The front panel houses a slot-load DVD burner
and an 8-in-1 media-card reader that handles
just about every flash memory standard you
can think of, including xD.APRIL 2007 MAXIMUMPC 59
slots. What’s worse is that while you can
change the home page that the Internet
button navigates to, you’ll have to use
another of those three slots if you’d
prefer Firefox to display that page
instead of Internet Explorer.
We appreciate the HP
SmartCalendar’s ability to maintain sched-
ules for both individuals and groups, but
why can’t it synchronize with our increas-
ingly ubiquitous smartphones? Meanwhile,
the novelty of scrawling handwritten notes
and recording voice memos within HP
SmartCalendar wears off quickly.
Most of the IQ770’s I/O ports are up front,
so the only cord sticking out of the back of our
test unit was the power cable. This enabled
us to push the whole shebang tight against
a wall. We’d like to have more than just two
USB 2.0 ports up front (there’s a IEEE-1394
port here, too), but four more are in the back.
The backplane also hosts a gigabit
Ethernet port, mini-VGA output,
5.1-channel analog audio
output (1/8-inch stereo
connectors), a 5.1-chan-
nel digital audio output
(coaxial), an IR output, and
a second IEEE-1394 port.
HP’s TouchSmart IQ770
could never serve as our
primary PC—we knew going
into this review that it wouldn’t
compete with our zero-point
reference platform, and it’s clearly
not designed for hardcore gam-
ing—but we’d rather have multiple
PCs dedicated to particular tasks than
one machine that’s crappy at everything.
This one has defi nitely earned a place in
our dream kitchen.
—MICHAEL BROWN
$1,800, http://www.hp.comHP TOUCHSMART IQ770
MOM’S KITCHEN
Well designed, great
display, very good touch
screen, relatively small
footprint.
HELL’S KITCHEN8
HP’s TouchSmart applica-
tions are so limited that
they’re virtually worthless.We thought we’d dig
writing notes on the
touch screen, but we’ve
since decided to stick
with Post-it notes.You can tuck one
of HP’s smaller
PhotoSmart printers
into this space atop
the IQ770. Coax con-
nectors for the built-in
TV and FM-radio tun-
ers are mounted on
the left side.