HP TouchSmart IQ770 PC

A New Icon?

When it comes to raw computing power, Moore's Law is still going strong after all these years. The focus has evolved from a megahertz and gigahertz race to one where the goal is to squeeze as many processors onto a single die as possible. Yet from the outside, the PC remains as it was ten, even twenty years ago. The large and bulky CRT monitors have been replaced by the sleek and slim LCD panels but the same rectangular chassis housing the innards of the PC is relatively unchanged.

That was until Apple released its iMac line of computers in 1998. Apple got rid of the boxes, integrating the processing hardware into the display. The original iMac looked like a slightly bloated albeit colorful CRT monitor. With subsequent models, the iMac started using flat panel LCDs but the design goal remained consistent - to unify the display and the processor into an aesthetically pleasing unit. While Apple's designs have often inspired legions of imitators and there are quite a few iMac clones out there, there hasn't been any decent original work extending or improving this concept.

Such is the challenge that HP has taken up with its new HP TouchSmart IQ770 PC. Its silver and black exterior, coupled with an innovative touchscreen based design may contrast with the simplicity and elegance of the iMac, but bristling with buttons and its multiple ports and connectors, it screams of pure technology and power. Instead of blindly aping Apple's design ethos, where tech gadgets evolve into fashion accessories, HP has gone its own, very PC-centric way of loading the TouchSmart with as many functions and capabilities as a modern multimedia PC will require.

Touch, Feel and Go!

Obviously, the initial instinct for us, and probably any user confronting the HP TouchSmart PC for the first time, is to reach out with our fingers and touch. The glossy 19-inch wide screen display was quickly dotted with our fingerprints, though it certainly held up much more admirably than we expected. HP has said that they have tested the screen with a variety of icky stuff, from oil to peanut butter, and it has fared rather well. Given that one of HP's ideal locations for this PC is in the kitchen, it's probably no surprise that such tests have been done. Based on our experience, you'll end up having to clean the touchscreen (of fingerprints at least) regularly, unless you don't mind the smudges.

Unlike resistive touchscreen technology commonly found in tablet PCs and other touch based electronic devices like the Nintendo DS, HP has gone for optical based technology that relies on thin strips of sensors lining the inner border of the wide screen display. This implies that physical contact between the finger/stylus and the touchscreen is not actually required. Simply putting your fingers close to the surface such that the sensors could pick up their presence is sufficient to trigger the desired response. Of course, hovering over the touchscreen is much more tiring than just touching the screen, so we doubt anyone will be using it in this fashion.

Since our fingers or even the included stylus are generally thicker and pudgier than a mouse cursor, some modifications were needed to enable the touchscreen interface to work. HP has included a touch optimization program that will increase the size of the icons and menus, optimizing them for touch. Not everything translates well though, and some of the icons we noticed got rather ugly and pixelated when enlarged.

It can also get rather tiring using the touchscreen. While the concept of touch interfaces may look intuitive and cool, doing work with such an interface is a different story. It could be our lack of exercise, but we found our arms aching just from using the touchscreen for a short while. In a way, the touchscreen interface parallels the Wiimote controller introduced by Nintendo for its popular new console, the Nintendo Wii. Both are fresh interfaces that can be very intuitive with almost no learning curve. However, the jury is still out on whether these new interfaces can be anything more than a gimmick. In our case, we soon got back to using the keyboard and mouse for its precision and speed, especially for dreary tasks like managing our folders and files. For one, the 'right-click' equivalent for the touch interface is to hold the finger there until the menu appears and that takes longer than simply using the mouse. We have to admit, playing games like Chess Titans and Solitaire using our fingers was a guilty pleasure and it was also easier navigating simple applications like multimedia controls by touch just like a remote. While there are probably other aspects of the interface that we haven't explored thoroughly, one cannot yet fully eschew the traditional keyboard and mouse input, especially for a home PC.

It's All in the Software

The success of a unique interface depends not only on the underlying technology. Geeks may go crazy at the cool factor involved with new technologies, but for the majority of users, it's what they can do with the technology, the overall experience of using the PC that matters, not the latest tech jargon. Therefore, applications and programs must be seamlessly integrated with the new interface.

