HP Pavilion TouchSmart 15z-b000 Sleekbook review: A budget laptop with touch, and a few trade-offs

Connections, performance, and battery life
It's not wise to expect too much from a budget laptop in terms of ports and connections. In this case, it's a pair of USB 3.0 ports, an extra USB 2.0 port, and HDMI, an SD card reader, and an Ethernet jack. The latter fits into the slim body because of a hinged jaw. It covers all the bases, but doesn't include any bells or whistles.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

The biggest question mark for most people considering the 15z-b000 is going to be the AMD A8-4555M processor. Test-drive a bunch of laptops with friends or at a store (plus, read enough laptop reviews), and you'll get an idea of what a mainstream Intel Core i5 CPU can do in a modern laptop. The AMD chip here, while even a quad-core chip, isn't as fast in our benchmark tests as even the mainstream Intel chips found in other budget laptops.

The difference, however, is modest compared to the performance hit you'd take with the Intel Atom chips in many of the low-cost Windows 8 tablet/laptop hybrids we've tested, so the Windows 8 interface still runs very smoothly. In general, for Web surfing, social media, and even HD video playback, the Sleekbook is more than adequate, although I did run into a little bit of occasional stuttering and pausing when opening multiple browser windows.

More interesting is the GPU part of AMD's platform, via a part called the Radeon HD 7600G. AMD says it's the equivalent of a discrete graphics card (such as you'd get from Nvidia), but keep in mind, it's still at the lower end of the scale. This won't play the newest games at the highest detail settings, even at the lower 1,366x768-pixel screen resolution, but it still beats Intel's default HD 4000 graphics. In a not-too-challenging Just Cause 2 test, at the same 1,366x768-pixel resolution, this system ran the game at 15.0 frames per second, while HP's more expensive Spectre XT with Intel's HD 4000 graphics ran the same test at 10.9 frames per second.

While the graphics may be good for a budget laptop, one area where AMD can't seem to catch up with Intel is in battery life. Despite being a low-power system, and with a chassis big enough to hold a sizable battery, the TouchSmart 15z-b000 ran for only 3 hours and 20 minutes on our video playback battery drain test. That's not great for a laptop designed for easy travel, and Dell's similarly budget-minded Inspiron 15z ran for more than 1.5 hours longer on the same test.

Conclusion
The HP Pavilion TouchSmart 15z-b000 Sleekbook wins points for being the best-looking sub-$700 touch-screen Windows 8 laptop I've seen so far, and for adding a tiny bit of GPU muscle to a class of laptops generally unsuitable for gaming.

Keep in mind that the trade-offs are going to be relatively short battery life, a slightly frustrating touch pad, and occasionally sluggish performance. But, if you need to have a presentable-looking, very thin laptop for only $650, this system deserves a serious look.