Envy 15 - Some questions

First of all a big thanks to everyone on this forum, I've been reading it probably too much whilst I decided which laptop I was going to replace my poor old Sony VAIO with, glad I've finally made a choice.

My current laptop is by all means a primitive unit that has served a purpose and will be kept as a much loved back up should anything happen to my Envy. However, after a good four years it's getting old and sadly struggles to run Firefox - let alone allow me to effectively use any music production software. I've chosen to get an Envy for a variety of reasons but feel I need to ask a few questions in order to get the most out of it.

First off the basic specs are:

i7-720
6GB DDR3 RAM
Radeon 4830
500GB 7200RPM
1920 X 1080

I've had this laptop imported from the states so that I could get the better screen and the standard 6GB ram that the model offers.


Anyhow on to the questions:

Is this likely to be a 1st or 2nd generation Envy? (It's a refurb direct from HP)

Does the refurb direct from HP mean someone has used it or just opened the box?

I really want to do a 'clean' install but although I'm fine with computer basics, I'm not sure I could pull it off, is it really as complex as it seems and can things go majorly wrong?

If I don't go ahead with a clean install and just manually get rid of all the bloatware, will the performance be much worse?

Are the beats speakers much better than regular laptop speakers? (I've seen mixed reviews...)

Is 64 Bit radically different to 32 Bit?





I think that's all for now... no doubt I'll have more questions which I've no doubt have already been answered a million times!

All responses are welcome and any tips for a new owner would be much appreciated.

Thanks very much, Matt.

 

any E15 with the 4830 GPU is first generation. I haven't used a 1st gen before, but I heard that the 1st gens had some heat problems. I would avoid the 1st gen. There are lots of refurbs with the 5830 available at good prices.

Whether someone opened it or not depends on the reseller you are buying it from - you should ask them directly. My wife bought a refurb E15 that was in excellent condition and the reseller had opened the box to make sure what model it was before forwarding it to us.

it is not so difficult to do a clean install, but you may find it easier to simply uninstall all of the bloatware programs, remove norton using the norton removal tool. If you want to free up the space used by the recovery partition, you can create a backup system image (or create system recovery discs) and then delete the recovery partition. I have tried both and I have not experienced too much difference in performance between clean install vs. removing all the bloatware, however, even if you don't do a clean install, you still need to go through the process to update many of your drivers.

The beats speakers are much lower volume than regular speakers. The beats thing is software, not hardware. It adjusts the bass and treble and improves the sound quality on headphones. I think it also improves the audio quality from the speaker sound, but the volume is so much lower, it's often difficult to hear during video playback using the speakers unless you are in a very quiet room.

installing the 64-bit windows is a must if you buy the E15. Without it, you are not able to use more than 3GB of your RAM and also it doesn't make full use of the additional processor cores.

 

Thanks for those answers, I thought as much about it being 1st generation - I can't really argue about that for the price I managed to get. My current VAIO is like an oven on the lap so I doubt I'll have too many issues.

I'll definitely just manually get rid of all the bloatware but what exactly is this special Norton removal tool?

Maybe the speakers aren't as good as I thought they would be, however I'll be using some good headphones instead.

As for 64-bit, what are the main differences between that and normal 32-bit?

Thanks, Matt.

 

Norton Removal Tool is something you run to clean up the registry, it traces of the software that still could be left after a normal uninstall.

It can be downloaded on symantec.com, make sure to download the correct removal tool ie one that covers your specific Norton product.

 

Ahh right, I've decided to go ahead with a clean install anyway as it looks pretty simple really and I want to do all I can to keep my 1st gen running at a reasonable temperature - thank god it's winter coming up!

Apart from a clean install, has anyone got anymore tips for setting up a 1st gen envy?

 

By heat issues, I don't mean that the laptop is hot, I mean crashing due to heat problems.

The case is metal and acts as a sort of heat sink, so of course, the 2nd gen can get quite hot to the touch as well when plugged into AC power and running intensive applications. However, among five different 2nd gen E15 models we have worked with, none of them had any "overheating" problems (i.e., crashing due to heat).

Regarding 64-bit vs. 32-bit windows7, you must use 64-bit because it is the only way to access more than 3GB RAM. Other than this and allowing you to make use of the additional cores in your CPU, there is no other difference.