HP Envy Rove 20

This is a portable desktop—an all-in-one PC that doubles as a giant tablet

With a 20-inch display, HP’s Rove can be called an oversized tablet or a portable all-in-one PC that weighs about 6 kg. In a day and age where we have more than one such device, having an all-in-one that works as a portable tablet too may not seem like the most compelling idea, but when you use it, you start thinking of various uses for it.

The Rove has a sturdy hinged pop-up stand that also works as a handle. You can flatten it down to 180° on your dining table and play ping-pong till dinner is laid, or put it back on the stand and make a Skype call or use it as a desktop PC. You can operate for about three hours on its internal battery, so this desktop is portable and does not require a UPS.

Using an Intel 4th generation Core i3 CPU that uses a fanless design, the Rove manages to accomplish most of the operations you want with a computer, though this is not the most powerful desktops out there and its 4 GB of RAM may stagger a few applications. Rove also features 3 USB 3.0 ports, a headphone/microphone jack and a volume control rocker. There is an SD card slot, and just like an Apple iPad, it also has a button that lets you change the orientation of the display. There is no optical drive or Ethernet port. It has 1 Terabyte of storage using a hybrid drive that gives you a much higher speed than conventional ones. Stereo speakers with Beats Audio ensures that you get rich audio.

The 20-inch display is an HD+ display, with a 1600 x 900 LED resolution. The display has rich colours and sharp graphics. It also supports 10-point touch, and has Intel HD graphics to power all this. Rove does not have the most powerful graphics or processing capacity, but Windows 8 apps work seamlessly, and average day-to-day work is easily done on this machine. The advantages of a 20-inch tablet become evident here: you get a full-sized machine that can work as a desktop and convert to laptop mode for social and gaming applications. Also, just think of the space a desktop takes and the clunky UPS that it needs.

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Gagandeep Singh Sapra