In recent posts we have talked a lot about Asus and some of the things that it is doing with the Eee PC and its Express Gate instant on technology.  Another vendor that I believe is doing some interesting things is HP.  HP innovation however seems to be more focused on touch technology, the sort of thing that has been in the news a lot over the past year because of the iPhone platform and Microsoft’s Surface technology. This is an area which I think is going to be come increasingly important especially with Microsoft’s next release of Windows slated to include touch and multi-touch integration.

New all-in-one PC

HP  have recently released an update of its iQ range of all-in-one PC’s with the release in the UK of the HP iQ500 which unlike the majority of its competitors features a touchscreen and HP’s TouchSmart application to take advantage of it.  The new version is an improvement in both looks and specification over the current HP iQ790 PC,  with quite stunning good looks that would good on any desk.  While, as you would expect for an all-in-one, the technical specifications will mean it is not the fastest, but perfectly adequate.

Touch capability

Like the current HP iQ790 PC, the iQ500 provides  its touch capabilities from a set of LED’s that are positioned around the screen detecting  the movement of one’s fingers. HP includes its own touch user interface called TouchSmart which can be used instead of the standard Vista interface and helps the efficiency of using the technology.   Touch capability is still in its early days and is still very gimmicky but HP have moved things forward with this computer.

However using a vertical screen is not very ergonomic, requiring the user to hold up their arms the whole time.  I think we are perhaps going to see more of this technology used with horizontal screens on something like a tablet PC.

As the iQ500 has now been released I expect some good deals on the HP iQ790 PC