HP TouchSmart 600 review

HP is very much an elder statesman when it comes to touchscreen PCs, having introduced its TouchSmart systems way back in January 2007. This experience stands the TouchSmart 600 in good stead.

It has a responsive 23in, 1,920 x 1,200 panel, and the proprietary software offers large, finger-friendly links to HP’s own utilities and widgets. These include decent – but basic – music and movie handling tools as well as picture organisation and note-taking software, plus links to Microsoft Touch Pack applications.

However, the HP’s hardware sometimes struggled to keep up, which resulted in sluggish animation. The TouchSmart’s screen isn’t as bright as we’d like, either, particularly when sat side-by-side with the vivid beauty of Sony’s VAIO VPC-L11S1E with its dual backlights.

The TouchSmart’s chassis may look as good as its rivals at first glance, but the glossy plastic finish just isn’t as luxurious as the VAIO’s metallic chassis and soon succumbed to unsightly fingerprints and smears. The selection of ports and sockets is adequate, with five USB ports, a card reader and Gigabit Ethernet, although there’s no sign of eSATA.

The HP’s core components are disappointing. The mobile Intel Core 2 Duo P7450 processor runs at 2.13GHz and returned a score of 1.10 in our benchmarks: it’s competent enough but looks distinctly average next to the 1.41 of the Sony.

The rest of the internals are more accomplished. The Nvidia GeForce GT 230M graphics chip scored 45fps in our Low-quality Crysis benchmark and handled 1080p video without fuss, and the 1TB hard disk is generous. There’s also a Blu-ray drive, 802.11bgn wireless and a hybrid DVB-T/analogue TV tuner, and the included speakers are more than capable of handling movies thanks to bass-rich sound and plenty of volume.

But when you compare the small roster of touchscreen PCs available right now, the HP jus doesn’t measure up. Recently reviewed systems from Acer and Packard Bell offer similar specifications, but without the Blu-ray drive and at a much lower price. In the other direction, the luxurious Sony offers a dual DVB-T tuner and a lot more power, albeit for £200 more.

It’s this stiff competition that proves the HP’s undoing. The TouchSmart isn’t at all bad, but when others at both ends of the scale are better, there’s no reason to settle for it.

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