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If you’re looking for a low-cost laptop with a premium look and feel, the Envy Sleekbook 6-1010us delivers impressively at $599. It’s best for casual users and light gamers who don’t need to perform frequent CPU-centric tasks. Introduction If you’ve been paying close attention to the laptop landscape since 2011, you already know about Intel’s “ultrabook” push. With ultrabooks—a subset of laptops that are super-trim, super-light, and Intel-based—the aim is to make Windows-based laptops more appealing to the many consumers who are increasingly opting for Apple’s MacBook Air or MacBook Pro machines . For a laptop to carry the ultrabook moniker, though, it needs to meet certain (admittedly desirable) standards, such as a sub-21mm (0.8-inch) thickness, and the ability to resume from sleep in less than seven seconds. (To achieve the latter, solid-state storage—in the form of a dedicated solid-state storage drive or a cache drive—needs to be on the component roster.) Follow us on Twitter , Facebook But HP, being the world’s largest PC maker, knows that not every consumer can afford to shell out bucks for a laptop in the ultrabook price range. (Ultrabook models start as low as $799, but many of the premium machines we’ve seen slice far deeper than $1,000.) So the PC giant has created a line of ultrabook-aping machines that it terms—cheekily, as we see it—”sleekbooks.” HP’s Sleekbooks don’t quite measure up to Intel’s specifications for the ultrabook classification in every way, but they still aim to offer a premium look and feel. In the case of the first sleekbook we’ve seen, the Envy Sleekbook 6-1010us, it squeezes in under the wire for ultrabook thinness, with a lean 0.78-inch-thick chassis. The Envy Sleekbook differentiates itself from the ultrabook crowd first and foremost, though, by using an AMD processor, HP Keyboard , in this case the A6-4455M. It also sports a 15.6-inch screen, where the biggest ultrabooks generally top out at 14 inches. (See, for example, Dell’s Inspiron 14z.) Even though it’s thin, the Sleekbook 6-1010us exceeds the technical ultrabook limits for weight. At 4.53 pounds, it’s heavier than smaller-screened machines, but still quite light for a laptop with a 15.6-inch screen and HP Keyboard . And while its AMD processor can’t compete in raw CPU performance with the Intel chips in today’s lowest-cost ultrabooks, it’s still fast enough to handle everyday productivity tasks without getting bogged down. On the flip side, this machine’s graphics performance is a fair bit better than what the integrated circuitry of Intel’s current-gen “Ivy Bridge” CPUs is capable of. Take that as a whole, and if you’re a casual gamer (or you use graphics-accelerated apps fairly often), this sleekbook could be a sweet choice, especially considering how much its $599 price undercuts most ultrabooks with such compatible parts . For more laptop reviews
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