I received my HP Touchsmart IQ770 PC, via Ebay, on May 22nd since I was pretty sure there'd be no Memorial Day discounting anywhere, which was right. So I wanted to be sure to get this review posted in time for Father's Day to help ensure you're making the right decision for this - and you are as you'll see.
Initial Reservations
Now, let me be totally frank and disclose I had my reservations about getting HP Touchsmart v1.0. I'm the first one in any circle to say NEVER get any v1.0 technology. Especially since, in this case, the AMD Turion 64 X2 TL52 at 1.6Ghz seemed to be a "second team" part when you've got Intel Core 2 Duos at 2+Ghz lighting up PCs everywhere. And another concern was Vista Home Premium since it's also v1.0 - no service packs or really anything to make it seem more stable. And there had been alot of talk that many devices didn't have Vista drivers yet and all that yuk. And at $1850 retail plus another $100 in sales tax you really have to ask yourself if "you feel lucky".
The Purchase
So, off to Ebay I went, and lo and behold there were - and still are - lots of brand new, factory sealed systems selling for $16xx total out of pocket. So that's about a $300 discount off of buying retail at the local tech stores. Ok, that reduces some of my risk, makes me feel a bit better. And demo'ing it several more times at Best Buy just convinced me I HAD to have this lovely and amazing machine as my main coffee-table computer. The gorgeous, bright 19-inch LCD with all those slick, glowy translucent icons and gadgets courtesy of Vista, along with the touchscreen capability just brings out the 4-yr old in you, "Gimme! Gimme now!". I reasoned that the HP Touchsmart isn't a terribly green v1.0 device. It's built with tried and true parts for the most part. And Windows Vista has been Beta tested ad nauseum for like two years so if that's not an 11-month birth baby...besides, I'd heard no across-the-board horror stories about any flavor of it so it couldn't be that bad, though like everyone else, I was comfortable with the stability and driver maturity of Windows XP. Given all this, the decision was made, and I got my best deal at the time on Ebay and it arrived on my doorstep the evening of May 22.
Its Setup
The unboxing event was almost religious. I took my time, I took pictures, I posted those pictures. I took a drink of soda and continued the unboxing. HP did a great job in packing it and protecting the precious touchscreen. After a few hours it was connected and ready for boot up. That was a sweet process too. Your first bootup is always a special experience and with this piece of candy it's even better because they developed videos and artwork specifically for this first-boot and configuration process. It's past midnight at this point in its first night on the coffee table. I declared victory after I got it wirelessly connected to the Internet after altering the router to permit its MAC ID access. Really, this was a Christmas in May event. Everything worked great the first time through. No calls to HP/India, no stress at all. It just worked right out of the box.
Insider Details
Alright. Let me describe this PC in more detail for you. I'm not going to give you its retail specs, you can find that everywhere else. This is the more practical info that's not disclosed anywhere else. This is a hybrid desktop/notebook PC; it's neither, yet both. It's dressed in black, so you need to like black. There are no other color options, it's black. The main unit has a 10" deep by 16" wide footprint on your desk. This unit contains the motherboard components along with all the various connections and the DVD drive. The display unit is connected perpindicular to the main unit. It has the LCD screen and integrated speakers. The display unit's dimensions are 22" wide, 12.5" high, and 2" deep. At its lowest mount position its bottom frame is 3.25" off the desktop; at its highest mount position - it's grab-and-move adjustable - its bottom frame is 6.5" off the desktop. So not only does it adjust vertically but it adjusts angularly. That is, you can tilt it (from the top) backwards what appears to be about 20-degrees. It does not swivel left or right, though; but neither does your notebook's LCD.
Make Go Fast
The internal components that drive the unit include the AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-core TL-52 1.6Ghz processor, 2GB of DDR2 memory, Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 256MB graphics card, 320GB 7200rpm serial ATA disk drive, and slot loaded omni-format DVD writer with Lightscribe labelling capability - they include two Lightscribe-capable DVD+R discs, too. Yes, sweet specs. It's got Bluetooth connectivity and there's a built-in printer station for those small HP Photosmart printers so that the printer sits nicely on the rear of the main unit not taking up any further desk space. When configured this way, the printer's output comes out the front of the unit under the display unit. Pretty slick. I don't use that since I currently use, at least, a standard printer that's shared off my wireless router.
Speakers
The two integrated side speakers measure 10.5" x 2.25". I think they're 20 watts total which is alright, but I've connected my 80 watt 2.1 speakers to its headphone jack to get that in-your-face aural experience.
The Touchscreen LCD
The LCD measures 16" x 10.25" with a 19" diagonal. Its native resolution is 1440 x 900. Yeh, it's odd but it hasn't impacted my use in any way. It's a glossy, Brightview LCD which is just brilliant in use. It's so bright that I typically reduce its brightness output to 40% for my comfort. The LCD is a touchscreen, too. And you can touch it with passive pointing devices, meaning they're non-RFI devices unlike what tablet PCs typically utilize. Passive means you can use the included pencil-sized stylus, or your finger(nail) - which are the two most likely things you'll use for this. The screen is excellently responsive to touch and in fact you can optimize it for this use when you first set it up. In such a case it makes icons a bit bigger to accommodate finger touch. The screen is remarkably fingerprint resistant though I'd encourage you to use your fingernail, lightly, to cut down on possible smear over time. Also, technically, you do not even have to come into contact with the screen; the sensors kick-in about a millimeter off the screen, but that's tough to manage in practice. And you won't use the touchscreen for everything, everytime. You'll find there are times when the mouse is the thing to use (clicking small boxes and selecting from drop lists) and times where touching the screen makes best sense (using your browser to hyperlink and scroll). It's really, really great. I'm very very happy with it.
