HP revives one of our favorite laptops, plus new Envy, Pavilion systems
An 11-inch budget laptop gets a new name in the Pavilion 11 TouchSmart.
- Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
Alongside the frankly more interesting Rove 20 tabletop PC, HP has also announced revisions to the rest of its Pavilion and Envy laptop lineups. However, included in this bundle is one product that caught our eye: an update to one of our favorite laptops.
The new HP Pavilion 11 TouchSmart is an 11-inch semi-sequel to the low-cost, AMD-powered HP dm1, a system we loved when it was released in 2011 because it offered decent, portable performance at near-Netbook prices.
The new version, also with an AMD CPU, adds a standard Windows 8 touch screen and will start at $399 (yes, that includes the touch screen), and it should be available at the end of June.
The rest of the new Pavilion lineup consists of the Pavilion 14, 15, and 17. These look to be midprice systems, and frankly a bit of a throwback, as only the 15-inch will include a touch screen. They'll be available in early June, for between $429 and $479, with both AMD and Intel processors.
The higher-end Envy line has three new models. The Envy TouchSmart 14 Ultrabook is a late-summer update that has one notable option: a super-high-res 3,200x1,800-pixel display, similar to what you'd find on a Toshiba Kirabook or Retina MacBook Pro. We don't yet know when this option will be available or how much it will cost.
The Envy TouchSmart 15 starts at $529 and does not has a Retina-like screen option; the Envy 17 starts at $699 and can be upgraded to include discrete Nvidia graphics and 2TB of storage. It comes with four-way speakers plus a subwoofer, but no touch screen. Like most of these new laptops, it will be available starting June 5.