The Lenovo IdeaPad Z500 Touch adds a touchscreen and Windows 8 to its existing Z-series line, bringing the models bang up to date with the current touch trend.

The 15-inch Z500 Touch - which joins the 14-inch Z400 Touch - fuses simple, elegant design with core power. Intel Core i7 power to be precise, coupled with Nvidia GeForce graphics and up to 16GB of RAM, making the Z500 Touch far more powerful than its predecessor model of last year. 

The Z500 Touch is the sort of desktop replacement that could also happily sit on the lap when in another room, made even more attractive by the 10-point touchscreen. We found the 1,600 x 900 pixel panel to be responsive to taps, drags and swipes in our brief hands-on with the latest laptop.

It's not necessarily breaking any new ground though, as the Z500 is more a case of bringing Lenovo's existing technology in line with Windows 8's touch capabilities.

Style-wise, the 25.5mm profile and in excess of 2kgs of weight don't make it the most portable device out there, but then it's still on the right side of the size wall to be the perfect at-home companion.

Looks like your kind of workstation? The earmarked $700 price tag for the lowest-spec machine - we're still awaiting UK pricing, but it'll probably be a 1:1 dollar-to-pound ratio - still sounds like a very fair deal to us.