Keyboard/Mouse
They are both dressed in flat black, cordless, and work via RFI on the 2.4Ghz frequency. Yes, that means there could be performance impact while using Wifi-B/G, but more on that in a bit. The keyboard is standard qwerty with a numeric keypad to the right. It also has a volume rocker-switch, mute button, and On/Standby button to the left of the keys. The function key offers quick-key launch of your browser, Email, brightness control, print screen, etc. One of the most used quick-keying will be to use the Display On/Off function to instantly power on/off the display only. Just north of the numeric keypad are the useful Insert, Delete, Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys. The keyboard can be easily slid into a space in the main unit to hide it away. The mouse has two integrated-shell buttons, that is you don't see the buttons themselves, you just press where you expect them to be and voila. It has a pressable scroll wheel, too. I wish it had the fourth and fifth side buttons for your browser Back/Forward functions, but that gives you the opp'y to touch the Back/Forward icons on your window.
Keyboard Confession
The keyboard regularly loses RFI sync with the main unit. This shows itself as keyboard "stutter" where somekey presses are ignored and others are repeated. And yes, it's maddening. This might be caused by Wifi-B/G interference or it might be drivers in need of updating. But at least every other day I need to take the 15-seconds necessary to re-sync them. At least, the re-sync fixes it for a bit. During this long, long review I'm typing I had to do a re-sync. It ranks as a low 2 on an it-bothers-me scale from 1 to 5. The mouse doesn't lose sync but if the system is busy then the mouse gets stuttery and obstinate. Again, another opp'y to revert to touch unless you really need the mouse at that point.
Various Connections
I can't take the time and space to fully describe all the connection ports but here they are briefly. On the unit's front, facing you from right to left: On/standby blue-lit button, a drop panel revealing the re-sync button, two USB 2.0 ports, an IEEE-1394 (Firewire) port, S-video in jack, and stereo in jacks; indicator lights for Wifi, disk activity, TV record, and event reminder; card reader slot for SD, MMC, Mem Stick, Mem Stick Pro, and XD; another card slot for CF I, CF II, and MicroDrive; then there's the DVD slot with buttons for rewind, play/pause, stop, FF, and eject. On the left side are input ports for an FM antenna, TV/Cable in, HDTV/ATSC, S-video, and stereo jacks. On the unit's rear are output ports for Mini-VGA, stereo audio, digital audio, and IR for cable box control; additional Firewire port, three more USB 2.0 ports, and HP printer Y-cable port, a Gigabit Lan jack, a Kensington lock slot, and the 3-prong power cord connection. Finally, on the unit's right side is a Pocketmedia Drive Bay. On the display unit's right side is a volume rocker switch, a mute button, and channel up/down buttons.
Display Unit's Widgets
On the top panel of the display unit are two integrated microphones and an integrated 1.3 megapixel webcam. I haven't used either since it's not 1998 anymore ;-) On the unit's bottom right panel is a sticker-labelled button that takes you immediately from the Vista desktop to the HP SmartCenter which is a different display metaphor that's slick looking featuring quick touch access to your calendar, photo library, weather info, TV functionality, Internet access, Solitaire, multi-timezone clock, and your music library. In fact, this could be the desktop home for those who don't like the clutter of the Vista desktop. I should probably spend more time with the SmartCenter but I'm so XP/Vista desktop trained already.
Media Center
This is the final area I'm going to address because it's getting really late and this is getting really long. Vista Home Premium gives you access to the fabled Windows Media Center, which used to be its own flavor of XP operating system. And it's really great, didn't know what I was missing before. It provides a nice, logical interface to your photos, music, movies, and recorded TV programs since it's got DVR functionality - wow ! And the sweet icing on this chocolate fudge cake is the full function remote control. Yes, dressed in black, but with a silver D-pad. And I mean full function. This remote looks just as capable as my cable system's DVR remote. It's got 40 buttons on it ! It'll control every aspect of the Media experience on the HP Touchsmart. It's really amazing. The remote measures 8.5" x 2.25" x 0.75" and comes with two AAA batteries. Love it.
Overall Experience
I'm very pleased with this HP hybrid desktop/notebook PC. It's my main-use PC now and I look forward to using it every day. Yes, it's even fun. I had been watching tv shows/movies on a 15" LCD notebook but it's such a richer experience watching them now with a 19" Brightview LCD with a remote control in hand. It really is an awesome unit and I highly recommend one for Dad this coming weekend, or for his birthday, or if you can wait that long - Christmas. But the sooner you get one the sooner you can experience the computing joy the HP Touchsmart PC can bring. In fact, the PC's product slogan is "Your Life at Your Fingertips".
