Are backlit key's going to be available on the Envy 15??

Planning on buying a 15 but want backlit keys. I think the 17 is going to have it but don't want a laptop that large, rather have the lighter 15". Is it planned for the future? I'm just gonna be pissed if I get it and a month later or whatever HP says the 15 will have backlit keys.

 

Not sure on this... but I just bought a 2nd Generation Envy.

I was going to see if I could use a 3rd Party Program to re-map the keys on the left of the keyboard to dim/lighten the brightness. Not sure if its possible though.

 

I would suggest to wait at least a couple more weeks until the 17 model comes out, as it should be soon and they might make an announcement about changes to the 15 line at that time. If you buy your unit from HP direct, you have 21 days to return it for full refund (no restocking fee).

 

Do they send you a return box? (aka is shipping free?) Can you cross-order Envy's? (return one while ordering another)

and finally, generally how long does it take for the whole return-get replacement process?

 

If you are within the 21-day period, the Tech Support rep will connect you with HP shopping and the HP shopping rep will instantly email you a FedEx return shipping label that you can print out and slap on the box the Envy came with. I imagine if you lost your original box they would probably send you some other kind of box.

I shipped it the same day and within about 48 hours they refunded total purchase price to my account, including tax, etc. You can order the replacement at the same time, they don't have any restrictions.

If you are outside of the 21-day period but within the 1-year warranty, I imagine it is more difficult to get your unit replaced, but they are obligated to fix any hardware problems and if they can't fix them by replacing the motherboard or the GPU, for example, then I have heard of a few folks who got an entirely new unit out of it.

 

Thanks for the info. By the way, did you order all your Envy's ram from HP or did you get it from 3rd party and install it? (If the latter, which specific ram did you get?
Also, did you keep your HDDs in RAID or not? If so, what are you doing to compensate for lack of TRIM?

 

When I spoke with the sales rep I was told that I could only get the 4 DIMMs if I ordered the 16GB option. This is not true, as I have seen a retail model at Fry's with 4 DIMMs and only 4GB RAM installed.

However, if your goal is to get up to 16GB, with any configuration you order other than the 16GB, you would not be able to use any of the RAM that came with the machine, as they are all configurations with 2GB RAM sticks in each slot. I don't know what the market is like for reselling used RAM, but it seemed much easier and cheaper to to pay $800 for the 16GB option compared with attempting to resell the RAM it came with and buying 4x4GB DDR3 1333mHz third party RAM.

I am still using the Raid0, considering switching to unRAIDed but need to research it a bit more.

 

I heard the 17 was being released early in May, 4th or something like that, was that accurate? I'd hate to have to wait longer, battery life on the gen 2 Envy is pretty damn good with the I5 dual (gen 1 sucked and i7 quad sucks battery down like a drunken sailor) and I'm sure backlit keys won't make a difference, they don't on a Macbook. But I thought I read it will be available on the 17". Just really nice having a backlit keyboard at night if you don't want to use any lights or in a dim setting, nevermind that it just plain looks cool lol.