Shopping part II:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/

If you click on "Laptops" and then on the left of the screen choose "Touchscreen" and then select the screen sizes for "12" - 14.9"" and "15" - 16.9"" you'll find three of those are fairly affordable. The HP Pavilion TouchSmart 15z-b000 Sleekbook starts at $650. These laptops don't have an internal DVD/CD player. It's $70 to upgrade to the Win 8 Pro 64. The external optical drive (the DVD/CD player) is a USB device for $50.

The TouchSmart 14t-b100 series has an inch smaller screen for $599.99 base price. The 14.0-inch diagonal High Definition BrightView LED-backlit Display is 1366 x 768. On the hard drive, for $10 you can make the 500gig hard drive go from 5400 to 7200rpm. $50 for the DVD/CD external player.

Free shipping.

SRS