HP Envy Rove 20 – the 20-inch desktop tablet all-in-one hybrid

Smartphones are encroaching on tablets, size-wise, so tablets have decided to hassle your desktop all-in-on PC. Here’s the super-sized HP Envy Rove 20 tablet.

The 20-inch HP Rove 20 is a Windows 8 PC that combines all-in-one computing with the ‘portability’ of a giant tablet – if you have the strength.

The Rove 20 sports a 20-inch, 10-finger, multi-touch touchscreen which means you can employ every fingertip you have to control your work.

At the back is a button activated spring-loaded hinge so you can set it down with one hand and, given its size, a handy addition.

Stand it up and connect a keyboard and mouse to it and use it as a conventional all-in-one desktop puter, or lay it down flat to share what’s on the screen with others in a tablet stylee.

In its prone position it can become a 21st century board game, with games including Disney Fairies and classic property ownership title, and starter of in-house rivalries – Monopoly – built-in.

You can also lug it around with you as a monolithic tablet which HP promises will last 4 hours before needing a power supply.

The Rove 20 will be powered by an Intel Haswell processor when it’s released and will pack a decent 1TB of storage and an 8GB solid-state drive too.

It will hook-up to other things via 802.11ac Wi-Fi, WiDi and act as a wireless display, and there’s Beats Audio tech to please your ears.

As a rather chunky and large tablet, I’m not sure about its market placing but, saying that, Dell, Sony and Asus have all sprung similar devices.

Treat it as a portable, transforming, touchscreen, desktop workstation, however, and then I can start seeing the point.

If you’re fortunate enough to have the option of working in your home office, in the garden, from your sofa or use the free Wi-Fi at your local coffee shop, then the HP Envy Rove 20, may well find a place in your heart.

If that’s too much to carry – why not check out the HP Envy x2?

The giant tablet is expected to cost around $1,000.