HP Gets Touchy With Winter Product Rollout
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based computing giant's seasonal product roll out coincides with the upcoming release of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system, so a variety of new Win 7-ready business and consumer PCs from HP's Personal Systems Group (PSG) were part of the show. But three new TouchSmart all-in-ones; a touch-enabled, swiveled tablet PC; and the digital signage entry were clearly the stars of the show.
First up in HP's new lineup of all-in-one touch-screen PCs is the TouchSmart 300 series, with a 20-inch HD widescreen display and processor from Advanced Micro Devices. The TouchSmart 600 swaps the AMD chip for an Intel part and has a 23-inch display, but otherwise features the same integrated premium stereo speakers, built-in Webcam and microphone, and wireless keyboard.
On the business side, HP offers the TouchSmart 9100, providing real-time information and video conference 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.
Meanwhile, HP is advertising its new TouchSmart tx2, a combination notebook and tablet PC, as "the first notebook PC for consumers that enables the use of two fingers to navigate HP's entertainment applications." That's achieved with new multi-touch support within HP's MediaSmart software suite, apparently.
Moving away from touch, HP's Compaq brand has several new entries, including the Compaq Presario CQ61 series notebook, a 15.6-incher, and the very slim Compaq Presario CQ4010 desktop tower.
Two new business-class notebooks -- the HP ProBook 6445b and ProBook 6545b -- feature AMD processor options and tap into the system security and management software suites from HP's Professional Innovations portfolio.
Also on the commercial side, HP has its first Intel Core i5-based unit in the new HP Elite 7000 series of business workstations, which is also available in Core i7 configurations.