CES: HP unveils IPS monitors and budget notebooks

Display monitors weren't the only devices shown off by HP at CES in Las Vegas today, as the California firm also unveiled two new notebooks, the Pavilion Sleekbook and a touchscreen enabled counterpart, the Pavilion Touchsmart Sleekbook.

In what HP calls "affordable performance in a thin and light package", each notebook is powered by an AMD A-Series APU and features a 15.6in HD display.

On the inside there's up to one terabyte of storage along with Dolby Advanced Audio technology and a removable battery.

As standard there's also an array of connectivity options including HDMI, USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports.

An interesting feature incorporated into the Sleekbooks is the HP Coolsense technology, which adjusts cooling levels according to a customer's personal preferences and results in a cooler PC.

The non-touch Sleekbook joins the 14in and 15.6in HP Sleekbook models announced earlier in 2012 and is expected to be available in the US from 13 January for a starting price equivalent to around £300.

The Pavilion Touchsmart Sleekbook is expected to be available in the US on 3 February for a starting price of around £400.

There's no word on when these devices will reach UK shores or how much they will retail for when, or if, they do.

Finally, in what it calls a "breakthrough device" HP announced its Pocket Playlist, a device that streams unencrypted content such as movies, music, TV shows and photos from up to five mobile devices at the same time.

With no internet connection required while streaming and no need for a data plan, the Pocket Playlist acts like a home DVR but is smaller and lighter than the average smartphone, making it easy to take anywhere.

Bundled with a one-month subscription to Playlater, which is a new DVR app for online content, the Pocket Playlist allows prerecording of videos from online websites for playback later without an internet connection.

HP said the device holds up to 16 full-length movies, 7,600 songs or 10,000 photos, and plays to most WiFi enabled Android, Windows and iOS devices. It is expected to tip up worldwide on 15 February for around £80. µ