*I wrote this review while participating in a program on behalf of HP and received an HP PC, a Snapfish gift card and other items as part of my participation.
Recently my husband and I had the opportunity to do something that we have been anxiously waiting to do for 17 years – go away by ourselves without our children. Don’t get me wrong, we love being with our children. We go everywhere and do everything together. It’s just that sometimes mom and dad like to enjoy a little “couple’s only” time, which is something we have never done with the exception of going out to dinner or a movie together without the kids. Now that our kids are old enough (17 and almost 15) we can trust them to be on their own overnight. Plus it saves us from having to find someone to feed and tend to our animals while were gone – our kids can take care of most of it (with the exception of giving our one cat his insulin shot).
Even though my husband spend the night away from home didn’t mean that we wanted to cut off all contact with our kids. We still wanted to keep in touch with them and make sure everything was OK. Texting is one way but we prefer more personal contact. That is why we brought along our HP x360. We wanted to set up a video call with them via Skype. It was particularly for peace of mind and also to make sure they were not throwing an epic party in our absence. Ha Ha.
The beauty of the HP Pavilion x360 is that it’s so lightweight and compact in size that its very easy to tote along with you no matter where you go. It fit perfectly inside my tote bag. I wasn’t bringing much with me since we were only staying the night so there was plenty of room for my HP Pavilion x360.
After we had dinner and we planned on staying in our room for the rest of the night we tried to set up a Skype session with our kids. It took a bit to get it worked out (we’ve never Skyped with our kids before) but we eventually got connected with them (they used my work laptop at home to Skype with us).
The camera on the HP Pavilion x360 is very nice and it perfect for video conferencing. Now that we know it works the next time I need to travel for blog related things (like to the West coast) I’ll be able to video chat with my husband and my kids back home. I would rather talk to them face-to-face then via text or the phone.
After we made sure everything was OK at home we both decided to take some time to check our e-mails. Looking back on it now it was a silly thing to do. It was a Saturday so there would be no work related e-mails. Everything else could have waited until we got home. I guess we’re just creatures of habit.
Using a USB plug I transferred some photos over from my phone to the HP Pavilion x360. I also took the memory card out of my camera and inserted it into the computer to transfer some photos over from there as well. I wanted to share photos of our meal and our nice hotel room with family and friends on Facebook. Normally I’d have to wait until I got home to do that. Now with the HP Pavilion x360 I can upload and share my photos any time I want.
I loved being able to share my photos right away. I know I can share photos via my cellphone but it’s inconvenience to have to share them one by one. With the HP Pavilion x360 I can upload and share multiple photos at one time.
Later on that evening we couldn’t really find anything on TV that we wanted to watch. The movie on HBO was of no interest to us and most of the stuff you find on TV now is repeats due to all the shows ending for the season. Instead of settling on something my husband took to Netflix on the HP Pavilion x360 to find a movie to watch. We ended up watching Insidious 2.
Another nice feature, which I used at home before we left, was the ability to print the directions for the hotel from the HP Pavilion x360. I didn’t feel like logging on to my computer. It was easier for me to turn on the HP Pavilion x360, Google the address and print it wirelessly to our HP ENVY 5530 e-All-in-One printer. I had the directions printed out faster then it would have taken my work computer to log on.
In hindsight I could have downloaded them from my cellphone too. You can e-print from your smartphone or tablet to your HP 5530 e-All-in-One printer too. This is especially nice if you like to take a lot of photos with your phone and share them on Instagram and other social networking sites. While it’s nice to see them on Facebook and such it’s also nice to have an actual copy of some of the photos too that you can add to photo albums or have framed. After all, Instagram, Facebook and similar sites might not be here forever, so it would be nice to have a copy of your most favorite photos.
With many families going on vacation this summer I’m sure you’ll have plenty of favorite family photos you’d like to cherish again and again, that is why an e-printer is a must have.
Certain HP printers can be enrolled in the HP Instant Ink program. I love it! The last thing you want is to run out of ink – especially when you are printing out your favorite vacation photos. With the Instant Ink program your computer will “talk” to your computer and let it know when it’s running low on ink. HP will be notified and automatically send out the ink you need. You don’t need to do a thing. It’s a handy service. I wish I had it years ago when I had my business and would go through ink constantly. It would have saved me many trips to the office supply store.
I reviewed the program a while back. If you would like to learn more visit this post – Don’t Run Out of Printer Ink Again. Please note that the giveaway is no longer active HOWEVER I’ll give giving away a special HP prize package shortly that you won’t want to miss. 🙂
I LOVE holding on to my favorite photos. I like to keep them in a special folder on my computer and then once or twice a year (depending on how many photos I have) I like to turn them into photo books. I like photo books much more than photo albums. I have several of them that I have made over the years from Snapfish.
It’s nice that summer is here. I’m not a fan of the heat or humidity but I do enjoy doing fun things with my family. I’m always on the lookout for new activities, places to visit and even summer time recipes.
I’ve created a special summer time Pinterest board where I am pinning fun summer related things. Do you have a summer time Pinterest board? If so please leave a link to it in the comment section of this post so I can check it out and find new things to pin. If you want to check mine out you can find it here – Summer Time!
What are you most excited about this summer? Do you have any plans? Feel free to share your thoughts. I always love to hear from readers.
Kimberly
Cynthia R says
for me it’s my boyfriend and my ipad mini, especially on road trips, great to look up restaurants and maps on it.