This year may well herald the rise of the touch-screen.
Weve seen previous attempts at integrating a touch-screen in an all-in-one PC, notably from Pelham Sloane and MPC, but those systems were more suited to dedicated duties like home automation, store kiosks or receptionist terminals.
Now Hewlett-Packard brings the touch-screen concept back to all-in-one desktops with its new HP TouchSmart IQ770 PC ($1,800 direct), which is being unveiled at this years CES.
Is it a successful all-in-one, or a mere waystation on the information superhighway? Click on, dear reader.
The TouchSmart IQ770 is a tour de force from one of the innovators in the PC industry. HP has built a PC that competes with the current benchmark system, the Apple iMac, while designing a PC that goes beyond a simple “me too.”
The IQ770 follows the more HP-standard dark color scheme, and has a slot below the screen (more on that later).
Unlike the Sony Vaio VGC-LS1 and the iMac, the IQ770 isnt all built into the screen, but in this case thats not a major drawback.
The IQ770 is built around a 1.6GHz dual-core AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-52 processor, and as such has AMDs Live Media Center enhancements. Those Live enhancements (like those of Intels Viiv) still arent fully realized yet, but at least they are there.