HP Adds Reclining Display To TouchSmart All-In-One PCs

HP's TouchSmart 610 for consumers and TouchSmart 9300 Elite Business PC both feature a high definition 23-inch touch screen display that reclines up to 60 degrees and tilts forward up to five degrees. The reclining effect makes the new TouchSmart PCs feel like interactive kiosks, or even giant tablets, and HP is hoping this flexibility will translate into new vertical business opportunities.

HP has been stepping up its investment in industrial design and the reclining feature is one of the fruits of this initiative, said Randall Martin, chief design strategist for desktop PCs in HP's Personal Systems Group, said in an interview last week. "We're finding that [the reclining display] is a big differentiator for us," he said.

HP, like many technology companies, is also looking for inventive ways of stalling the iPad's march into the business market, and reclining is one way to make the TouchSmart line more appealing to a broader range of customers and applicable in a wider range of computing scenarios.

"HP is freaking out because out because the iPad is getting traction in the enterprise," said Todd Swank, vice president of marketing at Nor-Tech, a Burnsville, Minn.-based system builder. "HP has such a good hold on the enterprise, so anything that would potentially disrupt that is very concerning for them."

When reclined halfway, the TouchSmart 9300 can allow a speaker to maintain better eye contact with his or her audience during a presentation. Its screen can also lie almost flat, providing a large viewing space for project team members to collaborate with. The TouchSmart 9300 also comes with a two-megapixel Webcam that allows the PC to be paired with facial recognition software and used as a biometric authentication solution.

HP is targeting the hospitality, health-care and retail verticals with both the TouchSmart610 and TouchSmart 9300. Tikatok, a division of Barnes & Noble, has built interactive kiosks that invite children to create their own books, while women's clothing purveyor Chico’s FAS has deployed Touchsmart PCs in 1,100 of its retail locations, using them for employee training and management.

The HP TouchSmart610 will be available starting Wednesday and is priced at $900. The TouchSmart 9300 will be available in May but HP has yet to reveal pricing.