Envy 14 Poor Battery Life - Demand HP Action

If you are like me, you purchased an HP Envy 14 based in large part on the claim of " up to 7hrs battery life" and " up to 14hrs" with the extended life battery ("slice"). These claims came from several HP sources:

The HP Envy Campaign Page High Performance Laptops w/ Free Audio Software | HP Envy Features

A video with HP reps (7hrs (14 with slice)) YouTube - HP Envy 17 and HP Envy 14

and an HP Press Release HP Expands Design Leadership with Updated Consumer Notebook PC Portfolio
(up to 6 hrs)

And, if you are like me, you received your Envy and tested it immediately, only to find out that no matter what you did, turned the brightness down, ended processes, shut off bluetooth and wireless, got rid of "bloatware", held it in your arms like a baby that needed coddling while you prayed to the battery god for an extra minute of life, you achieved little more than half of the max life (approx 3hrs or 7 with the slice).

Thus, the reason I started this thread (a petition of sorts): 1. To show to HP that I am not the only unhappy customer, 2. To provide a single location/database to which I can point and they can look containing statements by owners regarding the unsatisfactory battery life, and 3. To demand that HP take action immediately and remedy this situation.

Please post your specs, settings, battery life, and a simple statement requesting HP fix the problem (i.e. "Please fix this problem").

• HP Envy 14 i5 - 520, 1x4gb ddr3, 500gb hdd
• Power saver, intel graphics, bluetooth and wireless off, idle (not using the computer)
• Approx 3:30 with 8 cell and 7 with slice

Dear HP,
I am writing to express my extreme disappointment with my recent HP Envy 14 purchase. I bought the Envy 14 expecting to achieve up to 7hrs of battery life (14 w/slice) as was advertised. However, regardless of the settings I use, I achieve only about half of the advertised life.

I have called HP support, performed a battery check, flashed the latest bios, and (optional "replaced the battery"). To date my battery life is still half of what it should be. Please address and fix this issue immediately, so I may have the computer with the specs for which I paid.

Thank you.

 

all battery claims for any laptop manufacturer are usually only when the laptop is idle with the lowest settings. it's just the way of the world.

 

Ugh. Same here. I only get 3 hours of battery life on min brightness, intel GMA, power saver, and on light browsing.

 

how can you guys only be getting 3 hours? i get about 3 with my envy 15

 

you're supposed to be getting about 4 hours with 100% brightness with an i5 and the IGP turned on

some people are getting like 2ish hours because they have bad batteries.

others have a bios issue where the battery isn't being charged right (reports that it's full when it's not)


both issues are pretty rare though.

 

I believe they tested the battery life in the HP quickweb.

I have yet to test my battery life yet, but I get around 3.5-4 hours on wifi, full brightness, doing internet browsing, emails etc.

 

I'm hoping that you actually sent a copy of this to HP. Snail mail preferably. With your serial number also.

'Cause we ain't gots no HP reps he'ya.

Seriously we don't. Moreover, we don't have any evidence that anyone from HP reads this site. They seem to only monitor popular blogs that cry foul and can hurt their image. Well at least their PR and legal teams do.

Just sayin' so you don't invest too much energy here.

 

I got one or the other. Wish I weren't going on vacation now, or I'd get his sorted out.

 

I have tested my laptop at idle on the lowest settings possible, still 3 hrs.

 

I have done so. Thx.

 

HP's Test goes into some settings tho.
Max Processor was 25% I think. Low low brightness and wifi off and such.

 

Actually battery test is the one thing I haven't done. Guess I'll have to give it a go one of these days.

 

BTW, the problem with this thread, is this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/501066-envy-14-battery-life-log.html

 

You could you just troll HP to submission, claiming that you cannot get the 7 hours battery life, and then have them send you a new battery until :

1) they run out of batteries
2) they release a 95WH battery
3) call the cops

 

THIS PLEASE!

 

Strange. I should get about 6+ hours with 20% brightness, WiFi, IGP, researching med school admission requirements (i.e. constant web browsing). I'm at around 5 hours right now but there's still 22% battery left. It would be nice to get 7 hours with 100% brightness though...that would be epic!

