HP 15-BS020WM Review – Budget Touchscreen Laptop

Zeroing in on a budget laptop these days can be a challenging thing to do. You not only have to compromise on the latest tech, but also have to manage with it for the near future. That’s where the HP 15-BS020WM gives you some breathing space.

In this HP 15-BS020WM review, we take a good, in-depth look at this budget laptop from HP that brings cool features like touchscreen even at this price point. This laptop is made with entry-level computing in mind. If you’re a light user, then this laptop is something you should be interested in.

Design

The design is one of those things you can’t worry about when you’re shopping on a budget. At a price point of under $350, the design is not going to be anywhere close to stellar.

Having said that, the HP 15-BS020WM is a pretty good-looking laptop. The first impression is beautiful, thanks to the nice black finish on the laptop. It looks premium even though it is made of plastic.

The feel of the device might not be that premium, though. You can feel the plastic, and suddenly you realize that this is a budget notebook.

On the top, you find a 720p HD webcam which is cool for making video calls. The bezels surrounding the display are not the slim ones you see in modern laptops.

The laptop has dimensions of 10 x 14.9 x 0.9 inches and weighs about 4.5 pounds. The laptop doesn’t weigh a lot, and that’s something you don’t often in a budget laptop like this one. You can slip the laptop in your backpack, and get work on the go.

HP 15-BS020WM Keyboard and touchpad

On opening the lid, you are greeted by the keyboard and the mouse.

The keyboard here is a chiclet-style one and is pretty good to type on. This is a full-size keyboard, meaning you also a number pad on the right side. If you’re an excel guy, then this is neat.

The key travel in the keyboard might be a little low, but it is not as bad as to affect your typing speed and accuracy. There is no backlighting on the keyboard which is expected.

The palm rest has a nice texture. Thanks to the color, you’ll not see much stains over a long period of usage.

The touchpad is decent. Your fingers will move smoothly over the surface. The taps and clicks register well without the needs for multiple hits. Overall, a nice touchpad.

HP 15-BS020WM Specs

HP 15-BS020WM touch laptop comes with a good array of specs for the price.

Let’s talk about what’s in store for multimedia.

The display we have here is a 15.6-inch one with an HD resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. When it comes to watching movies and series, this display does a fair job. You don’t have good viewing angles with this screen, so sitting right in front of the display is needed.

The color accuracy is decent, but the display is just not good enough for professional color-oriented work like photo editing, video editing, and so one.

The sound output of the laptop is also okay. It can fill a small room with a good amount of sound. The sound quality, however, may not be the best. With high volumes, you’ll get a bit of distortion. A cheap solution is to get a separate set of speakers that sound better than the laptop.

One of the selling points of the HP 15-BS020WM laptop is that it has a touchscreen. HP has to be lauded for including a touchscreen in a budget laptop like this one. The screen has 10-finger multi-touch support and works well with Windows 10.

HP 15-BS020WM Processor and RAM

The HP 15-BS020WM comes with an Intel Pentium N3710 processor that has a clock speed of 1.6GHz and a 2MB cache memory. It is a quad-core processor that can reach a clock speed of up to 2.6GHz with the help of turbo boost.

The processor, simply put, is an entry-level processor. It is made for simple tasks like social media, browsing the web, consuming media, word processing, spreadsheets, and other similar functions.

If you’re a light user, then you’ll find this setup more than comfortable. Though the laptop is not as fast, it still can get through your everyday activities without a hitch.

Four gigs of DDR3 RAM accompany the processor. This is pretty much how much RAM you’d expect in a budget laptop. You can do a bit of multitasking without any problem. You can run a browser, listen to music, and draft mail all at the same time which is neat.

Storage and Gaming

The HP 15-BS020WM 15.6-inch touch laptop comes with a decent amount of storage in the form a 500GB hard drive. This one is a mechanical drive which gives you ample space for all your stuff.

Being a mechanical drive, it can take a bit of time to load the applications. Even the operating system can load a bit slower, but that’s what it is. This gets even worse if you’re used to solid-state drives.

The hard drive comes pre-installed with a copy of Windows 10 which is the latest bite you can get from the Windows ecosystem.

Gaming on this laptop is straightforward. The laptop has an integrated graphics card, and with that, you can play some simple games. If you’re going after a light title, then you’d have some success with it.

Being a weak graphics card, it doesn’t enable you to play high-end games. The laptop was not made for this purpose, and it shows. If you have the notion of playing games, steer clear of this machine and go for serious gaming laptops which can increase your cost tenfold.

Battery Life and Connectivity

Being a budget laptop, the HP 15-BS020WM shines when it comes to battery life. With regular use, you can squeeze out 5 hours of battery life from this laptop. This is achievable when watching movies and browsing the internet.

If you’re going to go hardcore on this machine, then expect the battery life to drop nicely. Things like photo editing, programming, and other resource-hungry apps can hit battery life notably.

How functional is the connectivity in the HP 15-BS020WM?

Pretty good, actually.

You get a couple of USB 3.0 ports and a single USB 2.0 port for both external connectivity and data transfer. There is an HDMI port for connectivity with external displays and such.

There is also an Ethernet port that allows you to connect to the internet with good speeds. You only get an 802.11b/g/n wireless connectivity here, so we recommend the use of the ethernet port if you want higher internet speeds.

You also get an optical drive which is something you can see only on budget devices these days. In addition to all these port, you get the headphone jack as well.

Overall connectivity on the HP 15-BS020WM is good, and you’ll rarely need adapters of any kinds.

HP 15-BS020WM Review – Bottomline

The HP 15-BS020WM touchscreen laptop is a budget offering, and it performs like one. It is great for all light tasks like social media, internet browsing, office applications, and consuming media.

One of the main problems with this laptop is that it can’t quench your thirst for gaming. But the laptop does make up for that in other areas. Overall, if you’re looking for a simple notebook that shines in all the basic stuff, then the HP 15-BS020WM is a good choice.