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HP TouchSmart 300 Desktop PC
HP has been offering good utility and simplicity in computing through its TouchSmart line of products in the past. Following this trend is the TouchSmart 300 and the model we tested has a suffix ‘1040-in’. The 300 is quitemuch smaller than its elder brother, the TouchSmart 600. Nonetheless, with a 20-inch screen, great audio output and a plethora of multimedia touch applications, this is a fun and easy to use mid-sized home entertainment PC. Speaking of which, we’d say that the two main highlights of this machine are the pre-installed TouchSmart suite and the multimedia capabilities, which truly complement the touch interface.
Unpacking and startup
While we start with the unpacking of the machine, look for the bundled wireless keyboard and mouse. They ship with pre-installed batteries but won’t function until you remove the white plastic tabs from them. Take the machine out of the box, unwrap it, reach the rear of the unit to open its flip-stand and place it wherever required. The machine is ready to be used. Once you put it on, you’ll be taken through a simple and quick initial configuration process. The four main steps are, registration, opting for updates, protecting the PC and configuring an Internet connection. Since the unit is well calibrated, you won’t need to worry about that.
Features
In addition to the multi-touch interface, it’s also the aesthetics of this machine which make it stand out. The overall glossy black panel has a black speaker mesh attached at the bottom and a pair of satin-chrome pegs that support the unit. The machine stands approximately 40 cm tall and 52 cm wide. Considering that the only additions you need on your desk are the slim keyboard and the mouse, this machine is well suited for a bed room or even an open kitchen. Moving the machine frequently could be cumbersome, mainly due to its heavy weight. You can even consider mounting it on a wall, since the pegs underneath are detachable, but the wall mount needed for this purpose will have to be bought separately.
Coming back to the functionality, the TouchSmart 300 ships pre-loaded with Windows 7 Home Premium and a host of touch applications which fall under the TouchSmart suite. Though the applications are quite interesting and fun to use, some of them seem slightly sluggish especially when multitasking. Otherwise, the overall performance of the machine is good, especially the responsiveness of the touch panel.
The Touch Smart Suite
We’d say that it’s mainly the TouchSmart suite that leverages on the multi-touch interface. Once out of the suite, the general Windows operation doesn’t call for much of the touch interface, unless you want to drag and drop files and folders, or execute them using your fingers. Nonetheless, considering the fact that this suite includes most multimedia widgets, one might not need to step out of it for multimedia applications. The suite includes widgets for Video, Music, Internet browser, Webcam, Photo, Calendar, Notes, Clock, Whether, RSS reader and an option to personalize each one of them. When you double-tab to open the suite, you’ll first come across an elaborate video tutorial which shows you how the suite works. It’s a good idea to watch it before using the machine.
Performance
As far as applications as concerned, this machine is comparable to a mainstream desktop PC. While office applications and other operating system chores are a smooth sail, the multimedia experience is very good. We watched 1080p movie clips and the playback was stutter-free, and the sound quality is impressive too. Although the loudness isn’t the best, not that you expect to play demanding games on this PC, it’s good for watching movies from a fair distance. Playing games is also possible as long as the settings don’t exceed medium levels. We ran the Left 4 Dead game benchmark where we got a playable 31 fps at 1280 x 800 with medium settings. At the same resolution, but with higher settings, it gave us merely 20 fps. So gaming isn’t a strong point of this PC, not that it is intended for the purpose anyway.
Considering the hardware, the TouchSmart 300 scores well in most of the performance benchmarks that we ran on it. For testing, we used some standard benchmarks such as PCMark Vantage Professional, SiSoft Sandra Professional Business 2010 and some real world benchmarks such as file compression, video and audio encoding and such. We consider an overall PCMark score of 4612 and video encoding in less than a minute as good performance for a mainstream PC. there are other scores that contribute to determining the performance, take a look at the tables.
| Synthetic Tests | |
| SiSoft Sandra 2009 | |
| CPU arithmetic | |
| Dhrystones (GIPS) | 16.48 |
| Whetstones (GFLOPS) | 15.34 |
| Memory bandwidth (GB/s) | 9.54 |
| Hard disk drive | |
| Drive index (MB/s) | 112.15 |
| Random access time (ms) | 5 |
| Sequential Read (MB/s) | 135.63 |
| Random Read (MB/s) | 81.18 |
| Sequential Write (MB/s) | 112.15 |
| Random Write (MB/s) | 92 |
| PCMark Vantage | |
| Overall | 4612 |
| Memory | 2753 |
| Gaming | 3790 |
| Productivity | 4654 |
| HDD | 3739 |
| Real World Tests | |
| Audio encoding | 111 sec |
| Video encoding | 57 sec |
| File compression | 67 sec |
| Games | |
| Left 4 Dead | |
| 1024x768 (High) | 23.4 fps |
| 1280x800 (High) | 20 fps |
| 1280x800 (Med) | 30.98 fps |
Hardware
The TouchSmart 300 is built around an AMD M780G chipset and is powered by an AMD Athlon II X2 235e processor, which is clocked at 2.70 GHz and has 2 MB L2 cache. It houses a roomy 500 GB hard drive, which should suffice for your multimedia content. There’s 4 GB DDR3 RAM, which is upgradeable upto 8 GB and the graphics is courtesy an Nvidia GeForce G210 chip. For accessing optical media, there’s a slot-loading DVD-writer at the right-hand of the unit. Connectivity options include Gigabit Ethernet and Wi-Fi-n. The left-hand side panel has a multi-card reader, audio and line-in jack. The right-hand side has two USB ports at the bottom and the power button at the top. At the rear, there are three USB ports, S/PDIF, analog audio line-out and a LAN port. The frame houses a mic and a webcam which can be manually tilted slightly to adjust the frame.
Conclusion
If you want an easy to use, touch-interface all-in-one PC, this one is a good option. But if the touch interface doesn’t fascinate you, then you can get a good HTPC, which will also play games (install a graphics card), for Rs. 68,799 or even lesser.
Specifications
- Dimensions (W x H x D): 408 x 131 x 519 mm
- Weight: 11 Kg; Processor: AMd Athlon II X2 235e, 2.7 GHz
- Memory: 4 GB DDR3
- Hard disk: 500 GB
- Screen size: 20-inch
- Connectivity: Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi N