Coming from a mac book pro, have some questions.

We were forced to purchase mac book pros (early 2008 model) for our professional school. Fast forward just over 2 years and I was having some issues with my laptop that I sent in for service. Turns out Apple decided to void my warranty for normal wear and tear and a few small dents here and there. No different than most of my classmates laptops, certainly not abuse. I was never thrilled about purchasing an apple laptop but it was forced upon us with a ludicrous price as well.

My friends always had great luck with their 'complete care' service plans from dell in undergrad so I have decided to come back to the windows fold (finally!) . I was pleased with the light weight and general smoothness of operation of the MBP. I am using a 'loaner' new MBP and it has a stupendous battery life.

I am looking at the envy 14 or 15 and the dell xps 16. I would like to spend at most 1200 or so before the warranty. I will be purchasing either 3 or 4 years of total care (including the in home service and accidental damage protection).

I am looking at an i5 with the dual switching monitors and the 1080p radiance screen, 4 gigs of ram, 500 gb drive.

1. How much more battery life are the envy 14 users getting than the envy 15? How does it compare to the dell xps 16?

2. I'm not sure i understand the battery choices. There is a std 8 cell battery but what is this about a slice? Does the 8 cell stick out a lot?

3. How is the home service, do they come on saturdays? If I need to ship it out, do they send me a box? What kind of turn around is there from the HP depot?

4. Part of the reason I am looking at the envys and xps is for quality. I use my laptop every day (carry it with me in my pack) so I don't want the cheapest thing out there and would like it to last 3-4 years in decent condition.

5. Is the trackpad a real issue? About it not clicking and what not?

6. Price. I see some lucky folks got an Envy 14 with bing cashback but obviously that is no longer available. Also the radiance screen is a $300 upgrade. That is quite a bit off putting, driving the price up a little much for me. Anybody think there will be labor day deals?

I am really looking forward to coming back to a complete windows laptop and interested in checking out windows 7. I loved xp, thought vista was meh and have not used 7. My recent 2 years eperience with osx has shown me some great features (the spotlight search is excellent, drag and drop is good, some other nice features) but also I hate hate lots of things about it.


Thanks in advance!

 

1) Can't help you with the 15 or studio XPS, but with my Envy 14, I get about 4.5 hours on the lowest brightness setting browsing the internet with some youtube. I've been browsing on the battery since 6 PM est today, and Im just at 51% battery left. The envy 15 will have lower battery though since it doesnt have switchable graphics, once again not sure about the XPS

2)The standard 8 cell is flush, underneath a cover. There is a 6 cell slice for more battery if you want but it adds weight and thickness. It is still flush though.

3)Never had to deal with the home service, sorry.

4) My first envy 14, the battery latch wouldn't open. My new one is great, has no defects, and I feel it will last me the next 4 years through college. My first one was from the first batch and there are always some problems with new products, but I haven't heard of newer batches having any problems.

5) The trackpad takes some getting used to, but after some tweaks its great. Its not Macbook Pro great, but its one of the better trackpads I have used

6)They might have some labor day deals, but no one really knows. The radiance display is gorgeous, one of the main reasons I got the Envy 14. If anything, just wait a little longer for them to get more stock and it will probably drop to +100 like it was before.

 

Thanks for the info.

The biggest downside I am facing right now is the envy 14's price, mainly due to the high cost of the radiance display. That and the almost $200 bump over the dell for the warranty coverage.

The 15 is more comparable directly to the dell. Does it have switchable graphics? It appears to be an 'older' model than the 15 - no i5 450 available, the battery is only a 6 cell unless i want a big sticking out 9 cell. Otherwise the display is reasonably priced.

The dell is running pretty cheap right now, but its killing me that there are no switchable graphics on the dell. That is a big big advantage of the i5 IMO. I dont need the graphics card generally when i'm running not plugged in...

 

The envy 15 doesnt have switchable graphics for either gen Im pretty sure

 

Ok thanks, similar to the xps 16 in that respect.

Do either the envy 14 or 15 have internal cd/dvd drives?

 

Envy 14 - Yes
Envy 15 - No

 

The envy 15 uses the same type of battery as the 14, the slice batery. it sits flush under the laptop.

The gpu difference between the envy 14, sxps16 against the envy 15 is gigantic.

HP is having some supply problems, so the envy 15 currently has only some options of cpu's, and the envy 14 got canned with the surcharge for the radiance display.

 

In a good way or bad? lol

and 10-4 on the supply issues.

 

If you were fine with the GPU in a 2 year old Macbook Pro, youll be fine with the 5650, especially since you can OC it.

The 5830 is a stronger card, but dont rule the 5650 out. Its a very capable card.

 

1. How much more battery life are the envy 14 users getting than the envy 15? How does it compare to the dell xps 16?

Envy 14
14.01" (W) x 9.33" (D) x 1.11" (H)
5.2 lbs
Battery 59 WHr (3-7 hrs according to NBR users)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/501066-envy-14-battery-life-log.html
Battery with slice 112 WHr (14 hrs according to HP website)
1366x768 or 1600x900 (recently, the 900p option has been out of stock for brief periods)

Envy 15
14.96" (W) x 9.60" (D) x 1.04" (H)
5.17 lbs
Battery 53WHr (90 min. heavy usage; 3-4 hrs very light usage)
Battery with slice 146WHr (2.5 - 3hrs heavy usage; 8-12 hrs extremely light usage)
To give you an idea, according to my Kill-a-Watt meter, the wattage used by the E15 ranges from 1-2 watts (sleep), to 30-40 watts (light) to as high as 80-95 watts (gaming). If you get an i5 processor, it uses much less watts than the quad core.
1366x768 or 1920x1080 display

Dell XPS Studio 16
15.15" (W) x 10.02" (D) 1.34" (H)
6.3 lbs
6 Cell Battery: 3 hours, 8 minutes
Extended 9 cell Battery: 4 hours, 51 minutes (according to Dell website)
1600x900



2. I'm not sure i understand the battery choices. There is a std 8 cell battery but what is this about a slice? Does the 8 cell stick out a lot?
I haven't seen the E14 slice in person, but the E15 slice is extremely thin and very heavy. It effectively triples the battery life when you use it because you are also using the regular battery at the same time.

