Review: HP Touchsmart IQ770 all-in-one PC

The Touchsmart IQ770 doesn't look like you could do any useful work on it.

Strange angles and an excellent finish make it look more modern art than Hewlett Packard, stalwart of business computers.

HP says this computer has been selling big in the USA as a kitchen PC. It's designed to be the digital hub of a family home; children can watch TV on it as they eat their breakfast while it could also be used to double check train times before rushing out the door.

However, it's not waterproofed or ruggedised in any way and it feels like a risk having a PC permanently in the kitchen - we don't like the idea of spilling flour, eggs or washing-up liquid onto it.

The whole unit is made of black plastic, which has an excellent finish. The curves seem peculiar at first, but they create a shelf below the screen to store the bundled keyboard, mouse and remote control.

The touchscreen LCD panel has a 1,440x900 resolution - although common for 19in widescreen displays, it doesn't leave you with much desktop real estate to play with. The screen has a reflective coating which gives a good contrast and deep blacks. It also has great viewing angles and brightness levels.

The display tilts vertically, so can be used from various angles. When placed on a standard-height desk, however, it doesn't tilt up enough to be used standing up by anyone 6ft or over.

There's a well made, small, rubberised mouse and keyboard supplied. Navigation can also be performed on-screen with fingers or a plastic pen. The screen must be pressed firmly, otherwise the operation becomes sporadic.

A lowly AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-52 with two 1.6GHz cores (each with 512KB L2 cache) powers the system, backed up by 2GB DDR2 of So-Dimm Ram running at 533MHz. These are notebook components, which are difficult to upgrade and performance left us wanting more – a PCmark05 score of 3,910 is what we'd expect from an average notebook.

The IQ770 notched up 3,840 in 3Dmark05, which indicates it will be capable of light gaming, but one of the most strenuous real world games, Fear, could only muster 8fps (frames per second). However, games such as Mahjong solitaire are great fun to play on the IQ770 - In fact, the design of this PC injects a certain degree of fun into many applications.

A small button just below the screen loads HP's Smart Center software. It's similar to Windows Media Center (which is also bundled as part of Vista), but adds a calendar, notes section and a customisable front page with one-touch access to your favourite programs.

During testing we noticed just one flaw with this program - the virtual keyboard uses a standard alphabetic layout instead of the traditional Qwerty design.

The speakers sat either side of the display are much more powerful than most inbuilt speakers, comfortably filling up any room the PC is placed in. Video conversations are made easy thanks to the 1.3-megapixel webcam and stereo microphones embedded just above the screen.

A plentiful 320GB desktop hard disk comes loaded with Windows Vista Home Premium and a basic software selection including Microsoft Works 8.5, Roxio Creator Basic and Cyberlink DVD Play. The one year collect-and-return warranty is similarly uninspiring.

HP has made a fun, easy to use and well-constructed PC that has bags of features and adequate performance for office tasks. Quite where it will be used remains to be seen, but we wouldn't be happy placing such an expensive device in the kitchen without some form of waterproofing.

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