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

Hey I was wondering when/if the HP ENVY 14 will become available at Best Buy, or if it is already available... I had an old Asus laptop that just recently crapped out on me and Best Buy is doing a swap for a new laptop. The problem is all their laptops I saw are disappointing. They either carry 2 ton 17-18" bricks with higher specs and dedicated graphics or slim 13-15" laptops with integrated intel graphics. Since their site says they carry the 13-15" Envy laptops I was wondering when or if the Envy 14 will be available. Spec wise the Envy 14 is exactly what I'm looking for and I would hate to swap and settle for something less, but if it's not going to be available for awhile I'll have no choice. The only other laptops that look reasonable currently are the Samsung Q430 and the Asus UL80J but I would like something with a little more umph in the graphics department... I can settle with something larger as long as it's not one of those 16"+ behemoths. If anyone can find a solid laptop from best buy for around 1200$ (what my swap is worth) that's comparable to the envy 14 I'm all ears because I haven't found anything.

 

What old crapped out asus do you have thats worth $1200!? O_O

 

I want to turn it off b/c it's benefits only exist under certain processes and has a negligible effect on battery life in my conditions.

When I do need the Envy's battery life would be on long trips. On trips I tend to just edit documents and such.

As well as possibly watch movies. 2.93 Ghz is unnecessary for Standard Definition movie watching. And I'd say that its unnecessary for HD videos as well.
If I could I'd limit Turbo Boost to certain Processes. Like Turbo Boosting while editting and rendering videos or Photoshop. But besides that I feel that it's hurting my battery.

EDIT: Didn't want to Double Post so here goes:

TouchFreeze has been reported to not work under Windows 7. So I hunted around for alternatives.
Apparently no one's really made a program with a GUI but as usual AutoHotKey comes and saves the day:
http://productivegeek.com/forums/topic/touchfreeze-alternative-in-ahk

 

I don't think Turbo Boost is on the whole time like when watching movies or doing non-CPU intensive activities if I'm not mistaken.

 

why would you decide to get the Z and overclock 330GT to match standard clocked 5650 on E14?330 is Dx10 cards,while 5650 is Dx 11.

Did you check with bing before doing it?I'm not sure if what HP sales person said is true or not.

Has anyone noticed the gap between the LCD screen and the Bezel is not even on the left and right?I see some more black thing on the left then right. I dont think its fixable.

 

I posted this in the envy 14 backpack sub forum thing, but thought I'd post it here too since its a pretty great deal-

Dont know if anyone has mentioned this but staples has a pretty sweet backpack/ bag deal going on, whatever you spend they give you that amount back as a staples gift card, I took advantage of this today in store to buy a nice swissgear backpack, after I sell the gift card on ebay total price should be under $15. Heres a link: FREE Backpack Promotion | Staples®

Also all laptops backpacks are 25-50% of atleast they were at my staples.

 

Will also add that OfficeMax is running the same deal with the exception that theirs is dumped into a MaxRewards (or whatever you call it) account. Theirs is a limit of 2. Staples is a limit of one per name/per household/per address.

Check their website for in-store stock of Swissgear bags.

 

So does anyone know a specific date at which sites will release reviews with actual ratings? I'm just curious to see what they have to say.

 

I thought office max died.

 

this probably has been asked before, but is there a way to automatically set separate EQ settings for the speakers and headphones? my guess is no since it seems they're paired together in the audio settings.

btw, the laptop speaker is trash. i was hoping it'd be better than the DM4 i returned because of the "Beats" labeling, but i guess it's just a logo.

 

Damn you for mentioning that
I swear, I would never have noticed that earlier
It's okay though, if this is my only problem, I'm FINE with that

 

Has anyone else here tried Luxand Blink? It's facial recognition software for logging into windows. I just installed version 2.1 64-bit on my Envy14 and it works great. It logged me into Windows after about 1-2 seconds.

Try it out if you're interested, did I mention it's free?

I'm not sure on the rules for posting outside links so I'll just say google it.

 

dude thanks! can't wait to use it

 

Honestly don't know... it's my sister's. Some G series Asus midrange gaming notebook.. its like 2-3 years old now. Had some problem with the motherboard that Best Buy claimed exceeded the 1200$ cost of the original price of the laptop so they junked it.

Anyway this is what my sister is interested in... She wants something that can handle some gaming, but doesn't look like a brick. The system doesn't have to be a dedicated gaming laptop. Something between 13-15" that can play some games, costs around 1200$, and Best Buy has to sell it. This HP Envy 14 seems like the best thing out there if Best Buy sold it. So I'm still asking if anyone knows if they do or will... and if not what's the next best thing I should get?

 

You might have to wait at least until August 22, iirc that was the embargo date on one of the spec sheets for other retailers to begin selling them. Can't remember exactly though as its been a month or so since I looked at the spec sheet.

 

Turning off turbo boost will not gain any battery life no matter what your using for. That's the whole point of having it, you get max speed when you need it and very low power / slower speeds (1.3Ghz) when you don't. If it kicks in to 2.93Ghz (in your case) then whatever it's doing gets done faster and it returns to idle quicker so power usage is about the same. You should read up on intels speed stepping tech and turbo boost tech which explains it at length.

