Dell Inspiron One 19 Desktop Touch review

Thanks to Windows 7, a new all-in-one PC without a touch interface is a rare thing these days, and all the big guns are diving in. Dell is the latest to give its range a much-needed touch upgrade, but the Inspiron One 19 Desktop Touch is no expensive Flash Harry – it’s one of the cheapest multitouch PCs we’ve yet seen.

Despite the £467 exc VAT price, this touchscreen PC doesn’t skimp on quality. True, a 19in, 1,366 x 768 panel is no longer the draw it once was, but it’s pleasant to use. Aside from the tiny lag common to most touchscreen displays, the Inspiron proved responsive, and accurate enough for navigating Windows 7 Home Premium.

It’s a cut above its competition, too. The Dell’s capacitive interface is far more tactile than the resistive screen of our previous budget favourite, the MSI Wind Top AE2020. The screen shows no sign of backlight bleed and the panel is evenly lit. The surface has a slightly mottled effect, a necessary side-effect of capacitive touchscreen layer, but it’s no worse than on rival machines.

Dell’s pre-installed software is good, too. The many apps are accessed through the Dell Touch Zone Lobby, which collects icons into a radial menu that stretches across the bottom of the screen. Unlike the front-end software suites included with other touchscreen all-in-ones we’ve seen, Dell’s dock doesn’t occupy the entire screen and still allows access to the wider OS.

The dock is populated with a range of proprietary apps, although there’s little we haven’t seen before. There’s the usual note-taking app – this time with added sound effects – and a range of tools for handling photos, movies and music, all of which borrow the radial menu system of the dock. There aren’t any games beyond those that come with the Touch Pack for Windows 7.