Envy 14 - options + warranty price?

~~~HP Envy 14~~~
release date: June 27
Base cost $999

Base specs (as known to date):
i5 430m
ATI Radeon HD 5650m
-switchable graphics
4gb DDR3 RAM
likely a 250gb or 320gb HDD
1600x900 radiance LCD
back-lit keyboard

Available upgrades (as guesstimated by myself with the help of others):
i5 520m $100
i5 540m $175
i7 720qm
i7 820qm

6gb RAM
8gb RAM

500gb 7200rpm HDD $50
640gb 5400rpm HDD $100 (WD scorpio blue's are 90$ through newegg, upgrade yourself and keep the base drive)
SSD's

Bottom attaching Slice battery ~$120

Warranty options: (will add later)

Warranty options w/ accidental care: (will add later)


Discounts / Coupon Codes
Educational Discounts 10% off all hardware, as well as discounts on warranty (warranty discounts are a little less than 10%)
- Go here to check it out or just visit the HP online store and do a search for "educational discount".

*A little note about the 5400 vs 7200rpm debate: the 500gb 7200rpm drives will read at about 80mbps avg, while the 640gb 5400rpm drives will read at around 71mbps. Seek times are within 5%. PCmark Vantage does however find a ~1000 point difference. (source: Toms Hardware)*

Photos





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contents of the original post below, sans a few edits.

I'm planning on buying an envy 14 when they come out. A few quick questions first though. Anyone who has experience with the envy 13 and 15 should have a rough idea of the warranty questions.

-What is the standard warranty, and how long is it for?
-What should I expect to pay to extend it to 3 yrs?

-Do you all think the 1600x900 will be standard?
-What are your guesses on the standard proc? I think it will be either i3 330m or i5 430m personally.
-What would be the expected cost of upgrading to the i5 520m?

*edit: So assuming the model most of us will work with starts with 430m at 999, a 520m would be +100, and 540m would be +175 (based on custom config options for the envy 15)


I'm trying to get a rough idea of what I will be spending


What I expect so far *after edu discount*:
base model $900
upgrade to 500gb HDD +$45
Upgrade to i5 520m +$90
OS restore disk +$19 (I assume this is an actual win7 copy, and not an image including bloat etc.?)
Warranty upgrade +368

modified for MA tax and Bing cashback(assuming it's still 10% when I buy) it comes out to $1372. Not bad for this little gem imo.
*edit: Bing and edu discount cannot be combined.

Expected first shipping date: June 27

 

I don't know about warranty. Try going on to HP's website and configure a laptop and see how much the warranties cost. We are pretty sure that the 1600 by 900 screen is standard, as the specifications sheet says nothing else about alternative resolutions. Standard proc will likely be the i3, but a model with i5 (prolly 430) and 5650 will be $999. So maybe the i3 config will be a bit less. Again, try configuring the Envy 15 or other laptops on HP's site to judge how much the upgrades will cost ya.

 

Will one of these base models be static (not able to be customized?) Based on what you said there will be 2 standard models. eg. One can buy the 430m model as is for 999, or customize the the i3 model starting at 999.

Also, the i5 5xxm series all allow for integrated graphics, right?

 

Good questions, I wanna know how much extra their slice battery will cost and do HP screw you over on the price of RAM upgrades ?? (like Apple do!)

Also, do HP rip off British customers with the usual crappy exchange rate conversion ??

 

Oh what I meant was that if you were to configure the laptop with an i5 and 5650 it should be $999, like HP claims. If it were customized with an i3, it should be less.

 

So either the "base" is less than 999, or the i3 would be a custom reduction. Same effect either way, and glad I cleared that up.


To the other poster above, there is a slice battery option on the envy 15 that costs 120$. So I imagine it's in that general area for the envy 14 too.



Finally, what's the best way to get a deal through HP? I know I can get that up to 10% educational discount, but are there any other coupon codes etc. that might be better? If I save enough maybe I can even buy myself a slice battery.
edit* bing say it offers 10% cashback for purchases through HP direct. Would I be able to stack this with my 10% education discount(for 20% total, or 19% if it's compounded)?

 

I've been looking into the warranty and it looks like it will be $329 for a 3 year house call service and accidental damage protection (don't know if it will be cheaper if you buy it when you order your laptop though or if this was the specific type of warranty you want). I think they just do a basic price based on the class of the laptop, in this case Envy, HDX, or Touchsmart. The standard warranty is a basic 1 yr parts and labor which doesn't include in home service or accidental damage based on what the other Envys seem to have. Here's the link to the page that had all the warranties listed: link

 

when configuring an envy 15 it was 399 for 3 years in home + accidental, bumps down to 368 with educational discount. So based on what you say it's actually cheaper to buy warranty separately?

