Envy 17 or Envy 15?

I am a prospective college student, and I plan on buying a laptop for college... I am an avid gamer and want (need) the games to run smoothly with good graphics. But I also want a laptop which has all the features about college. The HP envy 15 does not have an optical drive which is a big concern but if i get the hp envy 15 id buy the external drive... i wouldnt want it to be too heavy as ill be carrying it, so to the envy 17 users, is it too heavy to normally carry it arounf? here are the customized specs of which i would get


HP Envy 15

Operating system - Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Processor - Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-540M Dual Core processor (2.53GHz, 3MB L2 Cache) with Turbo
Boost up to 3.06GHz

Graphics card - 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 5830 Graphics [HDMI] - For i5 and i7-620M Processors

Memory - 4GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)

Hard drive - 500GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection

Primary battery - One 6 Cell Lithium Ion Polymer Battery + One 9 Cell HP Envy Slim Fit Extended-Life
Notebook Battery

Display - 15.6" diagonal Full High Definition LED HP Ultra Brightview Widescreen Display (1920x1080)

HP Envy 17

Operating system - Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Processor - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-840QM processor (1.86GHz, 8MB L3 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 3.2 GHz

Graphics card - 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 5850 Graphics [HDMI]

Memory - 6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm) **NOTE** I can go to 8 GB but i dont think its necessary...opinions)

Hard drive - 500GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection

Primary battery - 50% OFF! One 6 Cell (standard) and One 9 Cell (over-sized) Lithium Ion Battery

Display - 17.3" diagonal Full HD HP Ultra BrightView Infinity LED Display (1920x1080)

Primary optical drive - SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support (Slot Load)

which one would you suggest and why...

 

15 will do all you want, but the 17 will give you more real estate.

if weight and power is not too much of a prob go for the 17, its what i would personally go for. Afaik its a matter of personal preference.

 

well the weight of my current laptop is 6 lbs, would an increase by 1.5 lbs (for the envy 17) be much of a problem? and power well i have two batteries, one 9 cell and one 6 cell... how much total battery life will i get? im inching towards the 17, but weight and size is what's pulling me back...

 

I have an envy 15, and it takes up most of the table space you get in a lecture hall. An envy 17 might not fit at all. Keep that in mind.

 

well ive recently just heard that the envy 15 is problematic. are they fixed or should i go for the 14 instead?

 

Problematic how, specifically? The first generation had heating problems, but that has been fixed with the current second generation.

Anyways, I personally ordered an Envy 15 (still waiting for it to arrive) since its more portable and has enough power for me.

 

I carry my Envy 15 all over. I wouldn't want anything bigger, but as it is, it's perfect for all the gaming and such I want to do with it. With an SSD, it gets an insane amount of battery life given how much raw power it has, and with the slice (takes the total weight up to around 7lbs) it'll run on battery for you all day long.

I would never recommend a machine over 15" for anyone who transports their machine often. The Envy 17, while sleek and light, is still a desktop replacement size and power machine. The Envy 15 is light enough to not be too huge to carry or use while mobile, but it's still a pretty darn big machine.

Make sure you note the overall dimensions:

E17: Weight & Dimensions (w x d x h) : 7.51 lbs; 16.38″ x 10.83″ x 1.25″/2.15″
E15: Weight & Dimensions (w x d x h) : 5.2 lbs; 15″ x 9.6″ x 1/1.9″

Those extra inches are huge when you get down to it.

But that's my personal preference and what I learned when I went to college. If you aren't planning on carrying your machine with you everywhere, the E17 will be a much faster and better gaming platform, as well as a bit nicer to watch movies and such on in the dorm room because it has the internal drive and a larger screen.

 

I haven't used the Envy 17 before; however my understanding of the advantages it brings to the table are additional DVI and mini-display ports, dual 2.5" HDD bays, the Eye-Finity support for several monitors and a more graphics card that can power games running on multiple monitors simultaneously at combined extended resolutions up to 4k or 6k I believe, as well as the optical drive, as you mentioned.

If you are not using so many monitors simultaneously, I honestly don't see how the Envy 17 can offer that much of an increase in gaming capacity over the Envy 15.

The 5830 GPU in the Envy 15 is cut from the same die as the 5850 and the 5870, but it uses GDDR3 instead of GDDR5. I can't imagine what the difference would be like if it had GDDR5 memory, but it's more than fast enough to handle any game I have ever tried and the FullHD display is excellent to work with as well as for gaming. I'm very happy with it.

