By Craig Simms, CNET.com.au
20/06/2008
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/pcperipherals/0,39051161,43638848p,00.htm

This is HP's second-generation touchscreen PC, a great improvement on its first iteration. The new form factor, for a start, pushes into panel PC territory and looks a treat. HP's byword for the TouchSmart seems to be "simplicity".

Editors' note : This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com.au. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some of other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia. Please check directly with your local distributor for details.

Design

Mounted around the front of the 22-inch, 1,680 x 1,050 screen is a built in Webcam, as well as a speaker grill along the bottom edge, and a single Home button above this which launches HP's custom touch interface. Setup is just as minimal--simply plug in the power adapter, sync the Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and you're away.

One minor niggle is that the keyboard is too simple. We'd love to see an indicator light on the keyboard--any kind of light, whether power, caps lock or otherwise--as when there's issues connecting to the PC it's difficult to ascertain whether it's a battery issue, or a Bluetooth synching issue. To confuse things further, even when the keyboard is not connected to the PC and the batteries are removed, HP's system tray tool will happily tell you your keyboard is at 100 percent charge.

Otherwise both keyboard and mouse are fine. The five-button mouse in particular is pleasant to use. The integrated speakers are significantly better than normal fare, too. Considering the thinness of the unit, this makes us wonder why monitor manufacturers have had such issues incorporating decent ones while HP doesn't bat an eyelid. It's most likely a costing issue in the case of the monitors; however, if that's the case, you'd think they'd cut the feature and focus on improving quality elsewhere. But we digress.

On the left-hand side of the panel arises a curiosity--a button that lights up a white fluorescent tube under the monitor so you can see in the dark when you type. This can be switched off or cycled through three levels of brightness. Underneath this button is two USB ports, a headphone and line-in jack, while further back under a removable panel are three more USB ports, an Ethernet jack, digital audio-out (in the form of an RCA jack) and audio line-out. The opposite side features the power button, a DVD±RW drive, volume controls, SD/MMC/MS/xD-Picture Card reader and a FireWire port, while internally Bluetooth and 802.11n are offered.

The screen is raised slightly off desk level, allowing the keyboard to be neatly tucked underneath and effectively hidden from sight. Unfortunately, it's not quite high enough to admit a keyboard that has had its legs extended--you'll have to tuck them in before pushing it through.

Features

A point of annoyance--upon first load the TouchSmart continuously made the Windows "Start navigation" noise (the click sound that's made, for example, when you open a page in Internet Explorer). While we worked around it by switching off the Start navigation effect in the Sound control panel, we had less luck finding the rogue application that was the cause of the noise, something that's hopefully fixed soon.

While the TouchSmart uses Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit for its operating system, it also has HP's own touch interface available for use--and is quite enjoyable to use. While it understands only basic multitouch, it's otherwise quite fun and, for the most part, well-thought out. Things can get a little laggy, especially when using the calendar for booking appointments, and we can only assume this is either because it features a completely underpowered Intel GMA 3000 as the graphics card or doesn't support GPU acceleration at all.

The touchscreen beeps whenever you touch it--a low pitch for one finger, a higher one for two. This can be turned off if found annoying and, interestingly, doesn't beep at all when using HP's TouchSmart interface, only in Windows Vista.

The initial interface is broken up into two rows, one "large" set of scrollable application tiles for your frequently used programs, and a smaller strip down the bottom for lesser used ones. You can drag-and-drop using your finger to reorder these icons either in the one strip or between them, and a simple tap of an icon loads that program. The bottom row features a number of links to Windows games, a clock, weather, RSS feeds, and an embedded version of Internet Explorer, whereas the top strip gives access to Music, Videos, Calendar, Pictures and Notes, a Post-It note-style application that allows you to draw with your fingers, use handwriting recognition for text, or keep voice notes.

There's a whole host of missed opportunities here, though--there is multitouch capability, but it's limited to the home screen where it uselessly scales your menu options and photos miss out. Although the interface will allow you to browse through folders in an iPod touch-esque manner, there's no such treatment once you enter the folder, only allowing you to view gallery style. While it supplies some buttons for rotating, recoloring and so forth, there's no multitouch way to rotate, zoom or sort images.

