
Packard Bell
*Shudder* at the brand.
As the world swings inexorably away from desktop PCs towards notebooks, netbooks and PMPs, the PC has to adapt or die. One way to go, as Packard Bell would have it, is the touchscreen media PC. It follows the iMac paradigm that the whole thing should be built into the back of a large-format LCD screen. Packard Bell oneTwo M …
I tested the sony and acer similar computers in Mediamarkt (to the exasperation of the personnel). Truth is, I was expecting more from the windows 7 tablet pc (touch) extensions. The biggest problem is it doesn't do anything about the size of the buttons (think photoshop tools' panel or zoom with the fingers, macbook style). So it's pretty hard to close an application. Or if the application is custom skinned it might be even impossible to do it by touch-click. I would have also expected that there are special gestures and things that are translated directly by the OS to clicks or keyboard events, whichever. But there doesn't seem to be.
As the author says, same problem is none of monitors can be laid down without some kind of self built contraption, and after about 20-30 minutes the RSS starts to manifest.
I was pondering to get one of these touch computers, but the software is not yet there. Maybe mac will bring a better thought alternative - I'll stay on the lookout. Maybe in support package 2 for w7.
Wouldn't normally go down the route of buying HP but the parents (read mother) wanted a new computer as the old one was getting slow (it was 6 years old !?!)
She wanted something that look nice (read as few cables as possible) and these were the only real choices. I have no knowledge of Macs and given I have to provide support (remotely), apple was ruled out.
Installed and get it running quickly but agree with the review about the wireless mouse and keyboard dongle - very poor instructions on this.
First ever saint bill from me as the mother quite likes Windows 7
I know that they're meant to have gotten better in recent years, but I've been lumped with too many machines in the past with Intel graphics which just couldn't do much of anything in the gaming department. This machine looks really nice, but for 600 squids it's not really an "all in one" if you can't fire up a bit of the online 3D rumpety pumpety every now and then, is it?