If you have a version with an AMD A4 or A6 chip, then the UX305 should be a lot faster at processing and displaying things, and dramatically more responsive. Unfortunately, you don’t say which Sleekbook 15 you own. If you mainly want a faster machine, the UX305 will probably fit the bill, but it’s not really built for speed. If that’s your plan, then the ZenBook UX305 will be a significant improvement. People who buy 11.6in or 13.3in Ultrabooks usually want to carry them around and use them in lectures or at local coffee shops. People who buy laptops with 15.6in screens are usually going to leave them at home, plugged into the mains. The main difference is that the ZenBook UX305 is much more portable than the HP Sleekbook 15. PocketLint called the ZenBook UX305 “ King of the mid-range”, presumably because of its low price.

It will also be much more responsive, because it has a 128GB or 256GB SSD instead of a hard drive. It is better made, having a brushed aluminium case instead of glossy plastic. However, it offers a full HD resolution screen of 1920 x 1080 pixels where the Sleekbook only offers 1366 x 768. It’s smaller and lighter, as you’d expect from a laptop with a 13.3in rather than a 15.6in screen. The Asus ZenBook UX305 is a significant improvement on your Sleekbook 15 in almost every way. Which does prompt the question: why do you want to replace it?Īsus ZenBook UX305 is smaller and lighter than SleekBook 15. Stand it on a pile of books to raise the screen, plug in a good USB keyboard, and it should easily last you another two or three years.

It could run Microsoft Office, play music and videos, edit photos, and so on. None of this is to imply that the HP Sleekbook 15 wasn’t good enough to do the job, because it was. Most models did not have touchscreens, and I think all of them had traditional hard drives rather than SSDs (solid-state drives). Cheaper versions of the Sleekbook 15 had slow AMD processors, limited battery life (four hours is poor by Ultrabook standards), and below-average keyboards. It was taking design cues from Ultrabooks, but unfortunately, it didn’t always deliver. The HP Sleekbook 15 varied the formula by being relatively thin and light for a laptop with a 15.6in screen, partly by dropping the usual DVD drive.

They won’t turn any heads, but they are decent all-rounders from top tier suppliers. These are good performers, reasonably well made, and reasonably priced. If I had to describe a “standard” student laptop, it would be something like the HP Pavilion 15 or the Dell Inspiron 15 5000.

Laptop deals for college students 2016