Touch Of Class: Hot New Products From HP

Hewlett-Packard unveiled a host of new PC products Tuesday, with a special emphasis on touch-screen desktops and notebooks like this all-in-one HP TouchSmart PC. Digital signage, business notebooks, desktop towers and displays round out HP's latest product rollout -- we'll take a look at it all in the following pages.

HP's new Compaq Presario CQ61 series notebook features a glossy black finish and the line's iconic touchpad design. Powering this Windows 7-loaded, 15.6-inch laptop is an AMD Sempron processor and ATI Radeon HD 4200 graphics. A 160-GB hard disk drive and 2 GB of system memory round out the specs.

Price: $399 ($100 rebate available from Oct. 18 to Dec. 19) Availability: Oct. 22

The HP ProBook 6445b is a mainstream business notebook series with full Windows 7 capability as well as a Windows XP Professional option. AMD's Turion, Athlon and Sempron processors are the processor choices for this 14-inch number, which offers business users up to 8 GB of system memory and up to 500 GB of hard disk space.

Price: $799 (with docking station) Availability: Oct. 22 (outside U.S.), mid-November (U.S.)

The HP ProBook 6545b is the 6445b's big brother, featuring the same OS options and AMD components, but a larger 15.6-inch diagonal display. As with the 6445b, the HP ProBook 6545b uses docking stations and battery solutions from the HP Universal Accessories family of products, while also tapping into the system security and management software from HP's Professional Innovations portfolio.

Price: $799 (with docking station) Availability: Oct. 22 (outside U.S.), mid-November (U.S.)

Both a tablet and a notebook, the swivel-screened HP TouchSmart tx2 is a 12-inch unit built around AMD's dual-core Turion X2 mobile processor and ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics. This Windows 7-ready laptop ships with 4 GB of system memory and a 320-GB hard disk drive in a system whose star attraction is HP's own LED wide-screen integrated touch-screen display.

Price: $799 Availability: Oct. 22

HP's notebook docking stations offer up to six USB ports and up to two video DisplayPort connectors, in addition to VGA and DVI ports on all models. The HP Advanced Docking Station, pictured here, also features a new eSATA port that delivers throughput rates of up to 3 Gbps.

Price: Included with HP ProBook 6000 series notebooks Availability: Oct. 22

HP's Compaq 500B, left, and Compaq 505B micro-tower PCs are business desktops offering impressive functionality for the Compaq line's attractive prices. The 500B is the Intel machine, featuring ATI or Nvidia video card options, up to 4 GB of DDR3 memory, and up to 500 GB of hard disk space. The 505B swaps out the Intel chip for an AMD part, and uses Nvidia's nForce graphics chipset, but otherwise has the same memory, hard disk and video card options.

Price: $359 (HP Compaq 500B) Availability: Oct. 22

Price: $409 (HP Compaq 505B) Availability: Oct. 22

The Compaq line's latest desktop offering for consumers is the Compaq Presario CQ4010, a very thin tower that ships with Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium. Specs include an AMD Sempron processor, the Nvidia nForce MCP61 chipset, 2 GB of system memory and a 250-GB hard disk drive.

Price: $309 Availability: Oct. 22

Headlining the specs for the new HP Elite 7000 series of business workstations is Intel's fresh-out-of-the-fab Core i5 processor. Also available with a Core i7, this workhorse from HP also supports up to 8 GB of DDR3 memory and can be configured with a full terabyte of hard disk storage. Graphics choices include both Nvidia GeForce and ATI Radeon options.

Price: $789 Availability: Oct. 22

HP's new LD4200tm 42-inch wide-screen LCD interactive digital signage display features infrared technology to enable quick and easy on-screen interactivity -- ideal for installation in kiosks, as well as point-of-sale, hospitality, education, banking and manufacturing environments.

Price: $2,799 Availability: December

First up in HP's new lineup of all-in-one touch-screen PCs is the TouchSmart 300 series, whose slim, power-saving design and small footprint belies the big picture you're getting on a 20-inch, 16:9 HD widescreen display. Integrated premium stereo speakers, a built-in Webcam and microphone and wireless keyboard round out the package.

Price: $899 Availability: Nov. 1

A step up from the HP TouchSmart 300 is the HP TouchSmart 600 series, which swaps AMD chips for Intel's to power a 23-inch, 16:9 full HD 1080p widescreen display. As with every HP TouchSmart PC, this one comes with 24-hour HP Total Care service and support for customers.

Price: $1,049 Availability: Oct. 22

On the business side, HP offers the TouchSmart 9100, providing real-time information and videoconference capabilities. With a Microsoft-certified "Multi-Touch" Windows 7-compliant touch-screen and HP's own TouchSmart software suite, this nifty unit lets users scroll, drag, flick, pinch, pan, zoom and rotate as fast as their fingers can fly.

Price: $1,299 Availability: Decemeber

Whether the applications are oriented towards consumer or commercial uses, HP is pushing touch in a big way. For its three new TouchSmart PCs and first fully interactive digital signage touch-screen display, HP packaged a host of new multitouch applications. These include TouchSmart Live TV, Hulu Desktop and a touch-enabled Netflix app.

More examples of HP's touch-screen obsession include new made-for-touch apps from Adobe and new multitouch support within HP's MediaSmart suite of applications. HP's also worked to add gaming capabilities to its touch-screen lineup -- some models of the HP TouchSmart 600 easily connect to gaming consoles, including the Xbox, PlayStation and Wii, via HDMI or composite video ports.