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With the new TouchSmart IQ508d, HP puts the computer in a screen you can touch
TONY WALTHAM
You have to admire HP for introducing a 22-inch wide-screen touch-screen display that stands alone on your desktop, containing all the silicon to provide you with entertainment, games, the Internet and work or hobby applications.
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| A nice addition to any desk: The standalone HP touch-screen TouchSmart IQ508d. |
Like the Apple iMac, the HP TouchSmart IQ508d is a computer in a display, and a pretty high-end one at that: A 64-bit version of Vista Home Premium runs on an Intel Core2Duo T5850 2.18GHz processor with four megabytes of RAM, nVidia Geforce 9300M video graphics and there's 500 gigabytes of storage to keep you happy.
And, of course, there is the touch-screen feature, which is arguably its main attraction, or selling point. Being an "all-in-one" or display with integrated CPU and storage is, of course, the other.
Going after the nascent market for computers that you can navigate and operate without a mouse (or even a keyboard, if you wish) has been a pretty bold initiative by the leading PC manufacturer. You can use your fingers to select menu items or even use a finger as a virtual pen and let handwriting recognition software to convert what your "finger-writing" to text.
But would you actually do this? Probably not, and the main reason is a condition known as "gorilla arm" which is what you get if you spend more than 10 minutes or so interacting with a computer screen in this way.
I wrote the first sentence to the previous paragraph with my right forefinger on the screen - when you bring a finger to an application that expects text input, a handwriting recognition panel pops up that converts the characters you write to text that you can then insert. And it is a wonderful endorsement for the practicality of the keyboard, I have to say.
I don't think writing on the screen with your finger is a practical input mechanism. It is interesting and may have niche applications, but it doesn't match a Wacom tablet and pen on the desktop if you really have an aversion to using a keyboard for input.
Your finger, or anything you use as a pointer, is accurately tracked by four tiny cameras at each corner of the screen. And you can follow this by how the mouse cursor appears where you put your finger. Or any other object. There's no capacitance involved.
Similarly you can try out games with finger play and I played Spider Solitaire this way for a short while. If you "touch" on a playing card for half a second or so, it is selected, and then you can drag it by moving your finger. Similarly, if you merely touch anywhere on the desktop, it is equivalent to right-clicking the mouse.
But game-playing and handwriting are not what HP promotes with the touch interface, rather it is more for selecting menus where there is a strong visual element. The TouchSmart IQ508d comes with HP's TouchSmart 2.0 software that provides an alternative Windows interface to help you to organise photos, videos and music, along with Internet Explorer, calendar and a notes application.
Main panels keep track of these files, displaying large icons (photographs, album covers, etc.) that are changing all the time, while across the bottom of the display are selected applications that might lend themselves to touch-screen input: The standard Windows games (Hearts, InkBall, Freecell, Solitaire, etc) along with a weather report and a link to a tutorial.
The TouchSmart interface is called up by touching an icon just below the lower right of the screen - but I think it is early days for touch, at least in the home. I did look around for an interesting touch-screen-specific application to download, but there is really very little out there - just a few arcade type games.
Now, is there a killer application lurking around the corner? Will touch-screen smartphones, such as the Apple iPhone, and a growing user base lead to a new interest in touch-based computers? Thanks to HP, which has had touch-screen models out there for several years now, we may have a chance to find out. (Indeed, HP's first touch-screen PC, the HP-150, was introduced in 1983!)
In an experiment, I downloaded a trial version (Starter Edition) of ArtRage and experimented with the TouchSmart interface as a painter would use a canvas, using a light wooden stick (I don't own a paintbrush, I must confess) to trace the outlines of some pictures - and I can see there would be a potential for budding artists to exploit this interface.
Personally, I would be inclined to regard this HP TouchSmart PC primarily as an elegant desktop that keeps all cables and connectors to a minimum while offering an elegant 1680 by 1050 pixel display; then there's built-in WiFi - and it's always nice to find this in a desktop PC - while the Dolby 5.1 High Definition Audio is rich, with plenty of oomph (4 watts) out.
A web cam built in to the top of the display is handy for web chats. The keyboard has a nice feel to it, and the mouse is not a lightweight one, with a sure and steady movement. There's a built-in TV tuner, a superMulti 8x slot DVD/CD drive and no shortage of ports to the rear of the screen: altogether five USB slots, a FireWire (IEEE 1394) port, a 5-in-1 memory card reader and Gigabit LAN.
Overall, the appearance is impressive and the whole unit is rock solid - I put the shipping box (screen, keyboard, AC adapter, mouse and remote along with a few manuals) on the scales before unpacking and it nudged 17.5kg. That's mostly the main unit (screen and CPU), which sits on perspex legs and leans against a stand that folds out at the rear, angling the display slightly backwards - at, say, around five degrees.
I detected a little hum from the 7,200 rpm hard disk, but apart from that the unit was quiet, and eager to please with its Windows Experience Index being 4.4. My only other quibble would be the relatively inaccessible USB ports to the rear of the unit, which is recessed with a black surround and unless your lighting behind the computer is good, you may find yourself working by feel, more than anything else, when it comes to inserting a memory stick.
HP pioneered touch-screens in desktop PCs, while touch-screen notebooks are now planned, and Microsoft has indicated that Windows 7 will have touch-screen enhancements; meanwhile, on the other side of the fence, Apple recently patented touch-screen features for the OS X platform and has done impressive things deploying multitouch on the iPhone - so I wouldn't be surprised to see more interest in touch-screen input and more applications around the corner.
Whether the HP TouchSmart PC IQ508d is ahead of the curve or not, it's an elegant entertainment-oriented PC that looks good with performance to match expectations.
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