ENVY 15-jXXX / ENVY 17-jXXX Notebooks (2013)

Thanks for the info on the Envy. Now is this the new j100 or the older j000 series? Too bad that keyboard flex is still there.

 

This is the old j000 touchsmart. The j100 will arrive on the 18th (or earlier I hope) and I'll compare them together then. And I have one thing to correct: I ran Handrake from 11pm to 4am not 4pm. I just finished testing the battery life with just playing music at low volume and it last for around 4 hrs 20 mins at 20% brightness. NOT impressive at all.

Question for all: so after I upgraded to 8.1, some fuzzy texts in some apps appeared but they went away after a few restart (I didn't have to do anything). but the two finger tap feature (functioning as right click) was gone and it is supper annoying to actually click the touchpad because it is super hard. I've tried uninstall and reinstall of synaptics but it didn't work. Do I have to enable that feature somewhere or what? Thanks.

 

I had taken a look at this laptop before but just came back to it. I bought a Lenovo Y510p with the SLI graphics card, but the system ran too hot for my liking. I tried to get a model with the bluray drive instead but the shipping date keeps getting pushed back and I need a laptop sooner rather than later. Does anyone have any thoughts on these two configurations?

HP® Official Store — Buy and Customize your ENVY 15t-j100 Quad Edition PC direct from HP

HP® Official Store — Buy and Customize your ENVY 15t-j100 Select Edition PC direct from HP

The Select is a little more expensive but I figure the GT 750m should get me better performance for playing some games.

My big concern is heat... how well does a relatively thin laptop like this handle the heat from a quad core processor and a GT 750/740M? Does the wrist rest stay cool if you're playing a game? And does the processor stay within reasonable temperature ranges?

 

it's really not that thin, it's a bit of an optical illusion with the way they've painted it.

I find mine stays relatively cool.

 

Shut down/sleep issue is FIXED!

Just ran a round of Windows Updates and now Windows 8.1 shuts down and sleeps correctly on my 15t-j000.

Here are the KB's that I installed with the Windows Update pass I just ran. I'm not sure which one of these includes the fix; I haven't cared to look yet:
2901549
2895219
2894179
2894029
2884846
2883200
2898742

Woo!

 

I don't play games so I'm not sure but while I was running Handbrake, you can feel the heat coming out and it's just fairly warm, the rest of the lap stays cool even though the temperature in my room was much higher than outside or other places. If you play games, I reckon you'll be sitting on the desk then you should have a cooling pad (not that expensive). My j100 was shipped on Friday Instead of Monday so it's 3 days earlier than I expected. Ready to return my j000 if the j100 is better.
Personally, if I were you and played games, I'd go with the select edition one and add in the hybrid (again if you're not planning on getting SSD later) since windows 8.1 starts up super fast on normal HHD already. The hybrid will help some apps open quicker.

 

Cool. I look forward to your thoughts and review of the j100 series. I sure hope it has a better screen at least! That's what I would do if I do decide to pick up the j100-put in an SSD and put a clean image of 8.1 on it. :thumbsup:

 

So great news everyone. I just chatted just 2 (TWO) HP reps, and they confirmed the new j100 will have IPS instead of TN (both touch and non touch). This is fantasticcccccccccc! Can't wait to try it this Friday and return my 1 week-old j000!

 

That's great news !! FedEx shipping sucks though, it has been shipped Friday 10/25 and is still in China. No updates since Saturday.

Date/Time	Activity	<!-- info icon -->	Location
- 10/26/2013 - Saturday
12:00 pm	International shipment release - Import		CHONGQING CN
- 10/25/2013 - Friday
8:14 pm	Left FedEx origin facility		CHONGQING CN
8:12 pm	Picked up		CHONGQING CN
	Package received after FedEx cutoff
6:17 am	Shipment information sent to FedEx

 

This is mine:
Date/Time Activity Location
-

10/26/2013 - Saturday
9:00 am
International shipment release - Import

CHONGQING CN
-

10/25/2013 - Friday
8:15 pm
Left FedEx origin facility

CHONGQING CN
8:12 pm
Picked up

CHONGQING CN

Package received after FedEx cutoff
3:16 am
Shipment information sent to FedEx

I also asked the reps and they told me that Fedex didn't update during weekends and the cut-off time is 8pm everyday so we all have to wait some hours more.

 

Anyone have more information about the "Two 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Batteries" ? What does it look like?

 

Great if true but I'm going to wait for you to receive the j100 to confirm this. In my experience, the reps on the phone are pretty clueless, or they get the same misinformation from the same source

 

which chip is this?

