*HP ENVY 14 & Envy 14 Beats (1XXX series) Owners Lounge, Part Deux*

Wow, HP lowers the base config to $1000 for standard 1366x768 brightview screen and makes the 1600x900 a $200 upgrade?

I almost fell for the Envy, but I'm glad I didn't buy it. Screw HP and their sleazy tactics. I learned my lesson from my previous HP laptop and was willing to give it a shot, but now I'm certain I'll never buy anything from this craptastic company.

I was right along. My posts (and those by other forum users) are somewhere in those old threads. I always knew the Radiance would be an upgrade. I also knew that the base CPU would be an i3, not i5. HP fanboys on here cried foul and wanted to believe a very impromptu, unscripted video over multiple spec sheets that leaked from HP.

I hope anyone who bought or will buy an Envy has a positive experience, so don't take this personally. I do hope that others think about HP's deceptive marketing and decide to not reward them with our hard-earned money.

 

I'm interested in knowing this as well. Will be trying it out tonight.

 

Though I heard that with the Radiance screen, it's $100 more than what people were paying since inception. Maybe that changed.

There is no card to replace. Envy 14 isn't MXM. the ATI GPU is soldered to the mobo. HP's not going to replace a mobo for the ~10% difference in performance.

 

I think it's still better than previously. Since they killed the 430m option that's now like what ? 50$ over the previous price ? I don't know. Anyway people who bcb'ed can't complain ^.^

Keep in mind that some people may actually want the envy for the looks+gaming (even if it's underclocked), and the lower res screen would be their choice. Good for them HP unlocked that.

Just wait a bit more, I'm pretty sure a much larger coupon than the raise is coming in august.

 

A coupon or a cut in the price of the 1600x900 screen would be more than adequate.

 

Perhaps this time it was "counter-intuitive" to complain because what was the main complaint in that link? The underclocked GPU which entails lower-than-expected GPU performance. HP "countered that" by lowering the standard res (and price) to 1366x768 so perceived gaming performance by "on-the-fence" buyers who eventually cave and get an Envy 14 (but gets lowest specs because its still expensive at base cost!) is more positive (easier to push games @ 1366x768 than 1600x900). And the 1600x900 Radiance display is now premium "premium" territory. Just a thought.

 

HP planned to do this all along. It's been exactly 1 month since the Envy 14's release. Now that all the avid consumers have bought a unit, HP can make the Radiance screen a premium option and allow more casual consumers to choose the lower resolution Brightview.

People need to stop thinking that complaining about the 5650 caused the price/configuration change. That had NOTHING to do with it. This is a part of a planned marketing strategy. Ever since we knew amazon.com was offering the lower-res system, people should have been aware that HP wouldn't just make an exception for ONE retailer. At least I knew that eventually the Radiance would be a premium.

Again, everyone on here needs to stop thinking HP's marketing and sales strategy revolves around them. This is a very common approach for such a company. Your complaints didn't affect anything. While I sympathize and encourage you to complain to HP about the low-spec 5650 cards, they are unlikely to do anything about it because the card is still within specs.

 

too bad the price of the slice remains unaffected...

 

^ I agree, radiance is really premium now. I don't think the 1336* screen is bad either if its the same than the ones used on envy 15. Just less max brightness.

 

Guys, after doing a clean install, the volume indicator isn't there anymore.
Whenever I press the volume up button, the volume goes up but no bar pops up to show me. How do I get it to show again?

 

I agree with you they offered the Radiance as standard spec to get all us early-adopters and hopefully we dish out "good" reviews so the average joe's start saying "heck, it got good reviews AND it looks like a Macbook Pro for cheaper so I'll jump on it" while unbeknownst to them they are getting a cheaper display for a conceived $100 off original release price.

My post was just to elaborate what the comments made in the link e14 posted may mean.

 

About to clean install a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate, wish me luck, I'll be back if I screw anything up,lol.

