One of the hallmarks of HP’s all-in-one PCs – besides some sweet, sweet designs, of course – is that a lot of our machines feature touch-screen interfaces. It’s something that HP’s innovated since way back in 1983 with the HP-150. But today isn’t about a history lesson, it’s about looking at the latest wave of TouchSmart PCs to come out of our design labs.
In this case, we’re talking about the new ENVY 20 and ENVY 23 TouchSmart PCs. I recently had a chance to kick the virtual tires on the ENVY 23 – a classy, glassy desktop – but that was without the touching display. For this most recent release, you’re also getting sleek, flush glass look plus a 10-point capacitive multi-touch screen. Nice, right?
While I haven’t had a TON of time with the new TouchSmart flavor quite yet, I can still give you a little bit of info. For a quick hands-on impression and the skinny, I’m reminding you of my recent impression of the ENVY 23….the one that didn’t offer TouchSmart…but it still gives you a good indication of the sort of things you’ll be able to do besides using that awesome-looking touchscreen.
All right, so let’s dig into the ENVY 23 TouchSmart in all its edge-to-edge glassed glory (Starting at $999, available at the end of October). The slightly smaller ENVY 20 starts at $799). Like the Omni27, it has smooth lines whether you want to have it sit on the base or mount it on a wall. (I know that Jon Rayner loves that VESA-mountable quality of our All-in-One Designs). The 23-inch screen yields a sharp 19x10 picture….and below that, a Beats AudioTM sound bar in the speaker grill.
As with our other All-in-One designs, you can mix-and-match what you want under the hood. 3rd-Gen Intel® Core processors are available…and if you want 2TB of storage, no problem. In the case of what I had in-hand: Core i5-3450S, 4GB RAM, Radeon HD 7670A, 7200rpm HDD. Optional Blu-ray, TV Tuner and HDMI-in port says to me that it makes for a solid stand-alone PC….or a sleek rig to pop in your living room. Y’know, if you were to set this up in your kids’ room, they’ll instantly have a machine that can wirelessly connect up to your network, stream video or serve as an extra TV. The HDMI-in means you could plug in an Xbox 360 or PS3. Speaking of which….
That was all the excuse I needed to fire up a battery of tests to see how well the ENVY 23 handled. Rolling through the software gauntlet (you can read more about that here), I can tell you that if you set the resolution for these games even at 1600 x 900 with medium-to-high settings they will run and look great. I was finding things running around at least 35 frames per second. Or, to put that in perspective, better than what you’re likely to find on a game console. Plus PCs rock. OK, rant is done.
What? You don’t want a touchscreen PC? Hey, I’m not one to judge. We’re also rolling out a non-touch model today – the HP Pavilion 20. Think of this guy as the little brother to the recently released HP Pavilion 23. It manages to get you a solid all-in-one (with either Intel- or AMD-based guts) that sells for a really reasonable price. It starts at $449.
In the meantime, what do you think of the All-in-One computers we have these days? Not to mention the fact that we’re soon going to have a new OS that is built to take full advantage of touch. Cool, right? Tell us what’s on your mind in the comments….and what sort of apps you’d love to take advantage of on a 10-point touch screen. Me? I’ll be trying Starcraft II on this ASAP!
