HP Pavilion TouchSmart 15z-b000 Sleekbook - Touch is within reach. We believe in touch technology for everyone. That's why we took a great everyday notebook and gave it a touchscreen, which lets you make the most of Windows 8. With the HP Pavilion TouchSmart Sleekbook, you can scroll effortlessly through social networks. Share photos with a few simple taps. Start a Skype chat with a touch. All on a thin and light design you'll want with you all the time.
After bemoaning the lack of laptops at any price with both a touch screen and discrete graphics, HP turns up with something that gets my attention. The $649.99 HP Pavilion TouchSmart 15z-b000 Sleekbook is slim, especially for a 15-inch midsize laptop, and certainly one of the sharper-looking Windows 8 laptops I've seen in this lower-end price range. The kicker is its included AMD Radeon 7600G GPU.
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| HP Pavilion TouchSmart 15z-b000 Sleekbook |
Despite the slim profile, the price is so reasonable because this is not exactly an ultrabook -- instead it belongs to HP's proprietary Sleekbook line, which is a similar-sounding category HP invented to promote laptops that are ultrabook-like, but don't meet the official Intel requirements (ultrabook is a trademarked Intel marketing term).
It's pretty clear why this isn't an Intel-approved ultrabook -- the CPU is actually a quad-core AMD A8-4555M. AMD calls its product an APU, for "accelerated processing unit" rather than CPU, because it combines a CPU and discrete-level graphics into a single package. In this case, it's the previously mentioned AMD Radeon 7600G, which isn't a gamer-level part, but should outperform Intel's integrated HD 4000 graphics (at least on paper).
For $649, don't expect the HP Pavilion TouchSmart 15z-b000 Sleekbook to outperform Lenovo's recent 15-inch gaming laptop, the excellent IdeaPad Y500 (which can be found for under $900), or even any standard Core i5 ultrabook. It's not going to be your main gaming rig, but it can handle most current games at lower settings, especially as the screen resolution will be capped at a low 1,366x768 pixels.
I'm always a fan of laptops that look like they cost more than they actually do. While it's not going to convince anyone that this is a $1,000-plus high-end machine, it feels like it offers excellent bang for the buck. Just be warned, one of the reasons you don't see more AMD laptops is that they can't touch Intel on battery life, and this highly portable system ran for less than three and a half hours in our tests.
HP Pavilion TouchSmart Sleekbook Design and features
We've seen a handful of less expensive Windows 8 touch-screen laptops to date, and while there have not been any real clunkers in the bunch, designwise, you definitely can tell the difference between a $600-$700 laptop and a $999 one. The HP Pavilion TouchSmart 15z-b000 Sleekbook pushes the needle a little bit in terms of design versus price, thanks no doubt to incorporating design elements from HP's more expensive systems, from Intel-powered Pavilions to HP's higher-end Envy line.
This is still a black plastic laptop, and a glossy one at that, which almost never looks as good as a matte finish, but it's enviably thin, and the big 15-inch screen is surrounded by only a thin bezel, making it look even more dramatic. There's a slight taper toward the front, creating the illusion for the user that it's even thinner still, and the minimalist black-on-black interior wisely doesn't take any design chances.
When open, the laptop is dominated by a generous keyboard and touch pad. The flat-topped, island-style keyboard is the same style found on most current HP systems, with large Enter, Shift, and other important keys, and a separate number pad. The keys themselves are a little on the shallow side, but have less flex under your fingers than I'd expect from a budget laptop (although there's still a little flex, especially in the center of the keyboard). The Function keys are reversed, which means you can adjust the speaker volume or screen brightness just by hitting the corresponding F-key, without having to hold down the dreaded "fn" key at the same time.
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