 

I get 3.5-4 with brightness very low or lowest, power savings, intel, bluetooth off, wifi on, average surfing net. I was at 4.5 with these settings before, like 1st and 2nd charge

How does getting a new battery work?

 

I was getting 2:30 hr battery life with the stock battery so I contacted HP, had a new battery shipped to me...I now have a 2:37 max battery life. Yay? Perhaps I got two duds?

i5, power saving, yadda yadda

 

Someone here has bad battery life (2hrs?) even after RMAing the battery. HP told him the mobo might be the problem...

 

Same here!
I reinstall windows and with only windows running. I get 1h10mins for my HP envy 14 - Core i7 740M.....
Try to contact HP Australia with no hope.....

 

As 2.0 said in his post, a number of these issues have been discussed and answered over in the Battery Life Log thread

 

i have two standard batteries that run at about 2:30 max, medium to high brightness, intergrated graphics, no wifi and just word processing. this is bs battery. i called HP last week and they gave me a hard time, end of story i couldnt get a battery swap or a new one. He told me to run some stupid hp software test and said my battery was fine. he also said the Envy 14 actually battery life is around 2.5 hours.

 

What is your cpu usage after being idle for 3 minutes? Hope it's 0%....

 

Caveat emptor

I really don't see the point in a post like this, what do you want to get out of it? HP's website claims 6 hours tops with multiple asterisks saying your mileage will vary. And obviously, everyones mileage varies.

Hp can't magically break the laws of physics and give us better battery tech, trust me there are tons of firms working on doing just that. They also can't magically make the gen 1 i5 and i7 more efficient.

You're fooling yourself if you think you can get 6-8 hours of "real" usage out of any laptop that isn't seriously crippled. Like netbooks, CULV solutions, etc. There are a lot of things you can do as a user to bring your numbers up, but I have to say, if the battery was your most important reason for purchasing this laptop you should've gone with a different product. There are plenty of reviews out there. I really don't buy the claim of feigned ignorance when you can google anything and get some real numbers that aren't pie in the sky marketing.

And it's not like this is HP's sole fault. This is the standard in the industry, everyone posts unrealistic battery life because their marketing employees know it would be suicide to do otherwise.

 

FWIW: If I take my computer to a cafe, operate on GMA, medium brightness, no wifi...just typing word docs...I can get about 4 hours. About what I was expecting.

 

Yea I average 4 hrs too with light internet usage. I don't get how people complain about advertised battery life's being sooo off. I mean how can companies provide a realistic battery life when people do so many different things when they use their computer. If one person watches videos and plays games obviously their battery life is going to be less. That's why they gimp it when they test it because that's the only "neutral" measurement. Yea theirs some marketing influences but I don't think its as bad as LCD companies which claim 100,000,000:1 dynamic contrast which is basically a completely useless figure.

 

As a reply to you guys.
Do you expect HP Envy battery backup for ONLY 1 hour 10mins while they claim it could be up to 7 hours.

Please don't tell me that because I'm running heavy programs. I reinstall windows 7 and run windows only to test. Even No internet connection.

Regards,

 

I often get over 4h00 with wifi ON doing light browsing / document editing.
I did tweak my settings and clean up some software.
It gets well above 8h with the slice.

I am perfectly happy with that.

 

if you are not getting 3-4 hours with new batterry with light use.. I would return/exchange for another one.

 

Based off what you said we can't say if theres something wrong. I had i7 720qm processor and it would only last 2hr with internet use and document editing. That's because there is no integrated graphics on the i7 so the ati is constantly running. It also has 2 extra cores and a higher watt demand then the i5. So if you have an i7 I wouldn't be surprised if you get only 1-2hrs. That 7hrs they advertise is for an i5 400 series probably. There's no such thing as a free lunch and if you want more power then it will cost you more battery life.

The point is no company can provide a realistic battery life expectancy when theres so many different variables that it depends on. They obviously pick the best looking numbers for the advertisement just like any other company.

 

my battery life on my i7 envy 14 with slice is only like 3:30-4 Hours kinda shi**y
hope its normal battery check says both batteries are fine but it seems like the slice, at least mine isnt living up to the hype.

 

Derek, compared to what? You aren't going to get an i7 that lasts if it isn't a 2nd generation chip.