The great: The HP TouchSmart 620 3D all-in-one PC creates a good 3D image for games and Blu-ray movies.The poor: HP has hampered its would-be flagship all-in-one with ham-fisted software program design, a subpar display, and an apparent unawareness of its better-equipped and much more affordable competition.
The bottom line: HP's graceless, overpriced TouchSmart 620 3D has hardly any to recommend it over competing 3D-capable all-in-ones.
My feelings about 3D-capable all-in-one PCs have to date ranged from mild enthusiasm to ambivalence, but Hewlett-Packard's $1, 599 TouchSmart 620 3D may be the first to inspire true frustration. The 3D technology is effective enough, but this system is a veritable case research in how Windows PCs can so easily frustrate customers with bloatware and artless interface design.
HP offers the perfectly capable, non-3D 23-inch all-in-one in its TouchSmart 610. For that above reasons, and others, I recommend that system within the TouchSmart 620 3D to most buyers looking for a good all-in-one. If you're committed to 3D, or if you would like an all-in-one for gaming, check out Lenovo's faster, less expensive IdeaCentre B520.
The TouchSmart 620 3D is essentially an updated version from the TouchSmart 610 we reviewed this past April. Along using the 3D screen and accompanying glasses and software from TriDef, HP has added another lens next to the traditional Webcam on the TouchSmart's best edge. This second lens makes it possible to capture your personal stereoscopic 3D pictures and video footage.
For $500 under this TouchSmart 620 3D, you can still buy the non-3D TouchSmart 610xt. The only other difference between both is the Radeon HD 6650 graphics card in the actual TouchSmart 610, not quite as good as the TouchSmart 620's Radeon HIGH DEFINITION 6670A.
The awkwardness of the TouchSmart's 3D implementation comes from the absence of centralized 3D control software. I realize that various issues of Blu-ray encoding, player licensing, and software program drivers, among others, make that idea a challenge, but it's almost as though HP went out of its way to make starting a 3D game or recording and playing a homemade 3D movie harder.
The first hint of this problem is that you will discover no shortcut icon or top-level Start menu listing that uses the word "3D" on the TouchSmart 620 3D. The only way you'd understand how to launch a 3D game, play a 3D movie, or capture and view homemade 3D content will be if you either dug through the Start menu subfolders, or read the scant two-page 3D section at the back of the (paper) user manual.
To actually play a PC game in 3D about the TouchSmart 620 3D, you need to open the Games folder underneath the Windows Start menu, then open the TriDef subfolder in order to launch the TriDef Ignition application. You then assign online game executable files to Ignition, and launch them from inside the app to be able to trigger the 3D effects.
Though the process of launching a game in 3D isn't as simple as it may be (how about a hard 3D toggle button on the actual chassis? ) I do like that Ignition offers a number of Shift-Alt key-based shortcuts for turning 3D on and off inside a game, adjusting the 3D depth, and other settings adjustments. Otherwise, I fail to see how HP can warrant a desktop shortcut for HP Games, which links a person out to Wild Tangent's utterly disposable casual gaming collection, but completely bury the TriDef application, one of the primary reasons anyone would buy the 3D-equipped TouchSmart 620 3D to begin with.
How to enable 3D for Blu-ray movies is likewise obscured, although easier to muddle through than the video gaming setup. The system has no immediate indicators showing the way you might play a 3D Blu-ray Disc. Fortunately, PowerDVD launches automatically whenever you insert a disc, and a large "3D" icon within the software player makes your next steps pretty clear.
Additional disappointments mar the 3D viewing experience. The HP's active 3D glasses make use of a large watch battery for power, and thus aren't rechargeable like the Nvidia 3D Vision glasses that include the Lenovo IdeaCentre B520. The HP's glasses also depend on autodetection to turn on when the screen displays the 3D image. Autodetection is fine in concept, but HP has added no external light or other signal how the glasses are powered on. That means an added level of uncertainty should you ever need to troubleshoot.
The quality of the 3D playback with this system is fine from a depth perspective, but the screen itself is not just like those of the TouchSmart's competition. The HP seems to are afflicted by low black levels, apparent in the 3D Blu-ray associated with "Coraline, " a gloomy stop-motion film heavy with atmospheric dark areas and dark environments. The resulting image is greenish as well as washed-out, which we also noticed both in the rushing game Dirt 3 and in content we recorded by way of the 3D Webcam.
Gaming is usually more of an issue for 3D than movies, since the quality of the knowledge can be so heavily tied to graphics card drivers and also the game code itself. In addition to the greenish tinge from the display, Dirt 3's 3D rendering suffered from noticeable darkness and background flickering. I saw similar flickering and lacking textures in Far Cry 2. It's hard to end up being that critical of 3D in games, given that a driver update or game patch could look after any issues (more likely for newer titles), but the experience on this system underscores the truth that PC-based 3D content in general needs polish.
it weren't for that Lenovo IdeaCentre B520, the TouchSmart 620 3D would look aggressive. Unfortunately for HP, the IdeaCentre B520 offers much less expensive. Lenovo's touch software is not as robust as HP's, and it is screen isn't as adjustable, but the Lenovo includes much more useful HDMI inputs and outputs. Against such robust competitors from Lenovo, it's hard to excuse the HP's cost.
The TouchSmart 620 3D's reclining display is useful, in that it tilts back up to 60 degrees to create it easier to interact with when you're standing before it. As with the 610, HP missed an chance to let the screen go perfectly horizontal, whereas Samsung didn't hesitate using its Series 7 all-in-one earlier this year. The hinge design about the TouchSmart is also clunky, in that the screen slides down too readily whenever you try to simply angle it backward.
For the software program, HP has poured a notable amount of effort in to its Magic Canvas software suite, but with the sloppy 3D integration and also the example Samsung has set by porting its clean tablet touch interface towards the Series 7, HP's touch software is starting to appear overwrought. I don't anticipate a complete overhaul from HP with the touch-oriented Windows 8 operating system coming, but the TouchSmart 620 3D in particular has proven that Magic Canvas needs streamlining.