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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