I think that is part of the MediaSmart stuff.

 

what are the benefits of 8GB ram over 6GB ram for this laptop?

 

Also can anyone post up the original envy 14 wallpaper/background that theirs came with?

EDIT: Nvm found it.

 

Oh yea no worries. I am just disgusted with HP. They haven't done anything wrong or out of the ordinary, I suppose, but their misleading information is disappointing nonetheless.

Then there's the botched releases of new laptops by Acer and Asus. Just a frustrating few months!

 

Besides obvious fact of additional 2GB of memory you'll get full support of dual-channel memory.

 

I still haven't figured out how to make it come back with the mediasmart stuff.


I just used 3rvx instead (check the first page). you have to run it once after installing for it to show up. It defaults to emulating a mac's OSD but you can change it and/or use an envy skin that someone made (not the same as the envy 14 OSD...though it was made for the Envy 15 or 17 I think...and I don't think the 15 or 17 has the same OSD as the 14)

 

Exactly.

If HP would have dropped the prices, the early adopters would be pissed. Since they raised it $100 a few that haven't ordered yet are pissed.

Personally, I don't see what the big deal is. Companies raise and lower prices every day. I'll consider myself lucky as long as HP doesn't drop the price 30%, to negate my BCB, anytime soon.

 

i am now officially an Envy 14 owner!

not a single problem! no whine, no messed up hp logo, no glue, no dead speaker or pixels,

best laptop i have ever owned by FAR.

 

wow. those GUYS lowered the price of the envy 14 by $100 but made the 16:9 a 200 DOLLAR UPGRADE???!!!

guess I'm getting the dv6tse now...

 

Take a look at the Envy 15...they lowered the price and are offering i5s now too. At least that's what I'm doing.

We'll see who wins the race...me buying the E15 or Vaio F...or HP lowering the price back to what it was on the E14.

 

Just an fyi, I got my envy 14 with the second batch gang on Monday 7/26 even though fedex said 7/28. Also the bios update problem folks are having is a non-issue as the new batch of envy 14s are shipping with the updated F.05A bios preinstalled.

Hopefully you guys will get yours by Friday!

btw - loving mine. No whine. No cosmetic issues. Very fast, didn't do a clean install just removed some of the bloatware.

 

Does anyone else have a problem where on certain pictures(usually ones that you can click like amazon and facebook, and even some of my desktop icons) have little white dots in them that move to different areas when you place your cursor over top of the picture? I have tried googling the answer but came up with nothing.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

Have you overclocked your GPU at all?

It's called artifacting, and it's a very bad sign, and generally indicates a GPU that is either overclocked too high, or dying.

I suggest you try to arrange an RMA...

 

I guess you waited too long.....

 

Wow really? Dang that stinks. Thank you for the fast input though, I guess I will have to call hp up and see what they can do for it.

BTW, would this be counted under the 1 year basic warranty? Just wondering even though it still hasn't been 21 days yet.

edit: And no I have never even attempted to overclock it.

 

Yo, you know how when you unplug the power cord, switchable graphics or whatever toggles on automatically?
How do you make it not?
I don't like the brightness when I'm on the go.

 

switchable shouldn't change the brightness. that's a setting in the power options.


also right click --> configure switchable graphics ---> unclick "automatically select power-saving GPU when on battery.

 

does anyone know how to turn of the wifi button light..seems its onli white or orange..and any one else have issues with the brightness buttons..sometimes they will randomly stop working..any fixes?

 

agh, just noticed a small annoying dent near the center of my screen. will HP replace my screen??

 

anyone have any recommendations on a good sleeve for the envy?

 

Ok, so I am a complete noob with updating drivers for graphics cards...but I decided to uninstall my ATI CCC to update it with the new drivers from the drivers forum....but now when i try to install it again i get a message that tell me "Installation complete. (Some warnings have occured)" or something of that sort...i have no idea what i did wrong, i tried installing it various ways, even uninstalling C++ and the ATI installer. can someone help me? Before i was able to right click and see something like "configure graphics" but now i just see the normal right-click menu.

