Honestly, I didn’t even realize that HP was there for awhile. They were down a hall and around a corner and I would have missed them if not for my fab roomie, Jodie Grundig. She insisted that I head over and drop my business card in their giveaway.

Since tech is my thing anyway, I was more than happy to learn more about HP’s newest offerings and technology. I was pretty excited about the HP Pavillion DM1 notebook. It’s touted as having the portability of a netbook, but the power of a notebook. As someone who travels regularly (and never without a PC), that has a lot of appeal. Even better, Verizon just announced yesterday that they’ll be carrying a 4G LTE version!

In the end, the PC I couldn’t take my eyes off of was the HP TouchSmart 610. The all-in-one PC has a beautiful 23” 1080p HD touch screen. The DVD drive, card reader, USB ports, and microphone and headphone jacks are built right into the monitor. I’m not going to go into all the cool specs, because you can read about them in detail on the HP website. But I will tell you this… I fell in love right on the spot. I stared at it, played with it, asked questions about it and entered to win.

A computer like this is the type of thing you want to win, but you don’t expect it will happen, right? Especially since, earlier that day, I won a pair of netbooks from Microsoft (I’m giving those away, by the way, so YOU could win, too). So, imagine my total and utter shock when I saw the tweet about the winner. It referred to my rarely-used second Twitter account, so it took a moment to register that it was me. And then I think I started shaking. I ran down to the HP booth to confirm that I had won, but they had already packed up. It was nerve-wracking, but one of the HP staff at the conference overheard me talking about it, reassured me, and celebrated for a moment with me in the hall. Those HP ladies were super nice, by the way!

Waiting for the HP TouchSmart to arrive was agony. I was ridiculously excited. I started taking pictures of the unboxing and then lost patience with that. It’s a great-looking machine. You can remove the base and have it mounted on a wall and I may do that eventually. For now, it has become a central family PC. In fact, my family loves this computer so much that it has taken over our dining room table. Luckily, it has a small enough footprint that we can push it back and eat around it!

We all like games and I have to admit that much of the time, we’re employing it for casual games, in particular Plants vs. Zombies and Peggle. The touch screen works really well for games that normally require a lot of clicking. The HP TouchSmart 610 pivots down so you can work on it almost like a tablet. My kids are too young to use it comfortably in that position. The screen is just too big for them to maneuver around. That said, it’s great for me!

Our PC doesn’t have a tuner or HDMI inputs, so I can’t talk about those features, but I can say that it’s a great way to put on a movie for the kids. It comes with a Netflix app installed on it, but I wasn’t able to get it to work correctly. We rely on the DVD player for that type of activity. We also installed ArtRage on it and the kids are able to draw and paint either with their fingers, or by using a soft brush on the actual monitor. Very cool.

Although the touch screen is a lot of fun, we admittedly revert back to the mouse for many tasks. It’s probably habit. Still, it’s a great family PC, especially since it takes up so little floor/desk space.

Disclosure: I won the HP TouchSmart PC in a business card drawing. This is not a compensated post.

Related posts:

1. HP Photosmart Premium TouchSmart All-in-One Web Printer Review

Pros:

• Wireless – yay, no more super-loud print server!
• Two paper trays – one for regular paper, one for photo paper
• Duplex (two-sided) printing
• Print coupons, movie tickets, coloring pages, maps and more directly from the printer
• Separate “photo black” ink cartridge for getting real black on photo prints
• Super easy to set up
• Built-in, easy access slots for photo cards and USB flash drives

Cons

• No document feed tray for multi-page copies and faxes
• Duplex printer attachment adds to the footprint
• Paper trays can be tricky to get in and out

HP Photosmart Premium TouchSmart All-in-One Web Printer - Right out of the box

Right out of the box, I was impressed by the HP Web Printer. First of all it looks great. But it also displayed a commitment by HP to reduce wasteful packaging. Printers typically arrive wrapped in plastic and then tucked into styrofoam. The HP Web Printer came wrapped in a reusable bag similar to the kind you’d use for grocery shopping. The cords came in a zipper pouch, much like a toiletries bag. It’s a nice presentation and definitely gave a good first impression.

I’ve installed many a printer and I don’t find it particularly difficult. Still, I was pleasantly surprised that the “quick start” guide basically said, “Remove the tape. Plug in the printer. Turn it on. Follow the directions.” The Web Printer has an iPhone-like touch-screen display that leads you through the set-up process, including adding ink, adding paper, setting up the wireless access and installing the software on your computer. Setting up the printer is incredibly easy, but I have one complaint. The ink cartridges have a plastic piece that twists off and it isn’t clear from the printer (or the written directions, for that matter) how to do that without breaking anything. In fact, it isn’t even clear that you need to do anything to the ink cartridges from the printer instructions. It’s a minor thing, but it keeps the printer setup from being as breezy as it could be.