This is something that HP understands all too well and the company has been working with Microsoft closely to customize its new Windows Vista operating system for the touchscreen interface. The TouchSmart IQ770 PC comes with Windows Vista Home Premium pre-installed and while upgrading to the Ultimate Edition is feasible, this PC would be quite crippled if the Basic or even the Business editions were chosen, since the multimedia features that are a strength of this PC would not be present in those versions. Without the option of Windows XP and its drivers, we are also uncertain if this custom PC will work properly using the older operating system.

Hence, in addition to the larger and touch friendly icons and font sizes, there are a few significant applications from HP that is unique to the TouchSmart. The first is the HP SmartCenter, where HP has aggregated all its proprietary applications together with other selected Windows Vista features for convenient access and placed them into one central location. It's like a giant 'Start' page for the touch based interface, with useful application shortcuts and information, like the date and time. For casual and young users, the SmartCenter is where they are likely to interact with the TouchSmart PC and with the right applications configured, they may not even need to exit the SmartCenter. By default, the HP SmartCenter also includes shortcuts for Windows Media Center and Internet Explorer among others.

Then there is the HP SmartCalendar, which brings the "fridge magnet noticeboard/reminder" concept to the PC. Essentially, users are able to create handwritten or typed 'notes' addressed to either everyone who uses the TouchSmart or selected user profiles. These notes will appear on the SmartCalendar space and users can read them at a glance, just like they would read paper sticky notes attached to the refrigerator. This application probably sprung from HP's vision of the TouchSmart PC as a shared machine ideally located in common spaces of the home like the kitchen or dining room. Additionally, if writing notes is not your style, you can even record the audio messages. Personally, we had fun creating these notes and we bet it will become a time sink for young children and occupy their minds creatively, which should be good news for the parents.

Finally, the HP Photosmart Touch looks rather similar to Windows Vista's Photo Gallery application, but optimized for the touch interface. It is not an advanced editing tool for images but for cases where not much editing is needed and convenience or haste is preferred, it gets the images and pictures resized and printed with minimal fuss, especially if you also have a compatible HP Photosmart printer already linked to the TouchSmart PC.

Performance Remarks

Despite its very decent specifications, scoring a respectable 4.6 in the Windows Experience Index, the HP TouchSmart IQ770 PC is not a very fast machine in today's world of multi-core computing. True, it may be running a dual core processor, but it comes in the form of a mobile Turion 64 X2 TL-52. Once you actually look at the configuration of the TouchSmart, you will realize that this is a notebook masquerading as a PC. Almost all of its components have their roots in mobile computing, from the notebook class Turion processor to the GeForce Go 7600 graphics chipset. Even its healthy 2GB of DDR2 memory is of the SoDIMM variety, though that has no bearing on performance. Fortunately, HP went with a 7200RPM SATA hard drive that is on par with most desktops.

Some of the hardware decisions, especially the emphasis on components more commonly found in notebooks, may be prompted by energy and space constraints. The decision to install Windows Vista, while straightforward considering the timing of the release, does have an effect on the perceived performance of the TouchSmart. Startup for example took an excruciating 1:25 minutes and shutting down the PC was also similar slow. It could be due to the number of preloaded and proprietary applications on startup (such as speech recognition module, though we've noticed the impact on startup speed was minimal after we disabled it). However, the choice to go with mobile-class hardware in a desktop PC is its weakest link.

To aggravate matters performance-wise, the system was also setup like a notebook, with emphasis on heavy power saving modes enabled, CPU throttling and other energy saving measures like putting the system and hard drive to sleep. For a system that may be expected to be idle and on standby for long periods of time, we can see the reasoning behind it, but the effect on performance, in particular overall responsiveness and user experience, was not ideal at all. Applications felt sluggish and took a while to launch. At times, we were also left wondering if we had actually launched the applications, since we were using our less than precise fingers instead of the mouse. Being impatient, this eventually lead to multiple instances of the same application, as we naturally tried again after the initial lack of response (which turned out to be system 'lag').

Most of this issues can be alleviated by going to the Vista's Control Panel and changing the Power Options to 'Performance Mode'. The difference was palpable and applications were greatly improved in response time. No matter what your usage model will be for the TouchSmart, we highly recommend that you change this for better system performance, and especially if you intend to use it for heavy multimedia, multi-tasking or even some gaming.