 

okay, here're my takes on your concerns
1. I think "Two 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Batteries" means that you get a second 6 cell battery. Nothing special.
2. I do really hope that it's correct. I also mentioned to them reps how disappointing and terrible the TN screen was on the j000 and they also said that this j100 is an upgraded line of the j000 in which they replaced the TN with IPS one. So I'm 80% sure it is IPS
3. I'm running i7 4700MQ on this j000 (and the j100 I ordered later will have 4800MQ- woop)

 

Cool cool thanks for the reply.

I also initially thought that the $40 "Two 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Batteries" option meant a 2nd battery, but further down the page, there is a $119 option for a "secondary battery"!!!

Please remember to come back to this thread and report on the screen when you get your j100.

 

I will definitely compare the two and put a lengthy post for your entertainment. :> Maybe tons of picture as well. Stay tuned. hah

 

Can you use the SSD as a separate hard drive or is it only a cache for the main HD?

 

To further add to my confusion, at the time I bought my (non-touch) 15t-j100, HP had it listed at 4.8 lbs. Now they have it listed at 5.62 lbs. That is a very significant difference. The j000 is listed at 4.8 still. Is there something I'm missing? Anybody know which it's closer to?

 

Hopefully the guys receiving the laptops soon can confirm the weight. I have a 2 year old HP running i7 Sandy Bridge that weighs the same. You'd think that with Haswell, HP could design lighter and thinner laptops but no...

 

I was looking at the Envy 15 HP manual. I was looking at the list of GPU's, and I saw this GPU listed, N15S-GT GeForce 840M with 2048 MB of dedicated video memory (256 MBx16 DDR3 960 MHz x 4 pcs, 1 GHz bridge to 960 MHz) Support for HD decode, DX11, and HDMI

Is that the new Maxwell version or something? So are the rumors true about Maxwell being released Q1 2014? Did HP just release specs to a GPU before Nvida made the announcement? Or is this an HP missprint? http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c03943414.pdf

 

Does this apply to the 14t-k100 too? I really hope so. The display being crappy is the one reason I might send it back. My "est ship date" is today so hopefully I'll get it soon....

 

OMG. my order was shipped on Friday and today I checked again, it is till in China. WTH! I'm not sure if it's HP's fault or Fedex' crappy service but I want my Envy by Friday as they promised! If not, no matter how good it is, I'm gonna return all of them!

 

The HP rep I spoke to said no IPS on j100.

ETA: Make that two reps who said no IPS. Also, mine finally landed in Alaska.

 

I know this whole TN and IPS thing is really getting on my nerve. I'm actually talking to a professional technician right now to confirm the last time about this.

 

okay, I am pissed now. Obviously, no one at HP knows exactly what their products are made from. This is just frustrating to me that a big company like HP is not straight forward on the very essential aspect in selling products. The technicians are useless and I think they do not know anything about computers either. all they have is a bunch of problems and solutions for each. I am a not happy customer. And no matter how valuable their things are, this is something I call: once in a lifetime. If in fact, the j100 has a TN, I will return it the moment after I unboxed it and they deal with their loss on restocking and refurbishing.

 

Wow, that chat is....... unfortunate.

But hey,

Thank you for being online.

 

You need to submit this chat to Gizmodo. I bet you make the front page.

Also, I would like "Thank you for being online" to become a sinister meme.

 

that's the thing about HP. You potentially get a great performing laptop for a relatively low price, but you get poor service, lackluster information about what you're actually ordering, and you could receive a machine that often has a defect or two. I ordered my Envy 15t-3200 last year it went BSOD every 10 mins. I spent 2 days investigating and it turned out to be that the SATA cable was completely bent out of shape at the manufacturer. Oh yea, and dust gets behind the friggin screen. I'm hoping to give HP one more try with the j100 if it turns out to be an IPS display.

 

Finally my envy j100 is delivered today and I will have a chance to end this whole drama about HP's reps' integrity and reliability. Wait up for my feedback everyone. I'll take pictures if you want.

 

Please do!

 

Great! Looking forward to your feedback on the j100 series! I sure hope it is positive and better than the j000 series was!

 

YES! I've been looking everywhere online for some info/reviews of this laptop and I've come up entirely empty.
This is the only place so far that I've found any remotely useful info about it! Can't wait to hear/see what it's all about!

