HP TouchSmart 600-1370 23-inch All-In-One PC

Jan 24 2011 - If you are looking for a touchscreen based all-in-one that will double as a high definition media center, then the HP TouchSmart 600-1370 is the clear choice on the market right now. HP's TouchSmart software suite is the best touch application software on the market. There are some downsides including it being based on a laptop rather than desktop processor and its limited graphics system. For most users though, they are not big issues.

Jan 24 2011 - Rather than using a desktop class processor in its largest all-in-one system, HP has decided to use the Intel Core i5-460M dual core mobile processor for the TouchSmart 600-1370. While this does offer a fair amount of performance, it does fall behind other all-in-ones that are based on Intel's Core i3 desktop processors. This not going to be a major issue for many users unless you are looking to do tasks such as video editing. The 4GB of DDR3 memory should help it run smoothly in most applications.

What really sets the TouchSmart 600-1370 apart from the smaller 300 and 310 series are the media features. HP includes both a Blu-ray compatible drive and an over the air HDTV tuner. This combined with the 23-inch 1920x1080 touchscreen display allow this to be a very strong media center based desktop. The glossy coating of the screen can be distracting though with glare and reflections under certain lighting conditions as well as showing smudges and fingerprints more readily. The only downside to this is the lack of an HDMI video input connector like some other all-in-ones that could allow it to connect to a digital cable or satellite TV receiver.

If you are looking to get a Touchscreen system, then HP is still the clear leader. It isn't necessarily the hardware but the TouchSmart software that really makes the difference. Windows 7 may have touch features built in but most Windows software does not have specialized functions for touch interfaces. HP's software overlay provides a variety of applications that take advantage of this. Whether it is media applications such as Hulu or Netflix to dealing with recipes.

One of the big issues with the TouchSmart 600-1370 still remains the graphics system. While it does use a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce G210M graphics processor, it is an older mobile graphics solution that offers limited performance and features. Add to this that is only has 512MB of memory and the system is really only decent for decoding HD video or basic 3D graphics. It does not have enough performance for even casual 3D gaming or providing much of a boost to applications such as Adobe's Photoshop.

Pricing for the TouchSmart 600-1370 does put it in the more expensive all-in-one systems. MSRP is around $1500 but street pricing can be found as low as $1350. Even though the system is a bit more expensive, it still reigns as one of the best touchscreen based systems available. Those who don't want to spend as much and don't require the media features always have the option of getting the TouchSmart 300.