Performance Benchmarking

Considering that complete PC systems all have their own distinct configurations, we faced a problem of finding suitable benchmark comparisons for the HP TouchSmart IQ770 PC. This issue was compounded by Windows Vista, which many applications, drivers and traditional benchmarks have not been optimized for. In the end, we selected some scores from a number of sources, including our notebook and bare bones reviews. So far, the latest versions of PCMark05 and 3DMark06 have been cleared to work with Vista and thus, we will be using them in our benchmarks. Because of the hardware, software and OS differences of the various systems, these scores are only to give you a rough gauge on the performance of the TouchSmart PC.

Results - PCMark05 & 3DMark06

For PCMark05, the System score returned by the HP TouchSmart was closest to the Intel Core Duo based (T2400, 1.83GHz) Shuttle XPC X100 SFF PC. These two systems may have quite dissimilar specifications, but the faster processor on the Shuttle was matched with a relatively low-end Radeon Mobility X1400 while the HP came with a GeForce Go 7600, hence the close scores. Interestingly, when we pitted the HP against a BenQ Joybook with a similar class of processor (AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-50), the TouchSmart was slightly slower. This minor difference may be the result of the HP running Windows Vista rather than Windows XP.

Graphics Benchmarks

The HP TouchSmart scored 2582 in 3DMark06 at 1024 x 768, more than a thousand points less than our desktop reference system, which to be fair, had a superior processor and GeForce 7600 GT graphics. A more appropriate comparison for the GeForce Go 7600 graphics chipset in the TouchSmart would be NVIDIA's GeForce 7600 GS. In which case, the similar scores should assure consumers somewhat. Personally though, such a level of performance falls short of our expectations for this PC but we did get a decent 46.2 frames in Quake 4 at this resolution, without anti-aliasing enabled. Since the native and maximum resolution on the 19-inch widescreen display of the TouchSmart is only 1440 x 900, most games should perform fairly well on this PC at this resolution.

Conclusion

The HP TouchSmart IQ770 PC is a machine that defies the conventional genres that we tend to place computers into. It is certainly not the high-powered gaming machines that excite the hardcore enthusiasts, yet it can serve up a decent game of Quake 4 for the less fussy. It has all the multimedia fittings and simply with the addition of a relatively affordable compact HP photo printer, it will print photos or assignments with equal ease. In short, it is quintessentially PC with its versatility - there is something for everyone.

HP may have some inkling on how the TouchSmart, in particular the touch based interface could be used by consumers, yet we bet that they won't have expected this hilarious video clip from a Norwegian reality show. Unlikely as it seems, for some users, the display is the computer and for once, this is true with the TouchSmart. Casual users like those who don't care about the nuts and bolts of a PC will benefit from the new way of interacting with the PC.

While we have our doubts about the long-term practicality of using the touch based interface for tasks that a power user would be engaging in, we have to admit that touch is instinctive and intuitive and there were moments when it was rather useful, not to mention fun. There's also the fact that with HP positioning the TouchSmart PC as a shared machine for the entire family, the young and old alike will find this interface easy to pick up, given what we have seen of HP's touch-enabled custom applications. The TouchSmart PC is a lifestyle PC and because of this, the touchscreen solution will be welcome by many.

Although comparisons with the Apple iMac will be inevitable, the TouchSmart stands on its own merits. However, we do have some niggling concerns about its overall performance. The responsiveness of the system may be rather sluggish, especially in its energy saving mode. We did manage to improve the experience somewhat just by changing the power options but the underlying weakness of the AMD based Turion 64 X2 processor mean that the typical desktop PC or even notebooks that are based on the Intel Core 2 Duo will out-muscle the TouchSmart PC. Hence, it is perhaps appropriate that this system is targeted at the more casual segment, where performance is not that much of a deal breaker. Instead, the multimedia features offered by AMD Live!, its touch-based interface and lifestyle gadgets will be the main highlights of the system. The integration of form and function, like how the printer station, keyboard and display can all be 'fused' into one is also a point HP would like you to appreciate.

With a US$1799, the HP TouchSmart IQ770 PC is definitely much more expensive than its rivals like Dell or Lenovo. Though the TouchSmart boasts a slightly better configuration by comparison, even the 20-inch Apple iMac with a 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor is only US$1499. HP will probably be banking on the exclusivity of its touchscreen interface and the additional multimedia features like the TV tuner to generate interest and sales. It's never easy trying to create something new and iconic. The TouchSmart IQ770 PC is a decent attempt on paper but only time will tell if it really takes off.

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