HP BRINGS OUT NEW BUDGET FRIENDLY WINDOWS 8 LAPTOPS

HP adds new budget-friendly Windows 8 laptops - Envy m4 and two Sleekbooks

HP has announce a trio of new Windows 8 laptops, all aimed at the more affordable end of the market. The HP Envy m4 and the Pavillion Sleekbook 14 and 15 won't skimp on the style or the features, though,

The HP Envy m4 is a 14-inch (1366 x 768) notebook with a slick brushed aluminium chassis. It'll come with either Intel i3 or i5 CPUs and up to 8GB of RAM - but there's no discrete graphics option, which makes it a no-no for gamers. 

For storage there'll be a choice of either a 32GB solid state drive or up to a 1GB hard drive. Continuing HP's Beats Audio partnership, the Envy m4 will come with a decent set of speakers and a subwoofer.

The Envy m4 will set you back $899 when it's launched "in select markets" from October 26 - that's the Windows 8 launch date, in case you were wondering.

Even more affordable will be the HP Sleek book 14 and Sleekbook 15. What's a Sleek book? Well, it's HP's own term used to describe a very thin and light laptop that doesn't quite have the guts of an ultra book - but can be had for a great deal less money.

rather predictably, the Sleek book 14 comes with a 14-inch HD display while the Sleek book 15 comes with a 15-inch HD display. Well, 15.6-inch actually.

The Sleek book 14 uses an AMD CPU and GPU combo, while the Sleekbook 15 stretches its legs with Intel hardware. Both offer the option of discrete graphics cards and similar storage options to the Envy.

As you'd expect from the name, the Sleekbooks are rather svelte, and come in a choice of black or red.

The Sleekbook 14 will cost $499 and the Sleekbook 15 $559. Once again, they'll be available from October 26, when Windows 8 launches.

hp adds windows 8 pc's and all in one from techmate

HP adds Windows 8-ready Envy, Pavilion, and Spectre all-in-ones

HP shows its willing to take some calculated risks for Windows 8 with a Spectre-branded all-in-one desktop.

You might know HP's Spectre product best as a home for the company's high-end, high concept laptops. With the SpectreOne, announced today, HP brings an all-in-one PC into that fold. The question is whether it's features match its high-price.

HP says the SpectreOne will begin at $1,299 when it launches in the U.S. in November. In addition to the stylized design, the SpectreOne includes a non-touch, 23.6-inch, 1,920x1,080-pixel display, a track pad, and near-field communication (NFC) technology, dubbed HP TouchZone. It also has no built-in optical drive.

The track pad makes HP the second vendor, behind Vizio, to launch a non-touchscreen all-in-one with a track pad for Windows 8. I found HP's track pad generally more responsive than Vizio's during a brief hands-on, but it still seems odd that a $1,299 Windows desktop would not also include a touchscreen. Further, the 23.6-inch display feels small compared with the 27-inch displays common to Vizio and other all-in-one PCs in the same price range. Unlike Vizio's touch pad equipped CA27-A1, HP also includes a mouse in the SpectreOne.

The TouchZone feature is more unique, and I hope it's the start of a trend throughout the PC industry. Via a sensor built into base of the unit, you can log into the SpectreOne or transfer files to it by simply swiping a smartphone or another device equipped with an NFC transmitter sticker. HP includes two stickers in the box with the SpectreOne.

HP wasn't interested in discussing the traditional PC specifications of the SpectreOne, on "life-style" grounds, but it cites a 1GB Nvidia GeForce graphics card, "the latest Intel processors" (Core i5 or better, HP tells me), and Condusiv (formerly Diskeeper) ExpressCache among the various options. I've seen the latter in a few high-end gaming PCs before. Essentially it puts a small solid state hard drive directly on your motherboard to speed up boot times and access to your mostly commonly launched applications. It generally works well, but it can be an expensive option for a solid state drive to which you can't read and write manually.

(Credit: HP)

HP also announced three more traditional all-in-ones today, including two Envy-branded TouchSmart systems, and a non-touch Pavilion all-in-one. Now that Windows 8 has its own well-developed touch software, it makes sense that HP would make TouchSmart a secondary brand and roll those mainstream PCs into its Envy product group.They're still too proper-noun heavy.

Aside from the TouchSmart name, those Envy systems should feel familiar. They're essentially the same version of the Envy 23 HP announced earlier this summer, but with a touchscreen. The 23-inch Envy TouchSmart 23 will start at $999, and the 20-inch Envy TouchSmart 20 at $799 when the two systems launch in October.

(Credit: HP)

Finally, HP has also updated its true-blue Pavilion line with an aggressively priced non-touch all-in-one. The $449, 20-inch Pavilion 20 has nothing particularly remarkable about it other than its price. You will have a hard time finding a 20-inch all-in-one desktop at such a low price. That system goes on sale in October.

-tech mate