Envy 14 or Envy 15

If graphical power is your priority, the Envy 15 is your choice.

I get around 3 hours with low power settings and wifi mostly off on normal battery with my Envy 15 i5. I get 7 hours with slice.

I can play almost every game I own at 1080P with at least med-high settings, including Crysis (25-30 FPS), BFBC2 (35-50 FPS), and MW2 (Settings off, 90 consistent FPS).

If battery life is your priority, the Envy 14 + i5 is your answer. You'll get around 4.5 hours max.

That's my 2 cents.

 

I'd get the envy 14 anyway, it's a much more finished product (cosmetic wise) and the 5830 is not worth it for gaming if you take the 1980*1080 screen. The 5650 at 1650*900 will perform the same.
Sorry but on the envy 15:
- No edge to edge screen
- No graphic switch
- No backlit keyboard
- Worser battery life, worser iddle temperatures because of the lack of switch, which leads to shorter components life.
- The very slight graphic boost of the 5830 being eaten by the higher res display.

Were the factors cutting it for me.

That said IF you want to overclock the gpu the envy 15 is better, simply because the hd5830 is easily overclockable at around +40% performances (that makes up for the fps lost due to the higher resolution) while people on the envy 14 still have no idea how to overclock above 585mhz (maximum you can get with MSI afterburner) core frequency (450mhz being the base one on the envy 14).

 

isn't that irrelevant since you can always lower the resolution on the screen if needed? and you still have the option to be at 1980X1080 something you cant do on the 14.