Installing the printer on my laptop wasn’t quite so simple. I suspect I’m partly to blame for not closing all of my windows the first time around, but it took me about 5 tries to get it installed. There is an auto-run program that is supposed to load the drivers and any other programs you need/want. The first time, it failed. The second time, it failed. The third time, it offered to figure out why it was failing and supposedly fixed the problem. It didn’t work. The fourth time it failed again. Finally, I went the old-school route and told my computer that I wanted to install a printer. It found the printer, installed the driver and all was right with the world.

I decided to put the HP Web Printer through the paces by printing Christmas letters (double sided) and some 4X6 photo cards (I made them with a trial of Adobe PhotoShop Elements I downloaded – now I really want the full program). We send out about 75 cards, so this wasn’t trivial. Since the HP Web Printer has a tray dedicated to photo paper, I was able to alternate printing letters and photos without leaving my seat. The duplex printing was super easy, but it does take a bit longer than printing a bunch of single pages. The printer pauses before printing the second side in order to let the ink dry. I had no problems with the wireless connection, although I think it’s a bit slower than printing through a USB connection. The printer is so much faster than our last one that I don’t notice the difference.

The photo cards look gorgeous. They look like they were processed at a store. We used glossy HP Advance Photo paper and it doesn’t even show fingerprints! I gave a few to the kids to play with so I could see how they stand up to wear and tear and a little bit of drool. They behave just like a photo from the store… mild scratching after having been stepped on, driven over, spilled on, etc. You have to hold it up to the light to even notice the scratches. I’m really picky about photo quality and hate even the slightest blurriness or ghosting in my prints. To say I’m impressed is an understatement. I can’t believe how much better the technology has become in just a few years.

While printing I started running low on ink. I was annoyed that the printer kept reminding me, but under other circumstances (printing in smaller quantities), that might not have been an issue. I like one notice that ink is getting low and then I want it to print until it can’t any more. That might be wishful thinking. Anyway, replacing the ink cartidges is so easy and I love having separate cartridges for each ink color. I no longer have to feel guilty for printing too much blue if I want to!

Ok, so the big reason for buying this printer over similar models is the Web functionality. The Web printer comes with a number of different apps (with more to download and others under development) that you can use without a computer at all. There are coloring book pages and crafts, recipes, coupons, Fandango movie tickets and Google maps. Since I have a laptop, I do like being able to print things without having it connected. If I’m running out the door and need a map, I’ll be thrilled to be able to print one without booting up my machine. Will I use the apps on a daily basis? Probably not, but then again, I don’t have a bunch of people clamoring around one computer. The features will be a lot more useful for a family who has one computer to share.

I haven’t had the chance to try out the fax and scanner. I do use those features on a regular basis for business purposes, so I may revisit my review once I’ve tested them out. My one really big complaint about this printer is that it doesn’t have a document feeder. Faxing multiple pages (do you ever fax just one page?) or copying documents is a pain without one. To me, it’s almost not worth having an all-in-one if you’re not going to give it a document feeder and I think it was an unfortunate design choice from HP. Obviously this printer isn’t geared towards business users, but I think it would have held a much wider appeal with the document feeder, especially with the price tag.

The bottom line is that this is a great printer. It’s easy to use, fast, and produces gorgeous prints. With the option to go with the wireless, ethernet cable (included), direct from USB or memory card/USB stick, it’s incredibly versatile. The dedicated photo tray is fantastic for people who are regularly printing photos and don’t want to keep switching out paper. Duplex printing saves paper and money and a document feeder is really the only thing missing. I’d recommend this for families who do a lot of personal printing and have just occasional use for scanning and faxing. But, since you’re paying more for web printing capabilities, make sure you’ll use the apps on a regular basis as well.

Disclosure: I received an HP Photosmart Premium TouchSmart All-in-One Web Printer for review purposes. There were no promises of a positive review and the opinions included in this post are mine.

