HP Takes on Apple with the New Voodoo
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 11, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
The New HP TouchSmart
Last year saw the introduction of all-in-one machines similar to Apple's very successful iMac, this year those all-in-ones are getting a bit more sophisticated. HP's new TouchSmart IQ504 looks very much like an updated iMac from a few years ago, but it offers a 22" touchscreen and a custom interface that lays on top of Windows Vista.
The touchscreen can be used to navigate through Vista itself but the HP TouchSmart software features a far more usable UI. As you'd expect, all of the icons and UI elements are oversized so you can hit them with your finger instead of a mouse pointer.
While the interface isn't as smooth and seamless as the multi-touch on the iPhone, it is surprisingly advanced for something that has no integrated OS support.
The TouchSmart suite allows you to browse through music, videos and pictures using your fingers - and the navigation actually works reasonably well. Once again, it's not iPhone-perfect, but it's far closer than I expected. The TouchSmart software even lets you perform basic editing on your images without even picking up a mouse.
I expected touch technology to make its way to desktop PCs over the next couple of years but it looks like the transition may be already happening. With "touch" included in Windows 7, it makes sense that companies would be working out the kinks in their own approaches before then. After all, as we mentioned before, sometimes relying on Microsoft may not be the best option.
Like the iMac, the TouchSmart uses a mobile Core 2 Duo processor - it's effectively a larger notebook designed to be used as a desktop.
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michael2k - Thursday, June 12, 2008 - link
Were you a Mac user that bought the first Intel Macs?The software was at worst 2x slower.
And... you say, "They are being held back by inferior industrial design", which is exactly what was written in the intro for this article. The only reason Vista was mentioned was because that was an aspect of PC design the OEMs had precious control over, so the only thing left for them to tackle was industrial design.
You think you are superior for not "succumbing" to pro-Mac sentiment? Is that like not "succumbing" to pro-Zune sentiment, or pro-XBox sentiment, or any other "underdog gaining in popularity" sentiment?
Steve Guilliot - Saturday, June 14, 2008 - link
Yes, I bought one of the first Intel Mac Minis, and I had to upgrade the RAM to 2GB because of Rosetta. I have some experience here, thanks.So I'm wrong becuase the speed hit from Rosetta was 2x instead of 5x. Don't you know you're making my point? Anandtech articles frequently make much of a 3% speed increase due to faster RAM, etc. Don't you think a 50% performance hit is significant?
Second, if you only percieve a 2x slowdown, it's because the Intel hardware was fundamentally faster masking much of the slowdown. You can't seriously say the speed improvement from Photoshop CS2 to CS3 was only 2x.
I notice you ignored my point about poor app stability. I've had apps crash in Rosetta far more frequently than Vista pre-SP1 (which is to say almost never).
It doesn't matter that the article mentioned the inferior industrial design when they go on to put blame on MS. Maybe the only thing the OEMs could tackle was industrial design. So? They still failed at that, didn't they?
I own a 5G iPod, a Zune, an Intel Mac, and a few PCs. I do see both sides, and I can say with certiantly that the pro-Mac position is hyped, and MS is getting shorted by the tech community who think it's cool to blast Windows.
Inkjammer - Thursday, June 12, 2008 - link
Yep, I concur. I've been playing around with Vista since launch day and I've only had one app (out of dozens and dozens) that wouldn't work right. Short of some driver issues (Creative and Nvidia) I never had any real Vista-specific issues.On my old Toshiba Tecra M7, Vista BSOD'd the first time I loaded it up. When I rebooted, Vista gave me a warning messaged that it detected the crash was caused by an incompatible BIOS and that a new BIOS was available for download, even provided a link as to where to get the update. Never had a problem after flashing my system. I was rather impressed with that.
ElFindo - Thursday, June 12, 2008 - link
It seems to me that I had more trouble getting things running under XP out of the box. When there was that initial shift and everything was 'compatibility mode', which didn't work half the time anyways. In fact some of those same programs I had issues running under XP (mostly games in my experience) actually did run on Vista out of the box.Rev1 - Wednesday, June 11, 2008 - link
I'll agree there with you on that, when i 1st got my comp last year at vista launch most of my probs with it not working right was vista, and a cheap nzxt 500w power suply which was purely my fault. Having said that though i think vista works fine now exept no Hd acceleration for sounds cards like eax. I thought my logitech z5300 on a audigy 2zs on xp sounded light years better than my current z5500 on a X-fi extreme gamer on vista. So bad actually i switch to the onboard realtek and use the optical connection for sound.adelaidewright - Friday, February 11, 2011 - link
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