HP TouchSmart IQ500 Review - Continued

The screen display on the HP TouchSmart IQ500 is superb. The 22in panel produces bright, vibrant colours, and the natural resolution of 1,680 x 1,050 makes high-detail areas appear clear and sharp. It feels suitably tough, too, and the people at HP deserve a round of applause for their smart thinking as they have put a grip on the bottom of the stand so that the monitor won’t slide around on your desk when you’re touching the screen. The left side of the IQ500 offers a decent selection of ports and sockets too, you get five USB ports and several media-friendly sockets, including audio jacks, an S/PDIF output and S-Video out socket. There's also a Gigabit Ethernet port, for those who have no use for the built-in 802.11bg, and draft-n wireless networking. On the right-hand side is a slot-loading DVD writer, a 4-in-1 card reader and a mini-FireWire socket, as well as a volume control and mute button. Finally, there's a small light to illuminate the keyboard and mouse when they're close to the main unit. The internal components are mainly mobile parts, helping to ensure quiet operation. The 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo T5850 as well as the 4GB of RAM, is powerful enough to handle most things you throw at it. However; its GeForce 9300M graphics chip isn't up to serious 3D gaming, but that's not what the IQ500 is intended for. This HP TouchSmart also supports decent speakers which is a very important feature for a multi-media orientated computer which this one most definitely is. There are two speakers on the front of the unit which provide surprisingly crisp treble and a subwoofer on the rear which provides a very powerful bass which really helps when viewing movies or music. There's also a hybrid tuner supporting both analogue and Freeview digital TV signals, enabling you to watch programmes and record them onto the generous 500GB hard disk. The only negative thing about this is that it only has a single-tuner card, so you can't watch one channel while recording another. After this, the only other point that this HP TouchSmart would fall down on is the fact that it lacks a Blu-ray drive. Apart from this everything else is superb; the touchscreen interface makes the HP tremendously easy to use, and there's enough power to keep everything smooth and responsive. If you're not concerned about the lack of an HD video player, the TouchSmart IQ500 makes an attractive and versatile addition to any room.

The HP TouchSmart is one of the most attractive and innovative desktop PCs out there at the moment so it is definitely worth trying to spot desktop PC deals on this computer. Most desktop computers don’t support touchscreen technology but the TouchSmart does and it is this feature that makes the unit so efficient and a pleasure to use.