HP’s Sprout attempts to replace the keyboard with a built-in 3D camera and projector

       Feast your eyes on Sprout, a new all-in-one PC from HP that replaces the keyboard and mouse with a 20-point, 20-inch projected touch pad. HP says the Sprout is the first product in a new “Blended Reality” lineup that’s meant to re-envision the interface between real and virtual, analog and digital. Along with the projector, there’s also a high-res camera and 3D scanner, allowing you to easily “upload” objects into the Sprout just by placing them on the mat.

         The all-in-one PC itself is pretty mundane: It has a modern Core i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 23-inch touchscreen, and Windows 8.1. The large 20-inch touchpad (which HP calls a touch mat) supports 20-point multitouch (so more than one person can use it at once). The magic of Sprout, though, is in the visor-like appendage thatsprouts out the top, which HP calls the HP Illuminator. Within, there are three different systems: an Intel RealSense 3D camera (which is a lot like Kinect), a 14.6-megapixel camera, and an HP DLP projector. There’s also an LED desk lamp in there, which will probably prove to be rather useful. Apparently the touchpad is made of a special material that is invisible/transparent to the cameras.

         All of these systems combine to provide an interesting mix of functions, from projecting a touchscreen keyboard (or using the included stylus to draw some art), through to scanning objects and documents. Wired, which had some hands-on time with the Sprout, said that the projected keyboard “reacted well” and is “comfortable to type on.” The Sprout will obviously be popular with kids, but creative types will probably also like the ability to use the projected touchpad separately from the main screen — as far as Windows is concerned, it’s just like having two monitors, I think.

As much as I want to be excited by the Sprout, I think that it just narrowly misses the mark, landing in the “eh, so what?” zone rather than “oooh, cool.” Clearly, the Sprout is meant to be some kind of personal computing Swiss Army Knife for kids, creatives, and office workers alike — but in the cold, harsh light of reality, it sadly feels more like Homer’s car from The Simpsons.

         Yes, the idea of a 20-point touchpad is cool — but you can get much the same thing with a decent tablet from Wacom. The RealSense camera is neat — but why doesn’t it support gesture-based inputs, like Haptix? Yes, the projection element is certainly novel — but is it really better than, say, just having a second display?

         Who knows. Maybe the Sprout’s various technologies will come together in a beautiful, paradigm-shifting amalgamation. Certainly, anything that attempts to redefine something as important as computer input needs to be properly tested in a variety of scenarios before any serious conclusions can be made. Don’t get me wrong: I think we’re long overdue an input method that can replace the physical 10-finger keyboard, and an output device that somehow goes beyond the mundanity of conventional displays and projectors… but at $1900, the Sprout might not be it.

         The Sprout is available to pre-order now from the HP website, priced $1900. It ships on November 9 — and, more importantly, Best Buy and Microsoft Stores will have the Sprout on display, if you want to try it out. It’s also worth pointing out that, for $1900, you do actually get a wireless mouse and keyboard — but obviously, using them would be admitting defeat.