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Hands-on with HP's Recline 27 all-in-one, whose touchscreen sits close to your lap
We admittedly didn't initially get the point of HP's new "Recline" family of all-in-ones. Sure, we understood the concept well enough; these machines use a patent-pending hinge allowing the touchscreen to hang off the table, close to your lap. But we couldn't understand why HP would opt for such a funky design, other than the fact that its research team concluded a good deal of people would prefer to use their desktops this way. (We're skeptical of marketing departments, can't you tell?) It turns out, a lap-screen is the sort of feature you really do want, even if you don't know it yet. Setting aside that onscreen piano example in the above photo -- now that's a gimmick -- we found we had a much easier time interacting with IE and Maps app than we would have if the screen were upright. In part, that's because having the 1080p display sitting lower and at that particular angle makes it easier to type on the onscreen keyboard, which in turn takes the pain out of entering URLs and search terms. Also, though, the lower the screen is, the more you're likely to interact with it like a tablet -- a very big tablet, but a tablet nonetheless. That means you might even find yourself using two hands at once, as opposed to reaching up occasionally to swipe with your finger. Our only gripe? There's no physical Start button, so you'll have to either swipe the Charms bar or pause to hit the shortcut on your keyboard. Not a big deal, but it does mean the tablet experience might not feel as seamless as what you'd expect from a proper slate. If we've convinced you to take a closer look, the Recline 23 and 27 are both available today, though if you'd rather have it with a red hinge (and even more Beats branding than usual) you'll have to wait until November.
HP's 'Recline' all-in-ones can be used with the touchscreen hanging off the desk
At this point, all-in-one desktops tend to follow a formula: most of them have a touchscreen, along with an articulating stand so you can use it in tabletop mode, at a near-flat angle. All told, that gives folks a good deal of flexibility, but HP wants to go even further. The company just introduced the "Recline" series of all-in-ones, which incorporate a patent-pending hinge that allows the touchscreen to hang off the table, close to your lap. (Yep, HP's market research team found there are, in fact, people who would prefer to use their all-in-one this way.) Et voilà! That's why this thing is named the Recline: you can position it with the touchscreen half off the desk, and it won't topple over because the PC's center of gravity is halfway between the base and the display. Available in 23- and 27-inch screen sizes, the Recline will be available with a mix of Haswell processors, up to 16GB of RAM, up to 1TB of storage (sometimes paired with an SSD), a 1GB NVIDIA GT 730A GPU, Beats Audio and 1080p displays. All of the configurations will have 802.11ac WiFi and the Recline 27 in particular adds NFC. As an added bonus, you also get 50GB of free lifetime storage through Box.com. Additionally -- because HP would do something like this -- the company will also sell a special Beats-branded version with a red hinge (pictured above). That version will be available with a 23-inch screen only, and will feature slightly lesser specs (a Core i3 CPU and less RAM to start). Follow all of our IFA 2013 coverage by heading to our event hub!