Related posts:

1. Way Back When and an Aiming Low Party
2. HP TouchSmart 610 Comes Home to Roost

Anyway, I arrived at the party all out-of-sorts and only had a few minutes to adjust before being ushered away from the lovely spread of food and into the ballroom area. I stayed frazzled and distracted through the presentation and such and didn’t have a chance to relax until I landed in front of a gorgeous HP TouchSmart PC. Wow. Shiny computers and peripherals have a calming effect on me, it seems. Even more so than the yummy pomegranate signature cocktails. Anyway, I watched a few other bloggers printing and playing before I pulled out my USB drive and went to work.

I printed up a storm of pictures. I did some small 4X6′s, a few black and white 5X7′s that I’ve been meaning to print forever and even an 8X10 picture calendar for my husband to put on his desk. I kept the HP minions (what are they officially called?) busy getting me paper in different sizes and replacing ink. I told them that I wasn’t going to stop printing until they pulled the power. And I wasn’t kidding. They were literally taking the walls down around me at the end of the night and I was still printing.

While all this was going on, HP and Aiming Low gave away all sorts of good prizes. While I would have done a happy dance for an HP Mini and a TouchSmart PC might have made me faint, I was really coveting the printers. Ours had lived a good life, but was dying a slow death. So, when they announced the winner for the first printer, I was all ears. Much to my surprise, they announced the name of the person standing next to me. The person, I might add, who I had to nudge to even put her name in the running. Jill Notkin who said, “I never win anything,” was walking away with the first printer. Sigh. Still, I’ll admit that it was fun to watch her walk cautiously up to the stage and say something along the lines of, “Are you sure you have the right name?”

There was still one printer to be given away – the newest, gadgetiest (is that a word?) in the HP line – the HP Photo Smart Web Printer. At the end of the night, I was chatting with some other bloggers as we tried to squeeze in as many prints as we could, when they announced that they were giving away the last printer. I held out hope, but wasn’t all that confident. I joked with my new-found printing buddies, “Hey, I was standing next to the previous winner. Maybe I’ll bring you luck!” No sooner had the sentence left my mouth when I heard my neighbor say, “Hey, that’s you!” to her co-blogger (hmmm… for lack of a better word, since I’m not sure if they are married or what). Yep, jen+tommy won the last printer. It was fun to see their excitement as well, although it would have been more so to be excited in my own right. At least they appreciate my home-town, Lowell, for all that it offers…

I went home with lots of pictures and plenty of goodies from Staples (love the OXO line of office supplies, btw!), but no printer. So, when Angela from HP contacted me about reviewing the new HP PhotoSmart Web Printer, I read her note several times over to make sure she wasn’t really offering to send one to someone I know. Nope. Apparently, my enthusiasm for gadgets (and printing!) were more obvious than I intended. HP wants to know what I think of their newest printer.

So, this was intended to be my first-impression review of the HP PhotoSmart Web Printer, but I got caught up in retelling my Aiming Low experience. I’ll do a separate post for the printer. Here’s a hint though, I LOVE it.

Related posts:

1. Puttin’ the MY Back in Mommy
2. BlogHer and the Private Party Myth
3. A Party, a Dress, Tapas and a Goddess Giving Birth

So, when I wanted to write an article about purchasing a netbook as a second family computer, I decided it would be wise to ask for a review unit so I could give better hands-on advice. I didn’t intend to keep it for more than a week or two and I planned to write a specific review of that unit to enhance my content and make it more worthwhile for the company in question. The obvious choices for me to ask were HP (they seem to be giving away netbooks like water) and Dell (well-known for family computer shoppers).

After digging around for contacts with both companies, I put out a plea (one at a time, of course) for the loan of a review unit. I explained my cause, gave some hard statistics about our site traffic (which is hardly trivial) and asked in my most polite, pretty-please voice. And while the answer wasn’t, “No,” in either case, it was actually a bit more puzzling: “We don’t have any review units available.” Huh? Where did they go? Why aren’t they coming back? And why can’t you just simply open another box? I mean, before you send Blogger X her swanky new netbook (sigh – Vivienne Tam mini…) to review and keep, why can’t I borrow it for two weeks? It’s free press for you! Theoretically they were going to get back to me when a unit was available. Apparently, other folks aren’t expected to return theirs… ever.

I admittedly have given up the cause, but not without a bit of a grudge against HP and Dell for not finding a way to make this work. Journalists and PR people need to work hand in hand when it comes to product reviews. And, yes, I could have gone after some of the other netbook manufacturers, but it’s actually not that easy to get contact info for the right people if you haven’t worked with the company before. I had to do a certain amount of digging and pleading to get the information I did find.

Ironically, when I have been asked in recent months about companies I feel good about recommending to others, HP has been high on my list. It’s a company that I considered myself fairly loyal to. Oh, well…

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