HP Envy Sleekbook 6z-1000

By Joel Santo Domingo

If you're one of the people who disagrees that it's what's inside that counts, then the metal-bodied HP Envy Sleekbook 6z-1000 ($699.99 list, $599.99 from HP Direct) should be on your radar. The Envy Sleekbook 6z has a stylish metal body and looks terrific when you take it out of your commuter bag, but its mediocre screen, lagging performance, unwanted add-on software, and other factors spoil the initial glow when you bring the system home. Sure, it's a lower-priced alternative to Intel-certified ultrabooks, but unfortunately we can't even recommend it to the bargain hunter.

Design and Features
The Envy 6z-1000 seems like a larger version of the HP Envy 4-1043cl , with a similar metal finish and larger 15.6-inch screen (compared with the 14-inch screen on the Envy 4-1043cl). The concept of a 15-inch ultrabook or sleekbook seems like an oxymoron. A slimmer laptop is always welcome, although in years past this system likely would have been called a "thin and light" or ultraportable. It measures about 0.8 by 14.75 by 10 inches (HWD), so it meets the 21mm thickness spec for ultrabooks. It does so by eschewing the optical drive usually found on 15-inch laptops. The system weighs 4.48 pounds alone and about five pounds with the AC adapter. This is still quite portable; the current 15-inch entry-level desktop replacement laptop Editors' Choice Sony VAIO E15 (SVE15116FXS) weighs 5.97 pounds.

The Envy Sleekbook 6z-1000 comes with a 15-inch screen with a 1,366-by-768 resolution. This is a lot lower resolution than, say, the 14-inch 1,920-by-1,080 resolution screen seen on the Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A-R5102F . You'll get less screen real estate on the cheaper sleekbook, but then again you're saving $300. While the 1,366-by-768 screen was chosen to save money, that doesn't excuse the fact that you'll see a screen door effect while using the Envy Sleekbook 6z-1000. A screen door effect is similar to how it sounds: it seems like you're watching the display thought a screen door. It makes everything you see blocky and ill-defined. You can see it when there's a lot of solid color on the screen, like the green background before a movie trailer starts or on the white background of a website. You can pick out the individual pixels, and as a consequence text also looks blocky and jaggy. The effect is like trying to read the text and view characters in an 8- or 16-bit console game. We understand that building a budget laptop necessitated the use of a budget panel, but anyone with a critical eye will have a problem with this screen. Any decent-quality tablet screen will look better than the one on the Envy 6z-1000.

The standard full-size chiclet-style keyboard is comfortable to type on. The black aluminum lid and red soft touch magnesium base were pleasing to the touch, but both surfaces and the keyboard showed fingerprints and smudges quite easily. Typing on the keyboard frequently resulted in unwanted touchpad input, so you may want to take advantage of the touchpad on/off button in the upper-left corner to disable the touchpad when not in use. Speaking of which, the Envy 6z-1000's touchpad bears a subtle textured bull's-eye pattern, which introduces slightly more drag on your fingers than a traditional smooth touchpad.

The Envy 6z-1000 has a good selection of ports on it. It comes with two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, a full-size Ethernet port (no dongle needed), and an HDMI port. This means you shouldn't have any problem connecting the system to an external display. The Envy 6z-1000 comes with standard built-in 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi. You also get 4GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive; although this combination seems adequate, the system's dual-core AMD A6-4455M Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) is a strike against the system. The benchmark numbers tell part of the story (more on that later), but the system may start feeling slow the first time you boot it up. Viewing 720p HD videos on a new laptop shouldn't be a problem, but critical users may detect dropped frames and some stuttering on titles that feature heavy action or were encoded with an older or less-efficient codec. We watched video trailers from the upcoming Wreck-It Ralph movie as well as other HD videos via the system's Wi-Fi connection, and portions of the videos either slowed down or lost sync with the audio. Older Web videos like the 2009 Star Trek trailer also exhibited occasional slowdown during playback. It wasn't our Internet connection; our office has at least 40Mbps of throughput. That said, most other 720p and 1080p videos we viewed played fine, and any stuttering was almost imperceptible.

