HP Envy Recline 27 TouchSmart AIO - Bringing Touch Closer to You

A New Dawn for Touch-enabled AIOs?

Windows 8 is all about touch, but to be honest, outside of the tablet, touch as a means of input hasn't really caught on. Mostly this is because users are far too accustomed to the good old keyboard and mouse combo. In fact, power users often memorize keyboard shortcuts so as to minimize using the mice. For getting things done, the keyboard and mouse is still much more efficient.

That said, touch is arguably more fun to use and 'interactive', but current AIO designs do not facilitate touch as the main means of input. This is because the majority of AIOs have very simple stands that do not allow users the flexibility of placing and positioning their screens in such a way that it is comfortable to use for touch inputs. Right now, using touch on any AIO feels like writing on a whiteboard (chalkboard if you were born in the 80s). After any extended period of time, your arms get tired.

The HP Envy Recline 27 TouchSmart AIO attempts to rectify this by having a stand that has been designed to give the display incredible flexibility with regards to its positioning. The stand can be adjusted for both height and tilt, between 5 and 145 degrees, and allows for what HP calls “below the desk typing”, thanks to a clever hinge design in its stand. It reminds us of the Lenovo IdeaCentre A720, but the Recline 27 takes it a step further. We had a brief encounter of it in action a month ago in HP's year-end line-up refresh update, but today, we present you a full review based on the time we've spend with a test unit.

The Hardware

The HP Envy Recline 27 TouchSmart AIO (from here on known simply as the Recline 27) is one of the first AIOs to be powered by Intel’s latest "Haswell" fourth-generation Core processors. Our model is powered by the Intel Core i7-4770T, a quad-core part that runs at 2.5GHz and has a generous 8MB of L3 cache. The "T" suffix means that it is power-optimized with a relatively low TDP of 45W.

On the graphics front, it is unfortunate that the Core i7-4770T does not come with the newer Iris or Iris Pro integrated graphics. Instead, it has to make do with the older Intel HD Graphics 4600 integrated GPU, which is passable, but not ideal in a system meant for multimedia usage. Fortunately, HP has the foresight to include NVIDIA GeForce GT 730A discrete graphics that has 1GB of DDR3 framebuffer.

The Recline 27 comes with a surprisingly generous 16GB of memory, which is double that of what most AIOs have. In addition, we like that it has a 1TB 5400rpm hard disk drive that has been augmented with 16GB of ExpressCache, which is basically a small flash drive that caches frequently used applications and data - somewhat similar to the SanDisk ReadyCache. This made booting up the system and and launching applications appreciably quicker.

Finally, the Recline 27 has, as its name suggests, a 27-inch display. The display is a Full-HD (1080p) IPS one, which should mean excellent viewing angles, but this is negated by its glossy finish which we found it to be rather reflective. The display is also touch-enabled, uses capacitive technology and is able to recognize up to 10 points simultaneously. Touch performance was excellent, the touchscreen display was both responsive and accurate to use.

Design & Features 

As you would expect from a product in HP's Envy lineup, the new Recline 27 is smartly designed, though not radically different from the other AIOs that are presently in the market. The front panel and bezel are in glossy black, whereas the rest of the machine is in matte-finished aluminum. The machine feels solidly put together and we certainly cannot fault the built quality.

We were told by HP that all the components of the AIO are housed behind the display, hence the display itself is rather thick. To the right of the display, on the sides, are two USB 3.0 ports, with one marked for quick-charging. To the left is a HDMI port and a single button that switches the display to the HDMI input. This nifty function lets you hook up your game console or set-top box to the Recline 27 via its HDMI input, allowing it to function as a regular 27-inch Full HD monitor. At the bottom of the right side of the display is also a memory card reader (supports SD, SDHC, SDXC standards). In the stand, users can find an additional two USB 2.0 ports and an Ethernet jack (as pictured in the above photos).

The Recline 27 also comes with Beats audio, but it was nothing to shout about. Audio performance was decent and bass was sufficiently punchy, but overall, the Recline 27 sounded muffled, as if a blanket was covered over it.

The highlight, however, of the Recline 27 has to be its stand. It offers as much flexibility as the Lenovo IdeaCentre A720, can be adjusted for height and tilt, and can even be folded completely flat. However, it was specifically designed to allow for what HP calls "below the desk typing", which can be seen in the photo below. In such a position, it would be akin to using a massive tablet, thereby maximizing the potential of its excellent touchscreen. Unfortunately, as we have mentioned above, the screen is really glossy, and throws up a reflection at even the slightest of angles. As a result, this makes the "below the desk" typing and user experience less ideal than what it should have been.

Test Setup

To evaluate the HP Recline 27, we will be putting it through our usual benchmarks. However, this time we have omitted PCMark 7, as it is getting outdated; and also added a new gaming benchmark in the form of Tomb Raider. As for comparisons, we will be looking at how it fairs against the recently reviewed Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon as well as other AIOs such as the ASUS Transformer AIO and ASUS ET2411INTI. For the newer benchmarks such as 3DMark 2013 and PCMark 8, we were not able to recall the other AIOs for retesting so we will be including results from comparable systems that were recently reviewed.