 

Yea HP has the highest warranty prices of all companies that I have noticed. Its really an ode to their usually less then stellar quality. I will probably end up buying the warranty separately

 

@ p51, no you cannot stack Bing with any other discounts, including the educational one.

 

Where do you get educational discounts with HP?

 

I plan on spending as little as possible to obtain: i5-520M (or maybe 450M), 5650, 1600x900 radiance.

Does anyone know if the educational discount stacks with coupons?

 

I'm right there. I could care less about the 520M if it costs 100 bucks. Like I've posted repeatedly. I guarantee there isn't a mook here that can tell the difference between the various I5 chips in a double-blind test. Not a single one.

 

I do not understand what you are trying to say other than i5 processors are indistinguishable to the common user? Perhaps, but should this prevent me from upgrading? No. What is it that you meant by "I'm right there"?

 

I do not understand where is the confusion

In the Envy 14, YouTube video, the designer of the models clearly says ... The base model of Envy 14 will host i5 processor (so at least it will be i5-430M) and ATI 5650 processor, 1600x900 resolution 14.5" screen, etc

So, I do not think it will be less than $999 with an i3 (believing the video).

Again, normally non-configurable models are cheaper than configurable models, even though both have same config. So, if HP will stick to their base model, I'm fine with that with $999. Do not know about tax ? What will be tax in CA, USA ?

 

Yes, it seems the UK gets the short end of the stick again with the crap conversion rates. Rumors are of a £999 price tag!! sigh.

Anyone for a bulk buy from the US and getting it shipped over?

 

Based on the marketing of the Envy 13 and Envy 15, I believe that there will be only about two non-configurable models for UK and the Rest of Europe. And I don't think that one of those two models will have the same minimal config as the US 999$ basic model.

They will probably have extra RAM, bigger HDD and more powerful CPU. But you have to pay more than just 999$ for it.

So even if it's no ripp-off by conversion rates you still can't get the cheapest US basic model in Europe but have to pay extra for a more premium one.

The specs could be something like ...
- EU model 1: 4 Gig RAM, 500 Gig HDD , i5-540 (or even i7-620)
- EU model 2: 8 Gig RAM, 640 Gig HDD , i7-quadcore.
(hoping for EU model 1 with extra battery slice )

 

Any 3rd party warranty companies reputable for computer equipment?

 

how do you get he student discount?

 

I doubt it will be £999 for base specs.

Will probably be an i5-520 or i5-540 and 500gb HDD with 5650 and 1600*900 for that price... this is what i'm hoping anyway considering this is what they did with envy. They sold the US quick ship models as the standard retail ones here... so hopefully if they do this again, the quick ship model tends to have a couple of upgrades from the base.

 

500gb drive is a must for me, and probably anyone else who has a lot of video and games. I'd even go 640, but 5400 rpms is terribad for a main drive.

Go to HP's website and type in "educational discount" in the search box. Should be easy to figure out from there.



-starting to wonder if there's any need to upgrade from the 430m. There's no way it's going to to bottleneck the HD5650. And $100 is steeper than usual.

 

Actually the high capacity 5400 rpm's rival the low capacity 7200's, I believe the 640gb should be faster than the 320gb 7200, I remember seeing benchmarks somewhere but I can't find them, also the 5400 rpm's use less battery. So it's not exactly *bad* to have a 5400 rpm drive.

 

Great point, a drive with 2x density actually only needs to move it's heads half as much in some non-continuous operations, and picks up 2x as much data in one rotation (all other things such as #platters being equal).

Now with this in mind the 500gb drive will still be the fastest, but the 640 suddenly seems viable to me again. I'll do some research to find the real world difference.

 

NOOOOOOOOOOO !! Guess I'm back to the Sony E at less than £800

Hell Yeah !! Is anybody gonna make a trip to the US soon ??

Lets hope the £ gains back some ground over the next coupla months !!

 

You would want FHD in a 14.5"? Well, to each his own I guess.

At any rate, you can add a 750gb WD scorpio blue to the envy 14 for the same cost as upgrading to the 640gb directly from HP. There is also a 1tb WD scorpio blue for a bit more $, but I'm not even 100% sure that it fits. I hear it's a few extra mm's thick.

 

The 1TB is 12.5mm the 750 is 9.5mm, if it's not offered as an option like it is in the 17, I doubt it can fit.

 

I guess the base model of $999 will include ...

1. i5-430M processor
2. 4 GB DDR3 RAM
3. 320 GB 5400 rpm HDD
4. DVD Drive
5. Intel HD graphics (I doubt ATI 5650 will be in base model)

and do not expect more from HP in $999

 

I think this except with 250 GB HD. Depending on the price, I'm debating whether I should go for the 500 or 640 GB HD. If the 640 is just as fast as the 500, I guess it couldn't hurt.