Because the system has a slower 5,400rpm hard drive, booting it and launching apps was noticeably slower than on newer SSD-powered ultrabooks like the Asus Zenbook Prime twins, the Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A-R5102F and Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A-DB51 . The Envy 6z-1000 isn't as bad as the single-core Atom-powered netbooks from a few years ago, but its performance is still disappointing right out of the box. There is a version of this same system with a 500GB drive called the HP Envy Sleekbook 6-1010us . The 6-1010us has the same price tag and disappointing performance.

A lot of bloatware comes preinstalled on the Envy 6z-1000. In addition to shortcuts to eBay, HP Games, and Office Starter 2010 on the desktop, you'll find taskbar shortcuts to helper programs, Windows Live products, and an ad for Blio (an ebook store). All of this should be organized in the Start menu (and to HP's credit, it mostly is organized into categories there). Internet Explorer had three extra toolbars: Bing, Norton Internet Security, and the HP SimplePass identity protection app. Add the fully populated bookmark bar (with ads for eBay, Amazon, and HP Games), and you're looking at 1.75 inches of a 7.75-inch (vertical) screen consumed by bookmarks and taskbars. This is one case in which having a lower-resolution screen is a huge drawback. Sure, you can hide all the toolbars and get back the screen space, but it will be a hassle trying to explain that procedure to a relative over the phone. The Envy 6z-1000 comes with Beats Audio and a built-in subwoofer. The sound won't shake down the house, but the audio enhancements help when listening to music and watching movies. We'd recommend adding a pair of headphones for the best audio experience. The system comes with 60 days of Norton Internet Security updates, better than the 30 days free you would get online, but far too short to afford any real protection. The Envy 6z-1000 comes with a standard one-year limited warranty and one year of technical support.

Performance
The Envy 6z-1000 was slow on our benchmark tests?there's no getting around it. The system's "next-gen" AMD A6-4455M APU (Accelerated Processor Unit) is essentially AMD's answer to the Intel Core processor. Both processors include integrated graphics, which simplifies construction and helps battery life. The problem is that AMD's solution here is a lot slower than Intel's. Most basic ultrabooks, like the Editors' Choice HP Folio 13-1020us , use an Intel Core i5 processor. On our Handbrake video test, the Envy 6z-1000 took 4 minutes 5 seconds, compared with the 2:29 for the HP Folio. That's not even the fastest comparable score: The Sony VAIO E15 got a 1:39 on the same test. Likewise, Photoshop CS5 numbers for the Envy 6z-1000 were quite disappointing (8:05) compared with the HP Folio 13 (5:24) and the Sony VAIO E15 (3:55). Futuremark PCMark 7 test measures day-to-day speed, and the Envy 6z-1000 also showed up at the bottom with a score of 1,361, compared with 3,150 for the HP Folio 13 and 2,495 for the Sony VAIO E15. Even the "ultra-budget" Editors' Choice Acer Aspire 5349-2635 laptop, with its Celeron processor, beat the Envy 6z-1000 on Handbrake, CineBench, and Photoshop. The Envy 6z-1000's battery life was decent, if unremarkable: 5 hours 35 minutes on MobileMark 2007. This is better than you see with non-ultrabook laptops like the Sony VAIO E15 (4:34) and Acer 5349-2635 (4:56), but far behind the HP Folio 13 (8:47).

Although the HP Envy Sleekbook 6z-1000 comes in an attractive package, its shortcomings make it a laptop we cannot really recommend. It has a low-resolution, low-quality screen. It proved slow on both our benchmark tests and on some day-to-day tasks. The HP Envy Sleekbook 6-1010us version of the system comes with a larger 500GB hard drive, but shares its twin's disappointing performance and screen. Both systems are compact and have a nice price, but virtually any Intel-powered ultrabook is worth the extra $100-$200 dollars. The HP Folio 13-1020us remains a great ultrabook choice. Alternately, you can go for a traditional laptop like the Sony VAIO E15 or the sub-$800 Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M5-481TG-6814, both of which perform better on day-to-day tasks. If you want a really low-price system, check out the Acer Aspire 5349-2635 at Wal-Mart. Even made out of plastic, it's a better choice for a lot less money.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the HP Envy Sleekbook 6z-1000 with several other desktops side by side.

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??? Dell XPS 15 (Summer 2012)
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