iq816?

[snousle]

I've been keeping my eyes out for some sort of touchscreen computer for use in the commercial kitchen. I'm planning on writing some custom software for time and task management for catering events, and a touchscreen would be really nice.

The HP IQ816 caught my eye. Kind of spendy but kind of sexy, too:



Also, we have no practical, operating TV right now and watching DVDs on a desktop computer is a bit of a drag, so we're also looking for something that can be put onto the coffee table for a film and taken away later.

I'm wondering if this thing, along with an extra power supply, would fit the bill. Would hauling it from one room to another when we want to watch a film be practical? It has only the one power cord, so it's not like there's cable spaghetti to deal with, but it weighs 35 pounds and lacks a handle.

I had a godawful HP computer about ten years ago and swore I would NEVER buy another. HPs software at the time was uniformly cruddy. I hear the special touchscreen interface HP provides for this unit is actually not all that bad, but that it's loaded up with crapplets that would be a pain to uninstall. (I have no problem with it using Vista so long as it works as well as it does on my current desktop!)

Comments

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

Hm. I don't know how much you guys watch (or might watch) TV/DVDs but you might consider the idea of a regular TV in the living room, a touchscreen monitor in the kitchen - and a compact computer like the Dell Studio Hybrid that can move back and forth. I suspect that for the same money you could probably wind up with a setup that leaves the displays in place and just moves the small, light PC back and forth - though then you would have to deal with some cable spaghetti. Not sure how offputting that is to you (and there are ways to minimize it) - but moving something the size and weight of the HP model you reference at all often would (for me) rapidly become far more annoying than connecting power, video & usb cables.