touch-sensitive area isn’t perfect, the system is overly glossy, and it has too many LED lights running, but overall the HP HDX18 is one of the better entertainment notebooks available today.

Needless to say, HP HDX 18 is an ideal desktop replacement. If you are tired of your desktop, you now have enough reason to use HP HDX 18 laptop. Let’s talk about it here.

HDX18 is 18.4-inch laptop with a TV tuner, the fastest processor (2.8 GHz), dual 160-GB hard drives running at 7,200 rpm, and a huge pantload of RAM. It is also a perfect multimedia laptop. Its massive screen almost requires you to watch some HD content from a Blu-ray disc or your telly. Excellent graphical performance will please all but the most stuck-up gamers. So if you are a gamer, you have enough reason to choose HDX 18 as your gaming laptop.

There are 3 main reasons to choose HP HDX 18:

• Attractive, polished design;
• Big 16:9 screen is perfect for HD video content;
• Includes Blu-ray drive and media remote.

Another cool reason is its very affordable price, it’s only $2,000. This is very cheap for such a quality gaming laptop. This is why so many people choose it as their first gaming laptop.

HP HDX 18 Specs:

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 (2.8GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 6MB Level 2 cache)
• Operating system: Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit
• Memory: 4GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (800MHz)
• Hard drive: 2 x 160GB (7200rpm)
• Screen:18″ HD HP Ultra Brightview Infinity glossy display (1920 x 1080)
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT with 512MB GDDR3
• Optical drive: Blu-Ray multi-drive
• Ethernet, VGA, HDMI, docking station port, microphone in, two audio out jacks, three USB ports, eSATA/USB, 5-in-1 card reader, ExpressCard slot, built-in TV tuner
• Wireless: 802.11a/g/n, Bluetooth 2.0
• Battery: 8-cell Lithium-ion battery (73W)
• Dimensions 17.17″ x 11.26″ 1.33-1.72″ (WxDxH)
• Weight: 8.94 lbs.

But I have to say, HDX 18 is not a perfect laptop, just like other laptops, HDX 18 has its own drawback, such as overly glossy and fingerprint-prone; merely average battery life. Of course these are not big problems. We can even ignore them.

HP HDX 18 has Altec Lansing speakers, which lie above the touch panel, produced loud, theater-quality sound. It doesn’t have Dolby True 5.1 Surround Sound like the 8920G; instead, it comes with Dolby Home Theater software, which simulates the surround sound experience. This is wonderful for those who need such function.