Go Ahead, Touch the Screen
By Chad A. Johnson · July 27, 2008
It made me feel so naughty. It is so ingrained in me to not touch an LCD screen for fear of marring the surface that using the new HP Touchsmart PC made me feel like I was breaking the rules. That feeling subsided quickly.
The HP Touchsmart PC is the latest all-in-one computer system to hit the market. Much like the Apple iMac, Dell XPS One and Gateway One, the HP Touchsmart PC incorporates the entire computer into the monitor housing. No need for a separate CPU cluttering your desk or floor, this class of computer is a dream for those with limited space.
What separates the Touchsmart PC from the competition is the inclusion of a 22″ touchscreen monitor. As tablet laptops have done for years, the Touchsmart PC allows you to interact directly with objects on the screen. Better than a tablet laptop, though, since it was designed to be used with your fingers instead of a stylus.
The similarities between the Touchsmart PC and a laptop computer go well beyond just the touchscreen technology. Looking at the specifications of the Touchsmart PC, it would appear to be more of a huge laptop than a compact desktop computer.
Utilizing many laptop components, the Touchsmart PC runs on an energy efficient Intel Core 2 Duo platform. A slot loading DVD burner, 5-in-1 card reader, ExpressCard slot, Bluetooth and 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity are just some of the features you expect to see in a laptop computer, not a desktop PC.
The Touchsmart PC isn’t short on traditional desktop features, though. A 500 GB hard drive, 4 GB of RAM, a Gigabit network card and integrated hi-def TV tuner allow the Touchsmart PC to compete with most multimedia desktops on the market.
Marketed as a multimedia computer for the family room or kitchen, the HP Touchsmart PC could possibly be the perfect computer for real estate agents.
For many real estate agents, interacting with a computer is cumbersome. Using a mouse on a horizontal plane to guide a pointer on a vertical plane is not an intuitive action. Using the Touchsmart PC makes interacting with objects on the screen much more natural.
Imagine browsing the internet by touching website buttons instead of clicking on them with a mouse. How about playing a video tour of a listing by touching the play button with your finger? You could even move pictures around a listing flyer with a simple swipe.
The real estate business applications of this technology are limitless. It would be a shame to only use this machine in your family room.
For any real estate agent who dreads their daily interactions with a computer, the Touchsmart PC is a great computer to invest in. Much as the iPhone is changing the way that real estate agents perform mobile computing activities, the Touchsmart will alter real estate computing at the desk.
Check out these comprehensive video demo of the HP Touchsmart PC:
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Tags: breaking the rules, real estate agents, hi def tv, multimedia computer, touchscreen technology, desktop features
Okay, I’m in the market for a new computer. I’m a power user (Photoshop+Premier+Dreamweaver+Firefox with >50 windows is typical), will this do the trick? One physical hard drive or two? I can’t seem to get a clear answer on that. Tell me it’s what I need, it is so very pretty
Nick,
While I love this computer and want one of my own, an all-in-one machine isn’t going to be a good fit for a power user. My primary computer is a massive powerhouse of a machine and Premier brings it to a crawl at times.
You need a full tower with a ton of hard drive capacity (1 hour of footage can take up 20GB of space). Having a gaming-caliber video card will help with your Premier and Photoshop work, as well.
64-bit Vista machines are gaining popularity now that device drivers are available. The ability to handle 4GB of RAM (or more) is a video editors dream.
Look for a computer that markets to gamers and you will have a machine that can handle your needs.
Darn. I’m a RAID guy, but was willing to make an external box if this was going to take care of everything else. I may “rent” it from Costco if they bring it to the local warehouse, it has the 4GB of RAM and my ancient tower with old/cheap video card is running Premier (slowly, for sure), so this would definitely be an upgrade. And to clear off some desk space for a reasonable price would be worth playing with. Thanks, and thanks for the great chats at REBarCamp and Inman!
I’m a RAID guy, myself. Reggie and I are running identical systems that use 2 10,000 RPM Raptor drives striped as a C drive with a 750 GB data drive.
If you go with the highest end model of the Touchsmart, it may meet your needs. The 500GB drive in that model is fairly roomy. If you fill it, just offload the footage that you aren’t working with onto an external drive. That way, you are alwasy using the internal drive when editing video.