HP Pavilion dv3 with multitouch screen spotted in the wild, we go hands-on
By Richard Lai 
posted October 27th 2009 7:28PM
posted October 27th 2009 7:28PM
Our curious British fingers managed to stumble upon a European HP Pavilion dv3 blessed with Windows 7 and multitouch on both the screen and the trackpad. The keyboard was great to type on with negligible flex, but the trackpad suffers from the same glossy issues on other recent HPs -- although it responded to our multitouch gestures better than the capacitive screen did. Our major annoyance came from the attempts to rotate pictures on the screen: we learned the hard way that the laptop (or Windows 7 itself) seemed to prefer more exaggerated rotation gestures than the MacBooks -- perhaps one would get used to it over time. The hinge is fairly solid, but we still preferred holding the screen while touching it. On a brighter note we totally dig the inclusion of an HDMI port and an eSATA port, plus you'll get up to seven hours of sweet battery juice from this 2.24kg (4.94 pounds) machine. Read on for our hands-on video and photo gallery.
I'd still like to see a MacBook___ give HDMI with audio...
I went to BestBuy 2 days ago and used an HP Touchsmart and an HP Laptop with touchscreen technology and to tell you the truth they left a lot to desire. The biggest problem was the amount of friction between my fingers and the screen. I had a hard time scrolling, turning picture and zooming in and out. I told this to the HP guy but he dismissed my comments. I believe they were valid. In a single touch screen this wouldn't matter but in a multi-touch screen responsiveness and smoothness to the touch matters. After only a minute of using it, I decided that all friction on the glass was really annoying. Perhaps hardware will get better with time and HP will learn from their mistakes.
We can all agree that this is a bad implementation of multi-touch technology, first pioneered by the iPhone and now the Macbook Pro. I'll trust Apple if I want to buy products with latest generation technology.
Apple is good at they want to do, but for the latest generation technology you're going to have to wait until they feel like putting it in (if ever) and where they want to. Did it really have to take THAT long to include an SD card slot? Not even an option for a Blu-ray drive yet? No ExpressCard slots except on the 17-inch (and even then it's a 34 and not 54)? Why no HDMI port? Still using last generation's video chip? There may be external solutions and adapters to all these (except the video card) but it completely destroys the elegance of the Macbook that Apple was trying to achieve (especially with that damned mini DisplayPort) and can cost quite a bit extra. They make good stuff, but latest generation technology? There's a lot missing...
It uh... doesn't look like the multi touch works so well/smooth or is enabling much productivity on this machine.
multi-touch works better when you do the gestures right.
What is up with the Koala? It can't be coincidence, can it?
seriously? you have your hands on the mouse and keyboard but you would use the touchscreen to resize an image?
This is the fundamental problem. Not only are you adding a touchscreen to something that doesn't need it but the laptop is going to be running software that naturally assumes you will be interacting with it via a mouse and keyboard. The only way that this sort of concept works properly is on a device where touch is the primary interface mechanism and the software running on it has been designed for this. This is why things like the iPhone work and why Tablet PCs have never taken off. If you are going to do something, do it properly.
Only practical use I can think of: while taking notes, there's a need to copy down a chart or graph that's done much quicker and easier using a touch screen than a touch pad or mouse.
Other than that, I'd say it's more of an easy sell to the consumer rather than providing much real-world benefit on traditional laptops, but students will appreciate it.
I have that same Casio watch. Cool.
forgot to mention... other than the whole touch screen gimmick, the dv3t is an AWESOME laptop.
Well, if the screen looks as grainy as it does on the HP TX2z tablet PC, then I don't want it.
Thank you for everyone who brings up the point "multi touch gestures work better when you perform them correctly." This guy obviously doesn't know the Windows 7 multi touch gesture for rotating a picture. You have to keep one finger stationary on the screen and rotate another finger around it; if you rotate both fingers you are doing the gesture incorrectly. I have seen plenty of comments on here stating how badly implemented the multi touch technology is on Windows 7, and I am sorry but you can't say that until you have used it first hand. I have been using a multi-touch tablet convertible with Windows 7 for the past 3 months, and I can say that the touch implementation is perfect, smooth and offers incredibly natural pc navigation. Also, the gestures work 100% of the time when you do them correctly :)
So, what you are saying is, Windows 7 has implemented the wrong gesture and now we have to learn that instead? Who rotates an object by placing a stationary on it and rotating the other around it? That doesn't make sense in real-life and it ought to have been picked up by the first focus group that Microsoft consulted. Gestures need to be natural and, where possible, mirror the action that you perform in reality. Is this the same gesture that Microsoft Surface uses?
C'mon, give me a break with "the right gesture". Put a piece of paper on your desk and try to rotate it with 2 fingers, and see if you keep a finger stationary. The gesture in Win 7 is not the natural one, imo.
This demo was just embarrassing for HP...They might as well have not even put in the support if it wasn't going to work well.
It looks like it works really well with the exception of when the guy was trying to rotate the photo Windows Photo Viewer. He needed to do at least a complete 90 degree turn gesture in order for it to rotate 90 degrees (no really?), but he wasn't doing that. Zooming and panning looked responsive. Maybe when trying to rotate, Microsoft could implement visual feedback to indicate how much you've rotated and snap back to the original orientation if you let go before rotating far enough.
"He needed to do at least a complete 90 degree turn gesture in order for it to rotate 90 degrees (no really?)"
Sorry, you've lost me here. Why should it be necessary to turn the picture *at least* 90-degrees to achieve a 90-degree rotation? If your only options are 90-degrees or nothing then surely rotating it past 45-degrees ought to be enough for the computer to realise that you want to rotate the picture the full 90-degrees. Forcing the user to do the full 90-degrees before the desired action occurs is just being pedantic and annoying. A little extra intelligence in the system would make everyone happier.