A 23-inch tablet; HP TouchSmart 610-1065qd

Pros
Tilting and reclining screen. Large touch screen panel. Blu-ray. Wireless keyboard and mouse. Massive entertainment possibilities. USB 3.0. Quad core power. Two HDMI-in ports. 15-month subscription to Norton Internet Security. Responsive touchscreen. Great touch interface. HP LinkUp remote control software. Beats Audio sound enhancements. True 1080p HD.

Cons
No eSATA. No unified media purchase system. External power brick.

Bottom Line
Thanks to some amazing innovations, the quad-core-equipped HP TouchSmart 610-1065qd all-in-one desktop moves the touch screen from the novelty phase to the seriously usable phase, and that's worth full marks in my book.

Design
Like many modern all-in-one desktops, the PC components are built into the screen (we've seen some in which the components are built into the base). It has a good range of vertical motion (height adjustment) and even tilts forward about 5 degrees, so you can compute from a reclined position.

The real innovation is in the 610-1065qd's tilt and recline function. Once the screen is tilted back fully, it actually slides down further, so it ultimately tilts back 60 degrees. It's not quite horizontal, but 60 degrees back allows the user to use the touchscreen without holding his arm straight out, parallel to the ground. You can even rest your hand on the speaker bar as a sort of wrist rest. When the 610-1065qd is in the fully reclined position, users will find it easy to use the touchscreen from a seated or standing position. This configuration is better than just laying the screen on the work surface: Anyone who uses an Apple iPad or other tablet will be able to tell you that a true horizontal 90 degree angle isn't much more comfortable than straight up either. You'll tend to hunch up and strain your shoulders if you're hovering directly over a screen.

The touchscreen itself is large and bright. If you're using it close enough to touch regularly, you certainly won't miss the extra 4 inches of screen space that you get in the Apple iMac 27-inch (Core i5). At less than three feet away, the TouchSmart 610-1065qd's screen is huge. The screen has a resolution of 1,920 by 1,080 (true 1080p HD), and while that's less than the 2,560 by 1,440 resolution of the iMac 27-inch, using true 1080p HD resolution makes more sense for the applications you're going to be using on the TouchSmart 610. The TouchSmart 610 can display the full resolution from the built-in HDTV tuner, built-in Blu-ray player, or 1080p streaming videos without having to frame the video with black bars or blow the picture up beyond native resolution (as on the iMac). (The TV tuner can only receive over-the-air HD channels, and few people will actually use it. Still, it's a nice extra to have.) The iMac 27-inch's higher resolution is made more for graphics pros who need the workspace to create media like photos and videos. For most users, the TouchSmart 610-1065qd is a perfect HD media consumption device.