Envy 14 vs. Dv6t select edition

I just customized a Dv6t select edition, and it comes out to this:

Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-430M
$100 OFF! 6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
1GB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 5650 switchable graphics
15.6" diagonal High Definition LED HP Brightview Widescreen Display (1366x768)
Full-size island-style backlit keyboard with HP TrueVision Webcam + Fingerprint Reader
50% OFF! One 6 Cell (standard) and One 9 Cell (over-sized) Lithium Ion Battery

All of that for only $1050...

What do you think would be the better choice? It seems like the Envy 14 is just going to have higher resolution and better build quality. Personally I really want to buy the Dv6t right now, what's your opinion on it?

 

The Envy is likely to be a bit lighter and thinner with a better high resolution screen, but besides that they are very close. What you customized is by no means a bad laptop, in fact it's a viable competitor to the Timeline X 5820 TG with that low price.

If you don't need the Envy screen, that laptop will definitely suffice. Also, make sure that you use BCB whatever you decide to order. It's 25% off right now. BTW, do you need 6 gigs of RAM, that money could go to upgrading the CPU or something. Just asking.

 

All I see is HP 10% BCB?

 

Oh man, it's over. It's only 10% now. Sorry dude.

 

What's going to make a bigger difference? An i5-520m or 6 GB RAM?
Also, how am I supposed to get the 10%? I know you use bing, but under web or shopping? And what exactly do you type in?

 

Depends on what you do but in general, the RAM is going to make a biggeri difference. Hard drive and memory are the bottlenecks for most people.

 

Remember a big difference for some is the Blu-Ray option. It's why I'm not even looking at the Envy14. As awesome as it's going to be I want the Bluray.

I customized a dv6t earlier that came out to about $1300. With the 25% BCB it brought it to just over $900. Was a sick deal, but I'm not ready to buy until next week.

 

Doh! I forgot, the Dv6 has Blu-Ray.

Yes that also is a plus for the Dv6 over the Envy 14.

 

In general, having more than 2 GB RAM is going to make a bigger difference than CPU choice (the i5 430 is "plenty fast"). However, having more than 4 GB RAM is going to really depend on what you do. Do you routinely edit high resolution photographs (I mean edit, not simply play around with contrast or brightness in something like Picasa)? Do you routinely run multiple 2+gig Java Virtual machines? Do you routinely run several Database instances while running Eclipse IDE in a development environment on your laptop? Do you develop fairly serious applications in .NET?

If you answered "no" to all of the above, then right now, 4 GB RAM is most likely plenty fine for you.

If all you do is some web surfing, some minor video editing, some minor picture editing (ie not for a business), play the occasional modern video game, 4 GB should be sufficient. When 4 GB is no longer sufficient, you'll see that the "upgrade" to 8 GB will be cheaper than it is now, plus it's easy to swap RAM. Even then, I suspect that the rest of the machine will be a bottleneck at that point.

(Incidentally, I run WebLogic, (IDE tool plus a server I deploy to), and a "small" database instance on my 4 GB Linux machine and that's about the limit that can do).

 

You mean the other way around. Unless you are running a virtual machines or running 20 programs at once.

To most casual users you are never going to use more than 4 gigs of ram.

Hell I run Premier, Photoshop, Illustrator, VLC, 10 tabs on Chrome and 6 folders and I barely hit 4 gigs of ram.

I would either save the money, get a nice bag (if you don't already have one), an external hard drive (nice 1tb drive to back up your computer) or maybe get the extended warranty.

 

In addition to what the fellas above said, you probably can upgrade that RAM for about half the price in a year. The processor, on the other hand, you're probably stuck with for the life of the laptop.