 

Uhhh...no. I waited long enough and was patient. Let's see:

- CPU whine
- underperforming 5650
- weak battery life
- numerous build quality issues
etc.

I'm glad I didn't buy this because I probably would have regretted it. But I'm sincere when I say I hope everyone has a positive experience with their laptops. It just wasn't for me.

HP put an embargo on reviews for a reason - so that the first wave of anxious consumers wouldn't hesitate. After the fact people are finding out the 5650 is low-spec and whatnot.

It's similar to when a movie studio puts an embargo on reviews before the release date to avoid bad word of mouth. I'm not saying the Envy 14 is a bad laptop, but HP clearly had concerns large enough to warrant a review embargo.

 

I dont know speifically, but make sue youre plugged in first. Then go to uninstall and remove the ATI stuff. Restart and then reinstall. Hopefully that works. Which installer are you using?

 

Is it supposed to take a few minutes to load the choose language screen on a clean install, been about 5 minutes since it loaded stuff into memory and showed the starting windows splash? It's an official Win 7 Ultimate disc from the launch party thing, so the image should be good.

 

Youre the second to mention this. Could Quickweb be the issue? just throwing out ideas. My clean install went fine, but Quickweb was disabled in BIOS

 

Hmm, maybe I'll disable quick web and see if that will help, thanks for the suggestion.

 

im using the newest one from the drivers page for envy 14.
i tried that alreasy =/

 

Well, disabling quick web didn't help, I may just download an iso of the disc and make my own, maybe mine was a bad press or something. Need to wait a while though, the fans were full speed most of the time so the right side and back of the computer are getting pretty warm.

 

Hi,

I just did a clean install of my Envy 14 and am running into an issue while installing the RealTek Ethernet Controller Driver.

I used the auto installer from this link:
Realtek

Near the end of the installation, I'm getting an error saying:

"The Realtek Network Controller was not found.
If Deep Sleep Mode is enabled, please plug the cable."

Can anyone help me out with this issue?

When I open my device manager, I'm seeing an "unknown device" immediately under "network adapters."

Thanks!

 

Did you plug in the cable?

 

Computer screen goes black during the Windows 7 installation process
Windows 7 64Bits wont install (Blank screen)
maybe this is the issue.

 

Just got a Zeroshock III on ebay off seller yap2528. People here have reported positive feedback for this seller. He was quick to answer my questions and we eventually found out that the Zeroshock for the Mac 15" fits well for the Envy 14. Here's a link to the item: ZEROSHOCK III LAPTOP NOTEBOOK SLEEVE CASE HP ENVY 14 - eBay (item 220644028313 end time Aug-25-10 17:49:05 PDT)

You can check the inner dimensions against the Envy 14 and you'll see it's a close fit. I'll be writing up a review of it once I get my hands on it. Hope this helps!

 

Alright, figured out what it was, kind of a Homer Simpson doh moment. I forgot that I let the Norton trial activate, so I had to disable that

 

So, since the price increase, do you think models will go up in quality?

Less whiners/flexers/fan revers/hp light offers/track pad raisers/single corers/bios problemos/ idk damn,?

Or more of such things...

 

Did you format the drive before clean installing? I dont see how Norton Activation would play any part in a clean install considering the hard drive should be cleared.

 

Yeah, I didn't have the hard drive formatted yet, was planning on doing that during the installation process as I was following the guide linked to in the OP. Well, guess it all worked out in the end, now to install all the drivers.

 

mines perfect and i got it before the price hike

 

Haha good for you, but don't take my comments personally or become defensive. Many other users have had issues with their laptops, so you should consider yourself lucky.

 

Yes I'm very lucky. I hope your next laptop will be as great as mine