Out of the Box, Performance

Setting upward the TouchSmart PC couldn't be easier – just plug in the ability cable and go. Since the keyboard and mouse are wireless and there's built-in Wi-Fi, you lot merely need to plug in the unmarried power cable to operate the figurer. Or at least that should be how it works.

In the case of our evaluation unit of measurement, I ran into a problem right from the become-become. When I turned on the computer for the first time, I was greeted with a hard drive error similar to what yous might become if you're trying to boot from a USB or flash drive. I checked the BIOS but nada appeared out of the ordinary. My side by side step was to run the HP diagnostics program which told me the hard drive was disconnected or not installed.

Instead of calling HP, I decided to take matters into my own hand. I wanted to check and see if: A) in that location was a hard bulldoze installed and B) if it was connected or not. I was able to remove the rear panel of the system by popping off a plastic comprehend and unscrewing a handful of screws. Once open I could somewhat meet where the back aeroplane for the difficult bulldoze might not be making a solid connection. I removed a screw, took the drive out and so reinstalled information technology as firmly as I could. Putting everything dorsum together, the organization booted right into Windows without incident. My simply guess here is that the drive got bumped loose during shipping and we can only hope it'south an isolated issue.

All versions of the TouchSmart transport with Windows 7 Domicile Premium 64-chip. The start matter I checked with this system was the boot time, recorded from when I press the power button until the system is in Windows and gear up to go. For the 520, this measured out to be 1 minute and eight seconds. This number didn't modify subsequently I uninstalled diverse bloatware.

Speaking of bloatware, there'due south no kind manner to put it – this system is filled to the skirt with information technology. I removed a full two dozen programs from the Add together/Remove Programs list prior to running any tests on this organisation. It's not uncommon for me to remove several programs from a OEM test system, only HP went overboard here. Subsequently all, do you actually need more than ane e-reader application and multiple search toolbars?

Additionally I found 28 TouchSmart-specific programs, all related to the multi-touch interface. I decided to leave these intact every bit i would presume the average consumer would accept advantage of some of these.

1 other quibble I had with the system was the default colour profile. The display had a heavy 'absurd' tone that made everything overly blue. Fortunately, this was an easy set up using the 'HP My Brandish' awarding which had presets for Movie, Text and Gaming modes. I ultimately chose Movie which most resembled what a normal monitor should look like.

HP's Magic Canvass got a facelift earlier this twelvemonth and is your one-stop store for all things touch. The UI is in its fifth iteration and at present resembles something you'd find on a tablet or Android smartphone. Users can picture show from side to side in the software, revealing new sections of the page every bit they go – sort of like a giant carousel. At that place are plenty of touch-specific apps to piece of work with merely more importantly, users can now admission the start menu and taskbar from within the UI. Working with the software is pretty cool only there was a flake of noticeable lag which surprised me given the Cadre i7 processor nether the hood.

Benchmarks Results

Synthetic Tests TouchSmart 520 IdeaCentre K330 Green-eyed fourteen (2011)
3DMark 06
3DMark Score 4095 3DMarks 21840 3DMarks 7486 3DMarks
PCMark Vantage
PCMark Suite 9105 PCMarks 10904 PCMarks 5734 PCMarks
Application Tests TouchSmart 520 IdeaCentre K330 Envy 14 (2011)
iTunes Encoding Test 01 min i sec 01 min ii sec --
File Transfer Test
Small files one min 28 sec 1 min 4 sec 1 min 21 sec
Large file 52 sec 38 sec 52 sec

The iTunes encoding tests consist of converting 14 MP3s (119MB) to 128Kbps ACC files and measuring the operation's duration in seconds. For the file transfer test, nosotros measure out how long it takes to copy ii sets of files from one location to another on the same hard drive. On the modest files test we transfer 557 MP3s, totaling two.56GB. For the large file, these same MP3s were zipped into a single file measuring two.52GB.

Gaming Operation TouchSmart 520 IdeaCentre K330 Envy fourteen (2011)
Far Cry ii
1024x768 Medium Quality 24.0 fps -- 41.viii fps
1920x1080 Resolution, High Quality 13.6 fps 58.9 fps --
StarCraft 2
1024x768 Medium Quality 39.0 fps -- 67.5 fps
1920x1080, High Quality 23.1 fps 60.8 fps --

HP TouchSmart 520 All-In-I Specs

  • 23" multi-touch 1920 ten 1080 display
  • Intel Cadre i7-2600S (ii.8GHz, quad-core)
  • 8GB DDR3-1333 RAM
  • Radeon HD 6450A graphics
  • 2TB WD Caviar Green 5400 RPM difficult drive
  • SuperMulti Blu-ray Burner
  • Congenital-in TV tuner, HDMI-in
  • Windows 7 Domicile Premium 64-fleck
  • Intel Core i7-2600 (3.4GHz, quad-core)
  • 12GB Samsung DDR3-1333 RAM
  • OEM microATX motherboard
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 460
  • 2TB Hitachi 7200 RPM difficult drive
  • Blu-ray / DVD Combo
  • Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
  • 14.5" Hd BrightView Infinity LED 1366 10 768 display
  • Intel Cadre i5-2430M (2.4GHz - 3GHz, 3MB L3 cache)
  • 6GB DDR3 SDRAM
  • AMD Radeon Hd 6630M
  • Western Digital 750GB hard drive
  • Microsoft Windows vii Abode Premium (64-scrap)