Looking like a cross between a desktop and notebook computer, the Touchsmart IQ770.uk is HP's new venture in home computing.

It's a full-size touch-screen computer, allowing you to control Media Center and Vista Home Premium by using the supplied stylus or fingers.

The 19in height-adjustable widescreen is incredibly sharp and bright, making Vista’s fancy Aero Glass feature look ultra-smooth. An extra crispness can be seen when watching DVD movies and live TV. The touch-screen recognition is, on the whole, very good and much better than its tablet-styled Pavilion tx1000 cousin, which we reviewed recently.

Inside the bottom segment of the Touchsmart are all the components needed to power this computer. HP has managed to squeeze in an AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-52 dual-core processor, an impressive 2GB of memory and a 320GB hard disk for storing lots of TV, music and digital photos.

However, the Nvidia Geforce Go 7600 graphics card (usually found in notebook computers) will struggle to keep up with the demands of the latest games. However, for the majority of computing tasks, the HP works fine.

Some of the lower-powered components also keeps the overall sound down and, while it's not as whisper-quiet, you certainly won't be distracted during poignant film moments.

Housed at the back lied the usual array of PC ports, plus 5.1 outputs, an SPDIF audio output and a hybrid TV tuner. There’s also space for an optional HP compact photo-printer, which can be mounted on the rear shelf.

Lurking on one side of the chassis is a media bay drive for an (optional) hot-swappable HP hard disk and a sleek wireless keyboard slides out from underneath the main unit. A wireless adapter is built-into the chassis too.

Woven into the front is a slot-loading Lightscribe DVD drive, a headphone socket, memory card slots and a flip down panel that conceals handy AV inputs. Occupying space within the screen bezel is a webcam and array (twin) microphones for web-chatting.

So good so far, but what about the negatives? Well, the lovely touch-screen gets very dirty very quickly. While fingerprints don’t show up when the screen is displaying bright colours, black spots - such as a DVD letterbox - make them all too obvious.

We also managed to lodge a DVD in the drive, which needed dismantling before we could retrieve it.

However, the real talking point is where and when you’d use it. Probably not the grime-attracting kitchen? The screen is too small for the living room and there's no HDMI to hook it up to a larger screen. So, that leaves the study or bedroom, which isn't where you'd want this head-turner of a computer to be.

Vista compatible: Yes