HP (Hewlett-Packard) TouchSmart IQ504 Desktop

A Really Touching Experience

Posted 1 year ago - I have had this PC for only one week, but remain wowed by HP's execution. From setup (easy and intuitive; far fewer wires than a traditional desktop) through operation (responsive and stable), my early experience has truly been a joy. The 22" touchscreen display is extremely bright, vivid, and crisp. The touchscreen functionality itself takes advantage of Vista's "baked in" tablet PC functionality. As a longtime tablet user, this is the first implementation and integration of the Vista tablet functionality on a desktop that I am aware of. The touchscreen functionality clearly works best with HP's own "TouchSmart" application shell. This shell has been designed to work well with touchscreen functionality and provides an easy-to-use interface to music, video, calendar, photo, and game applications (among others). There's even a specialized TouchSmart web browser, though it appears to have limited utility to those web pages that HP has specifically designed to take advantage of the TouchSmart shell. This might appear alarming, but you still have full and complete access outside of TouchSmart to traditional browsers such as IE, Firefox, or Safari. I have no problems to report with the integration of my existing peripherals, including a Netgear wireless router, a Canon Pixma multifunction printer, and external speakers and subwoofer. Setup of all of these truly was "plug and play." I also really like the wireless keyboard and mouse that HP bundles with the TouchSmart. The only problem I've encountered is installation of Nikon's Transfer application (for transfer of digital photos from my wife's Coolpix camera). Each of three installation attempts ended with an Install Wizard error message. I learned from Nikon Support that none of Nikon's apps are engineered for 64-bit operating systems. However, there are still multiple options for uploading photos from the camera (e.g., Kodak's free EasyShare application works great). Overall and as an IT professional, I am surprised even by my own enthusiastic reaction. Over time, the "wow" or "gee-whiz" moments with PC technology have become fewer and farther between for me. The HP TouchSmart is an exception to this. For general purpose home computing (it's not a gaming platform or a high-end engineering workstation), it merits your serious consideration.

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Really Great Product

Posted 1 year ago - I saw this product first on the HP website. I have been looking for a touchscreen PC for a long time, but I was reluctant to buy the first generation HP touchscreen PC. This however it's really something. I rush to the local Circuit city store to check it out, and got it right at the spot. The screen is perfent size, fits perfectly under a kitchen cabinet. The colors are vibrant and the interface is intuitve. My kids are loving it and so I'm. I have been waining for something like this a while, and I think this was it. It's vista based, which I like becuase it nicely support touch based inputs. The machine goes to sleep and wakes up quickly which is perfect for a quick lookup of information. Leaving notes to the familify member you simply write on the screen or record a voice or video message. The keyboard is pretty sleek and the mouse too. All and all I think it a beautiful machine into the kichen for all kinds of application. Oh one more thing it's LCD with a glass screen so you don't have to worry about touching it. It cleans easy.

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