 

might be cheaper to get a 750 wd (which will fit) and pop it in there, which is easy thanks to that panel on the bottom

 

Oh sweet, then. Perhaps you have a link to it on Newegg? If it turns out to be cheaper I will definitely buy it and put the included HD in an enclosure. Oh yea this is all looking good.....

EDIT: Nvm, I found it

 

True, the 2.5" HDD's with 1TB capacity run 3 platters instead of 2 so are a little thicker ...... some dudes who bought an M11x have managed to squeeze a 1TB drive in their chassis so "hopefully" we can do the same with an Envy !!

 

If I remember correctly the guy in the youtube Video mentioned that the Ati 5650 would be in the base model.

The Envy 14 product specification PDF says nothing about a version with only integrated intel graphics. But it specifies the i3 as an option. So the basic CPU could also be a i3-330M.
-> http://www.hp.com/united-states/personal_again/datasheets/envy14_17_ds.pdf

According to the PDF the Basic configuration could be something like this:
1. i3-330M processor ........(cheapest CPU)
2. 2 GB DDR3 RAM ............(or 4 GB if they don't want to be totally cheap)
3. 250 GB 5400 rpm HDD ...(smallest option in PDF)
4. DVD Drive ...................(this will be in all configurations)
5. ATI 5650 ....................(this will be in all configurations)

 

If so, then I'll think again to buy Envy14. In $999 I can get better configurations except the exterior build

 

They specifically stated the base processor was an i5 in the videos, so, I doubt it starts with an i3.

 

If they are offering the i3/i5/i7, which all the documents are saying, then the i3 will be the base processor.

There is no way in heck the 1600x900 LCD is going to be standard. It will come with a 1366x768 LCD. Upgrade will be $100. This is standard practice for all HP displays with higher resolution...

 

There is no other option on the spec sheet except 1600 by 900. I think that is the only resolution. Which rocks, don't got to pay extra

 

Of course you can always get better configurations (CPU, HDD, GPU) for the same money, but not within an aluminum chassis and with an extra bright display.

The Envy series is nothing you would consider to buy if all you want is the best performance for your money.

I myself am more than ready to pay extra especially for the high quality display and also the alu chassis. You don't get those things in cheaper systems like the TimelineX Series from Acer, which have about the same performance.

...

There is nothing about a low quality display option in the product specification PDF .... yet. But someone from HP apparently mentioned the lower resolution in a press conference in Europe.
We will see what's right soon enough.

 

This is exactly what I'm thinking too. So long as I can keep it below 1500 including tax/upgrades/3yr warranty

Out of curiosity, where did you read about the 1366 display? I'm thinking that maybe (or hopefully) he was just talking about a European model. We all know how laptop makers like to shaft Europe.

 

Point me to a 14" laptop/frame that has this quality of a 1600x900 screen. The closest is is the Sony CW which has pretty poor contrast (I should know, I have it).

 

I really hope you are right! But what you say does make sense so it could well be true.

I bloody hope that the EU Envy 14 does not get the lower res model forced upon us. If that happens i'm going to cry then get one shipped from the US!

 

I would do the same in your shoes. The screen is the big selling point for a lot of people.

 

Do you guys know if it would be possible to get a SSD/HD combo in this system?

 

If it can't be specced with an i7 620M, I will be greatly disappointed. 8( Definitely don't need a quad-core in a machine that size...

 

The envy 15 skips straight to the quads from the 540. However the envy 14 has a better chance at a 620m because, as you suggest, it's small form factor is conducive to dual cores. Of course the i5 540 is so close to the 620 you probably wouldn't mind it. Real world performance difference would be negligible.

There is only one HDD bay, but the envy 15 offers weird combo SSD/HDD combo drives. Mayb the 14 will see these too. From what I hear you can also manually replace the DVD drive with a storage drive.

 

Aside from the slight bump in clock-speed though, the i7 620M also has the die's full 4MB of cache activated, rather than being die-harvested models with 1MB of cache deactivated like all the i5's.

 

Mine comes out to be around 1200 and maybe 1320 if i decide to get the splice battery. But i would get the i5 520m, and the 640 gb HD. all with 10% off so... we'll call it $1080

 

Cache has been shown to have almost no effect in most situations. We're talking 1% boost, tops. (as seen in comparisons of phenoms and athlons at equal clocks.

 

Wrong, extra cache often has a powerful effect on cpus, it allows the sellers to charge more for the same performance and get higher margin.

 

Oh in that case sign me up for that extra MB!

 

How did you spec your Envy 14? over the phone or somewhere on the web?