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PCMark 8

Performance from the Recline 27 on PCMark 8 was very encouraging and perhaps not entirely unexpected given that it has a rather beefy Core i7-4770T processor. It might be a “power-optimized” model, but it packs four cores and has HyperThreading as well as a large 8MB L3 cache. Its scores on the “Home” and “Work” scenarios were amongst the highest, giving even mighty gaming notebooks like the Aftershock XG13 and Razer Blade a run for their money. However, its performance was more subdued on graphics-intensive scenarios like “Creative” and the Adobe portion of “Apps”, which was in no small part due to its entry-level GeForce GT 730A discrete graphics. The MacBook Air, Aftershock XG13 and Razer Blade notebooks ruled the “Storage” scenario thanks to their flash storage. 

Graphics & Gaming Benchmarks

The NVIDIA GeForce GT 730A is an entry-level discrete graphics solution, so we were not expecting much from the graphics and gaming benchmarks.

On 3DMark 2013, the Recline 27’s scores put in the middle of the pack, behind the Toshiba Satellite P50 (NVIDIA GeForce GT 745M) and the two gaming notebooks (both have the NVIDIA GeForce GT 765M). However, its scores were markedly faster than the IdeaCentre Horizon (last generation GeForce GT 620M) and the MacBook Air (Intel HD Graphics 5000).

On 3D Mark 11, the Recline 27 fared well, because most of the AIOs that we have reviewed recently were running NVIDIA’s last generation GeForce GT 630M. The ASUS Transformer AIO has a comparable GeForce GT 730M GPU.

On Far Cry 2, the Recline 27 performed appreciably better than the older AIOs thanks to its more powerful GPU. Only the ASUS Transformer AIO, which has a similar GPU, was able to match it.

We did not have the chance to run Tomb Raider on the older AIOs, but just to give you an idea, we have included results from the recent gaming notebooks that we have tested. Overall performance was pretty disappointing because at 1080p resolution and even on just “Normal” settings, the Recline 27 could only manage 20.9fps.

We further investigated the Recline 27's performance on Tomb Raider by running it at “Low” settings and that gave us 30.9fps, barely above the minimum playable threshold of 30fps. To get above 30fps with “Normal” settings, you would have dial back the resolution to 1280 x 800 pixels.

Flawed Execution

Due to the rise of smartphones and tablets, sales of traditional desktop and mobile computing devices have suffered of late. The reaction by Microsoft and its PC partners is to integrate touch into their devices, thinking that that alone will suffice and draw users back to desktop and notebook machines. Unfortunately, touch as a means of interfacing with such machines have not quite caught on. This is evident judging from public reaction to Windows 8, an OS that was designed from ground up to be more touch-friendly. Users still prefer the trusty keyboard and mouse.

The Recline 27 attempts to change this by offering users a new way of using their AIO, thanks to a cleverly engineered stand. However, we have mixed reactions about their attempt. On one hand, it did bring the display closer to users, effectively turning the Recline 27 into a giant tablet, and that made it quite fun to use. Unfortunately, the highly reflective glossy screen is distracting and and makes it very hard to see what’s on the screen.

On the flip side, the Recline 27 does offer plenty performance, thanks to the powerful Core i7-4770T processor and generous amount of RAM. Results on general computing scenarios such as "Home" and "Work" were amongst the highest and this was reflected in our own usage as well. The Recline 27 has plenty of juice for tasks like word processing, web browsing and even other compute-intensive productivity and creativity tasks like video editing and encoding.

Given that the Recline 27 is powered by a very basic GeForce GT 730A, it was not surprising that graphics performance was disappointing. Clearly it lacked the horsepower required to run newer games such as Tomb Raider at its native resolution. Further to that, this also hampered its ability to excel in some of the content creation tasks in our PCMark 8 test suites that tapped on the graphics horsepower. Clearly, the Recline 27 has an excellent processing platform that's letdown by a basic GPU. No doubt it's better than integrated graphics on the CPU, but HP could have offered a better balance.

We also noted that the Recline 27 lacked certain features found on other more multimedia-oriented AIOs such as a Blu-ray drive and integrated TV tuner. We think such features would greatly complement an AIO, as it is most suited for media consumption. The Recline 27 is also somewhat lacking in the audio department and the fact that there's no audio line-out facility on the AIO also counts against upgrading its audio subsystem with better speaker solutions. You could use the headphones output jack if required, but that's not the as good as a proper non-amplified audio output jack. While the AIO seems to support a standalone subwoofer to extend the reproduction of lower frequencies via a dedicated audio jack, it was designed with HP's optional accessory upgrade in mind (which is unfortunately not offered locally). You may still source for your own subwoofer that uses such an input, but the options are limited in the PC speakers department.

As a result, we found the Recline 27’s asking price of S$2499 to be a tad on the high side. While it might be cheaper than Lenovo's 27-inch IdeaCentre Horizon and IdeaCentre A720 (both cost around S$2700 - S$2800), those machines were more multimedia-oriented and had the goods and features to back them up. The IdeaCentre Horizon had a unique multi-mode cart, gaming accessories and a built-in battery, while the IdeaCentre A720 came with a Blu-ray player and integrated TV tuner. Meanwhile, the ASUS AIO machines we've compared each come with their own strong suite of features that make them functional and versatile. The Recline 27's performance might be above average in some scenarios and it has a really well engineered stand, but the “below the desk typing” mode that HP promotes is let down by its highly glossy and reflective screen. In addition, as mentioned in the earlier paragraph, it lacks multimedia-centric features that would have made it a more useful and functional media consumption system.

Despite our judgment, we encourage you to try out its flexible stand and hinge at retail stores to see if its "below the desk typing" mode and much closer screen interaction are enough pull factors for your usage needs. There are several AIO models that offer a lie-flat usage, but HP's Recline 27 is the first to do that and the above mentioned usage mode.

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