American global IT firm, Hewlett Packard, has announced an upgrade to its creative Sprout computer, tagged the HP Sprout Pro.
The HP Sprout, launched nearly two years ago, is HP’s effort toward re-imagining the venerable personal computer by merging a 3D scanner and projector with an all-in-one PC to create an ensemble it hopes will rekindle industry interest.
The computer is meant for product designers, sporting a touch-sensitive mat, and ability to measure 2D and 3D objects that are placed on it. It however is not limited to designers alone and has many other uses.
The new variant offers specifications upgrade over the original Sprout, coupled with a range of suites. It has a starting price of $2,199 (roughly 450,000 Naira) and will begin shipping in select regions as from next month.
The HP Sprout Pro sports a 23-inch full-HD display (1920×1080 pixels) with support for 10-point touch. The PC is powered by a sixth-generation Intel Core i7-6700 processor with Nvidia GeForce GT 945A (1GB GDDR5) graphics card and 8GB of DDR4-2133 SDRAM- which is expandable up to 16GB. The Pro version of the HP Sprout also comes with 1TB SATA solid state hybrid drive with an 8GB flash drive. A 1-megapixel webcam was also added to the mix.
Other features of the computer include the HP Illuminator, a built-in projector sporting up to 14.6-megapixel camera and the Intel RealSense 3D camera which is expected to instantly capture 2D and 3D objects.
There’s also a 20-inch mat called the ‘HP Touch Mat’, which features 20-point touch-enabled feedback with an ultra-resistant top coating. It serves as a second monitor as well as keyboard and mouse input devices. The company also offers the Adonit Jot Pro stylus to write and draw. The PC runs Windows 10 Pro out of the box.
The HP Sprout Pro supports 10/100/1000 Base-T Network, Bluetooth 4.0, and Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n featuring dual-band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) 2×2 MIMO technology. There are two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, and an HP 3-in-1 media card reader on the desktop computer.
HP also announced a range of new apps that will go along with the HP Sprout Pro. One of them is HP Scan, which brings professional-level document scanning, and HP External Display Mixer.