The included music player is fun and easy to use, and can even use your iTunes playlist if you want it to, but the lack of an onscreen volume control is a bit of a downer. Also, the option to run music in a public jukebox mode allows you to add more to a playlist, but not delete or shuffle which will hamper its effect as an otherwise excellent source of party music. You can set a song playing and then leave the music player to do other things, and it will keep playing in the background until you hit the always present pause control. It just seems a bit odd that the aforementioned volume control isn't omnipresent as well.

The video section is similar in function to the photo gallery, but if you've previously set a song playing in the background, it's not smart enough to pause it when you playback a movie. From here you can also record Webcam movies if you desire, which are stored in WMV format--however, there's absolutely no way to delete them within the confines of the interface--you have to exit and find the relevant folder in Windows Explorer.

The video section also gets slightly out of control if you've a lot of movies to sort through, and we found ourselves pining for a better organized interface. The Dates view, for instance, is really useful only if you're the type that's just storing personal videos, or who takes a video blog. Otherwise, it'll get polluted with other content you may have downloaded.

The Folder view is also an issue, which doesn't so much allow for navigation as show the individual folders the interface has discovered with videos in them. Problems start to arise in this mode if you've been slightly fastidious about organizing your video content. For example, say you had a folder called Season 1 stored under another folder called Red vs. Blue. Say you had another folder called Season 1, but this time it's stored under a folder called Pure Pwnage. Both different video series make sense from a file organization standpoint--however, HP's interface will only list both Season 1 folders, with no context about where they're stored, making navigation a guesswork at best.

Slightly better is the Videos mode which simply shows all cataloged video files in a similar manner to the "tiles" view in Windows Explorer. While this allows quicker identification of movies than the Folder view (assuming the file is named correctly as a thumbnail is included), if you're in possession of quite a few movies, the consistent drag motions required to scroll through them all can get tiring.

Finally, while the calendar allows you to tap and create an event, you can't then drag that event simply to another day, week or month--you have to double tap the existing event to edit it, and then change the day manually using the drop-down calendar on the right-hand side.

All of these are only minor points, but it's painful to see obvious things overlooked, and they're magnified by the fact that a touch interface is meant to be flexible, integrated, intuitive and simple.

In truth, if we hadn't seen what the iPod touch and Microsoft's concept Surface table could do, this would all be pretty amazing. A number of companies are now piling money into research in order to fill the touch void, with the vision being that there'll soon be many public-facing screens used as either an information resource, control system, or both. Things are certainly heating up in this arena, and should Windows 7 be any good and the multitouch support being built into the OS follow suit, then the next TouchSmart PC could be very interesting, indeed.

On the crapware side, things are reasonably thin for a change--although advertising has taken on new heights with the Welcome Center graphics being seized by Norton, pleading that you really, really, really should protect your machine with its software. We turned it off.

Performance

The TouchSmart is more than capable of DVD playback, but it's still a mid-level laptop crammed into a desktop form factor. Ideally we'd like to see more power on the video card side, if only to smooth out HP's interface lag issues (assuming the interface is GPU accelerated and, if not, then more CPU power or better coding is in order), but also to lower CPU usage during high-definition video playback.

With the exception of the video card, the hardware is mostly good. A 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T5750 makes sure things stay reasonably snappy on the CPU front, the 320GB hard drive should satisfy most, and the 4GB of RAM will be more than enough save for the most furious of Photoshoppers and database admins.

3DMark06 struggled due to the integrated Intel graphics, posting a substandard score of 505, while PCMark05 came in at 3,846, indicating it's perfectly fine for office use.

As it so happens, there is another model that may satiate our need for more power--the IQ508a packs a GeForce 9300M GS, 2.16GHz CPU, 500GB of storage, a TV tuner and remote control. We'd consider this model a better investment.

The second-generation Touchsmart as just a panel PC is gorgeous. The price is fantastic as well--though we can't help but feel there's so much more potential in the touchscreen aspect being left, ahem, untapped.

Service And Support

HP offers a one-year onsite warranty with this machine. Should trouble arise with the system, you can call a telephone helpline which can help diagnose the issue. If hardware repair is warranted, HP will send a technician to your location to fix the machine. At HP's support Web site, users can download the latest drivers and manuals. In the event of a simple malfunction, the company offers an online knowledge database and support forum for troubleshooting. Telephone support is available during normal working hours and for current or potential customers who are not sure which HP PC is right for you, a dedicated number is available for assistance in purchase selection.