3. How is the home service, do they come on saturdays? If I need to ship it out, do they send me a box? What kind of turn around is there from the HP depot?
I was always skeptical about the home service, but recently my wife spilled some iced tea on her laptop and HP sent a tech out to our house within 24 hours. I believe they are supposed to make an appointment for the visit within one business day of when you call, so no Saturdays. They send you a box to return and cover the shipping. You have an option to pay $40 extra for some sort of expedited service, but the regular shipping label they provide is already overnight.

4. Part of the reason I am looking at the envys and xps is for quality. I use my laptop every day (carry it with me in my pack) so I don't want the cheapest thing out there and would like it to last 3-4 years in decent condition.
The materials seem very sturdy, however, I have no idea whether it will last 3-4 years, since the Envy line is still relatively new.

5. Is the trackpad a real issue? About it not clicking and what not?
I finally figured out how to enable the top right tap zone for right clicking to open the context menu and this is a tremendous improvement to my touchpad experience, as I no longer have to press down with my thumb for anything, not even to pull up the context menu.. If you enable the "Top Right Action" tap zone and set it for Secondary Click (context menus, special drag), you can tap anywhere (except top right corner) for normal clicking and tap the top right corner for left click.
If we ignore the OSX-specific features such as smooth zooming, etc., this context menu tap zone feature, combined with Momentum Glide, Coasting and Edge Motion for 2 finger scroll, puts the Envy touchpad on a par with the MBP touchpad IMO. Certainly better experience than any other Windows touchpad I've used previously.

6. Price. I see some lucky folks got an Envy 14 with bing cashback but obviously that is no longer available. Also the radiance screen is a $300 upgrade. That is quite a bit off putting, driving the price up a little much for me. Anybody think there will be labor day deals?
No idea. You might consider buying a refurb. My wife bought an Envy 15 refurb from colorado computer on eBay and it arrived in perfect condition. Some of the refurb resellers have a return policy and all should come with 90 day warranty that you can extend to include ADP and Housecall service.

 

If battery life is any concern do not get the Envy 15 or Dell XPS 16...

I had the Dell and it gets just under 2 hours.

The Envy 15 I heard gets around the same.

 

Nope. We Envy 15 owners are stuck with just the Radeon graphics, even on battery.

Ehhh... depends. The Envy 15 with an i5 and the normal battery (~5lbs total for the machine) will get near 3 hours. With an i7, it'll do around 2. With the extended slice battery, the 15 will get 6-7 hours on the i5.

As for the 14, check the other threads, but it will be much more Mac-like with it's battery, and run insanely long (12-14 hours or so from what I remember) if you get the slice battery.

 

what processor did you have with the dell? was it a 6 cell battery or the 9 cell?

 

Pertaining to the trackpad, there are software linked to on the HP Envy 14 thread for two finger scrolling and such.
Makes it A LOT easier to use and I wouldn't use the trackpad without it.

 

Thanks, that stuff is quite helpful. Is it a synaptics touchpad?

I've been looking into the pricing and basically i'm getting a xps16 for 1350 or so including the 3 yr in home/accidental warranty whereas the envy 14 (due to the $300 display surcharge would be a bit under 1650 - also due to hp's warranty being 377 vs 200 for the dell). These are all with student pricing.

Granted they really are different laptops and while i'd probably prefer a bigger screen, the bump in resolution should be enough. And the portability - that is no question the envy will be much much better. Would probably hope for a bit more battery life if just taking notes on pdf at low brightness, if i could squeeze it to 5 hrs would be perfect.

 

Yes the Envy's touch pad is Synaptics. Very good touchpad if your configure it well.

 

I would definitely go for the envy 15

the envy 14 is a big lemon

 

How so? The envy 14 looks all around great to me.

 

I came from a MBP 13.3 inch and now have an Envy 14. Mine didn't come with any defects, so mine wasn't a lemon. 15 inch is a tad too big and it also doesn't have a slot loading drive. I couldn't stand the trays after coming from a MBP. Switchable graphics is a big plus. Performance/longer battery life whenever you need it. Great for gaming and doing everyday tasks. Can't be anymore happier. Go for the 14!

 

It basically dont have the best battery around there.

The screen adds too much to the price now.

I can buy a good acer 3820tg, alright it will have the same screen quality as the 1366*768 screen for the envy, but Its lighter, has the same battery life, the gpu is the same but its not underclocked. the cooling is better also.

yes its supposed to be of great build quality... but... I can have the same build quality with the envy 15.

Basically the good things about the envy 14 is that it has more battery life than the envy 15, and that it has a good screen. Without having the guts that the envy 15 have, or the great display that it has.

aside its more expensive than the envy 15

so for me, its a more meh laptop that costs more than its big brother

 

If you are willing to compromise with poor battery life, no optical drive, and an annoying row of keys on the left side of the keyboard in exchange for excellent performance for video editing, creative suite apps, gaming and 1080p display in a thinner package (1.04"), then get the E15. Unless you really need USB 3.0 or 4 DIMMs of RAM for specific applications that would actually benefit from it, I would recommend getting the slowest processor available (i5-430M) to improve the battery life.

If battery life or having an internal optical drive is important and you wouldn't mind running certain demanding games at slightly lower resolution/settings, then get the E14, but definitely do not get the 1366x768 display option.