For gaming performance, the Envy 15 delivers playable framerates for any game I have tried, usually around 45-70FPS or so (often much higher), at 1920x1080, all detail settings maxed. I understand there are some online games that benefit from extremely high fps, but as far as I'm concerned it makes absolutely no difference in the gaming experience if my graphics card achieves 50 or 60 fps vs. 90-100FPS. As long as it's above 30 fps or so, it's quite playable. In fact, I've noticed some games reach over 100-120 fps on the Envy 15 when vertical sync is disabled and it wasn't really any improvement in the experience compared to frame rates below 60.

The Envy 15 also quite portable, in fact it's surprisingly thinner and lighter than the Envy 14. The main drawback is very poor battery life, no optical drive and an annoying row of special function keys on the left side of the keyboard.

I'm not sure if I'm reading this wrong perhaps, but the Envy 15 is only 1.04" thick, not 1.9" (Also I haven't weighed it, but it is listed as 5.17 lbs, while the Envy 14 is 5.2 lbs.)

 

If you go with the 15, you might consider dropping the slice and going with a 2nd 6-cell instead. The trade-off is you only double your battery life, which on a 540 is likely 2.5-3hrs depending on what you need running (so up to 6 hrs with 2 -6cells). However, you seemed concerned about weight and you'll save well over a pound going this route.

Just a thought.

 

well about my "problematic" comment... i dont really remember too well, but i guess it was probably with the 1st gen... another question... why does it look like as if most people are getting the envy 14? how does it better with the envy 15... well i know im not going to be playing on multiple monitors, but say if i wanna play COD4MW2 on my laptop online (on the envy 15), will i have lag or anything? or will it run perfectly fine? is heat an issue on the new gen? is an i5 processor much worse than an i7? i would probably go for an i7, if the option was available, how much would it impact battery life and performance... i currently carry around a toshiba, which is 6 lbs... (probably more cuz of the extended battery).. and im not too sure if im going to be carrying my laptop around the campus... i havent started college yet so i have no idea how it works... do i need a laptop to be used during classes? or is it a luxury... etc...

 

I know I am getting the 14 because I need a i7 and the 17 is way too huge as others have already said.

Lack of a few things bothered me earlier but I have grown past them: back-lit keyboard and optical drive. Now only if HP would let me give them my money for a i7 with 16GB RAM. The 15 model is a great compromise between the 14 and 17.

 

I think the appeal of the Envy 14 is that it delivers a balance of performance and battery life. Also, many consumers need an internal optical drive and this is simply not possible on the E15.

The E14 has switchable graphics, so the battery lasts much longer than the E15, and the 5650 is not an excellent graphics card, but it is much better than most lower end cards. Unfortunately, if I understand correctly, there is some sort of lockdown problem that prevents Envy 14 owners from overclocking the 5650 as high as you can overclock the 5650 on other laptops.

 

whats the point of 16 gb ram?? ive never seen a laptop with that much! the most ive seen is 8, and why would anyone need more than 4? are the graphics on the 14 good enough to play COD4 with no lag and stuff? any heating issues? how much better is the i7 than the i5? lol i guess this topic became Envy 17/15/14 xD lol... i just want a really good laptop for college, and so far it looks like the envies are the best... is there any other good laptop?

 

I imagine the only way you would benefit from more than 4GB is if you perform tasks like working with very large image files (1-2GB+) in photoshop and creative suite apps, performing operations such as color timing or rendering multiple effects on very large video files, running VMWare with multiple instances of Windows, etc.

 

i don't know why you guys are saying the envy 17 is so big? Its is heavy but its also in a very compact form factor. Its very thin and is portable. You also need to remember that the envy 15 does not have a optical drive which is a big annoyance especially if you want to play games with a disc. Go with your gut but I love my envy 17.

 

btw, how much would an ssd improve my battery life by if at all? I don't mind the weight of the envy 17 but I wish it had longer battery life and switching between the 6 and 9 cell is a pain in the .
thanks

 

I think some the battery life savings from an ssd is the clean install (a lot less programs running) that comes with it but my envy 14 w/ ssd and clean install gets 430 on full brightness/ powersaver and my reg envy no clean install gets 330 same settings. I was really impressed.

 

See my massive comparison test.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...-all-envy-comparison-tests-17-15-14-13-a.html