 

Breaking news: IT IS FREAKING TN panel even though I think it is a bit brighter than the old one.
Here are some improvements I found so far on the non touch j100 compared to the touch j000:
- No more keyboard flex. it also feels much better on the j100 something similar to the macbook pro.
- It is thinner and much lighter. Think around 5lbs compared to 5.7lbs.
- Due to the non touch, the screen is more visible under direct sunlight
- The screen despite being TN, looks a little better and viewing angles also improve very close to a normal IPS. (meh)
And here are some bad aspect:
- The fan is running like crazyyyyyy for a while now. Let's hope it stops after a few restarts since I have to update a bunch of stuff.
- The Nvidia thingy (next to the Intel logo) is gone on my lap. Damn it.
I will upload some pictures later (if requested of course)
-

 

Thanks for the information on this. I am thinking about my returning my 15t-j000 for this one. I was just wondering, did you get it with a mSATA cache drive, and if not, is there still a slot in there to put one? Thanks

 

nope, I got the hybrid one with 16Gb so no msata for me. But I can check the slot if you want.
Oh and i don't think they optimize win 8.1 on this at all. Texts look fuzzy in some apps which is not happening to my j000

 

Thanks for the info.
So do you like the laptop? is it a decent one to purchase overall?
and can we get those pictures?

Thanks

 

Okay here are some pictures comparing the 2 laptops. PS: the more i type on this thing, the more I like the keyboard. It's really sturdy and strong. NO flex at all! and the fan is quiet down now. And I am processing my return of the j000
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B2kP7zbvzkZBcWpEcWhDaVc1V0U&usp=sharing

 

Thanks for the pictures! Looking forward to hearing your overall impressions of the laptop.

 

Many thanks paul!

Do you happen to have an electronic scale that you can use to weigh the j100 vs j000? Also, did you order the double 6-cell battery, is it really just a secondary one? Would you be able upload some direct side shots so we can see the actual thickness?

BTW, you can run the Windows ClearType software to reduce the fuzziness of the text.

 

If you wouldn't mind opening it up and taking a look that would be awesome. I have a 256 gig mSATA I would like to utilize.

 

I don't have something to actually weigh it mate. But in the manual, it says the non touch is about 4.85 lbs including the battery. Also I just took some pictures from the side and front to show its thickness. The first picture of the screen is at lowest brightness and the rest was at highest brightness. And yeah the fuzzy texts disappeared after I restarted the thing. Here are some questions I have for you: I have a hybrid hard drive, how can I check to see if it's actually hybrid and how many Gb of SSD it has for cache?
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B2kP7zbvzkZBVGQycGlvalVCQlU&usp=sharing

 

Is this urgent? I can do that tomorrow and upload a pic for you. Today is kindda impossible to do. Cheers

 

It is not urgent. Thanks.

 

Here is the inside https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2kP7zbvzkZBcE1rbGlKdEhwNjA/edit?usp=sharing
So yeah you can put in the mSata

 

Paul, you said you had to update a bunch of stuff, like what? and about how long did it take for you to receive it? I'm waiting for mine

 

Cool. Thanks paul.

How do you guys feel about touchscreen laptops? I have the non touch 15t-j000 right now but am planning on returning it for the j100. I keep going back and forth about the touchscreen option.

 

they were all win 8.1 updates for security and compatibility. Besides, I removed most of the HP software like games, movie, music etc. I ordered this one on the 17th of October and got it on Friday so it's about 2 weeks. Also the touchpad works great. I love the 2 finger tap as right click because I barely click any buttons ever.

 

I also had a touch one before then I decided to return it because I never used it and I didn't want to constantly clean it due to all the fingerprints. Instead I spent the money on the touch screen for a better processor which was absolutely worth it. From my own experience, the non touch screen looks much better and brighter (in terms of Tn, of course). There is no glare and glossy feel as well. If you don't mind about the viewing angles, I think it looks similar to an IPS (or close to). I'm not saying that all touch screen will have that issue but as long as HP sticks with TN, I don't see the advantages of having one. And another reason I love non touch is because it is significantly thinner and lighter than the touch one.

 

Thanks for the reply. It seems like it would be good for Win8 in metro mode but I have been using desktop mode with start8 for 98% percent of the time. It seems more like a novelty that ill wear off quick like with 3d TV's.

 

Has anyone done a fresh install of Windows 8.1 on the 15t j000? I installed it to a VHD (virtual hard disk) to try it out. Most notably the drivers for the touchpad and fingerprint reader didn't install. The HP website only list drivers and software for Windows 8, not 8.1. Has anyone used those drivers for an 8.1 fresh install?

Edit: I just checked now and see that under the HP support drivers section for this laptop they now have 8.1 in the dropdown.