HP TouchSmart 610-1030uk review

HP’s TouchSmart 610-1030uk looks rather generic, but there’s plenty to set this modern touchscreen all-in-one apart from the crowd, with a big 23in touchscreen, USB3 ports and a Blu-ray drive.

Most of the 610’s ports are located at the back, behind a pull-down panel through which you can route your cables. This is a neat and tidy solution for connectors that you won’t wish to unplug very often, such as such the Gigabit Ethernet port, TV tuner and speaker outputs, but accessing it depends on the display being tilted to exactly the correct angle, which is inconvenient if you’re trying to reach around behind your PC. Because of this the four rear USB ports – two USB3 and two USB2 – are probably best used with extension cables.

We’d have preferred to have the USB3 ports in place of the pair of USB2 ports on the front left side of the computer’s display panel. The other commonly used connectors are there, including a card reader, line input and a 3.5mm port designed for Beats-branded combined headphone and mic connectors, but which will work with any pair of headphones. At the right-hand side of the panel is a Blu-ray reader, as well as a pair of HDMI inputs that allow you to use the 610 to display content from external devices such as consoles and cable or satellite TV tuners.

While all-in-ones don’t have the potential to produce the same kind of processor power as a desktop PC, due to the nature of their compact case and limited cooling capacity, the TouchSmart nonetheless did a fair job in our benchmark tests. Its 3.2GHz Intel Core i5-650 processor is a generation old now, but it’s still pretty powerful, helping this PC to an overall score of 58 in our benchmarks. This means it will handle most applications with little complaint.

There’s also 6GB of RAM, to provide plenty of scope for anyone who spends a lot of time video editing, image manipulation or similar memory-intensive tasks. A whopping 1.5TB of disk space also gives you plenty of room for projects, installed software or a massive multimedia collection.

The graphics processor is a 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5770. If you want to use it for 3D gaming, you’ll have to turn your settings down a bit, but a score of 41fps at High quality and 720p indicates that you should be able to play most modern games with a bit of tweaking. The 23in 1,920×1,080 touchscreen display is remarkably good, though. Its semi-glossy finish isn’t overly reflective, has excellent contrast, even lighting and renders both natural and bold colours beautifully – it’s one of the best all-in-one displays we’ve seen this side of an Apple computer.

The built-in speakers are also a cut above average, with a discernible bass, decent amount of volume and a sound that seems to wrap around you if you’re sitting in front of the PC. You can also connect a dedicated subwoofer to work alongside the speakers, or just use an external stereo set. The PC also comes with a wireless optical mouse and keyboard set, which are comfortable to use, if unremarkable.

With the Blu-ray drive, HDMI inputs and TV tuner, the 610 is well equipped to replace your TV as well as your computer, making it an inviting prospect for anyone with limited space. However, Asus’s Asus ET2410INTS is a lot more powerful, has most of the same features that make it a great living room PC and costs significantly less. At almost £1,100, the TouchSmart simply costs too much.