There is an app called ThrottleStop which allows you to select the max multiplier of the i5's (not sure of i3's). It was designed to unthrottle the new CPU's on Acer (and other) notebooks, but it also works to just set any multiplier for individual or all threads fro X 9 to X 20, so it effectively disables turbo boost. Have fun playing with it but I can assure you there was 0 battery life gain by dozens who tried it on the envy 15. There is also Real Temp 350 which has an app called i7 Turbo which has a 'Disable Turbo' option but does all threads at the same time only, again no measurable battery gain on the E 15's.

BTW, both are free apps.

 

I'm gonna go ahead and recommend F.lux for people who like to browse late at night (lets face it, that's all of us.) It sortof yellows and dims the screen based on daylight hours in your area. It takes a little bit to get used to it, but it definitely provides a gentler picture- especially before you go to sleep.

Also, Ive definitely got the CPU whine (not sure if anyone even wants to hear about this anymore), and I would RMA, but I'd be in college (and need the laptop) by then- so it looks like I'm stuck with this. *fingers crossed for either worse hearing, or a DIY cure*

 

Easiest way to stop Turbo Boost = set maximum processor power (in Control Panel -->Power Options) at anything under 99%. That will stop Turbo Boost in it's tracks on most HP Core i7 quad machines. It might require a lower setting than 99% in Core i5 models, but just cut it back and you will stop TB and, presumably, save some battery life because it is, uh, a setting used to, uh, IMPROVE BATTERY LIFE!

 

Keep on updating us about the replacement. I have the whine but I probably will kept it for the sake of BCB.

 

Disabling Turbo Boost WILL NOT, I REPEAT WILL NOT increase battery life. Turbo Boost only draws extra power when you need it. If it is disabled it will take longer to do the task the processor is clocking up for anyway resulting in a net increase of zero battery life either way. So please, just leave the maximum processor settings ALONE.

 

Haha I said I wouldn't be getting a replacement.

 

Sorry but have you even tried that? Power plan CPU settings have absolutely no effect on the turbo boost ( or speeds) on the i5 or i7's (never tested an i3). All that lowering the CPU min max settings do is lower battery life, yeah it sounds counter intuitive but that's what happens, test it yourself. Intels has made the new CPU's as efficient as possible and nothing I have seen or read or tested has allowed an increase in battery life over just letting the speed step / turbo boost do what it's supposed to do.

PS: I am using a setting of 0% min and 10% max right now and still hitting 3.06Ghz in turbo when needed !!

 

JJB, thats strange as I have always used that effectively.
I have tested it with CPUZ and HWMonitor, and at say 90% my max watts are 20w and my cpuz reads 2.1ghz

Are you in high performance mode? As that over rides the settings, try it in balanced or power saver

Bear in mind, this will have hardly any effect on battery life unless you are maxing out your cpu with flash websites etc.
Edit - I actually use it for lower temp gains for games that aren't cpu bound

 

let me know how the screen looks

 

Same here. I can use a review of that screen.

 

so after 2 whole days of owning the Envy 14, I admit to becoming annoyed of the whine/high pitch/low screech noise. I'm usually blasting my music on so I don't hear it, but when I'm trying to study in a quiet environment with the laptop, it becomes distracting. Still not enough of a reason to RMA though. Just wanted to rant.

 

You arn't understanding clearly what the cpu min max does.
It just limitates the %age of UC power allowed to processes.
Your processor still runs at the speeds intel planned, but the processes on your computer will not be allowed to use more than said max % of the UC.

The more you lower the max UC % allowed for processes the more your computer will run close to iddle when using programs that can operate normally with only (for example) 10% of the UC share. Without the uc limitation they would just run at much more, faster, but would still consume more power for a ridiculous time gain on task completition.

Im also tired of people confusing turbo boost with UC limitations. And over the top saying that disabling turbo boost doesn't improve battery life.
Sorry but turbo boost does worsen battery life for every task that is time set on a laptop. (looking at a flash video, a flash website, watching a dvd, watching a movie, listening music with some players like zune even triggers turbo boost,... those scenarios are way more common that the "lol it completes the task faster ones" like encoding a movie on battery no kidding).

 

I'm glad to say that after 3 days of using my envy, I love it!

1. Screen is awesome.
2. Audio after tweaking is worlds better than my old asus
3. Performance: i3 370m and the 5650 ran BC2 on medium smoothly even before overclocking
4. A+ build quality

haven't come across anything that I haven't liked about it yet

 

Erm... In other news, I was thinking about getting this laptop for school. And oh, I almost forgot to mention, MASSIVE GAMING WHEN THERE and everywhere else.

This config:
i5-520M.
8GB RAM.
160GB SSD.
The CORRECT display, the 1600x900 Radiance LED display.
And some form of broadband.
Comes up to a base of $1,989.99, which cuts real close to the $2,000 dollar limit I'm expecting. I can take off some with coupons, but I haven't worked that out yet.


I originally wanted an i7, but that murders the budget and kills battery life (though I can probably keep it plugged in for most if not all of the day). I would like word on the i7 performance, however.
Thoughts on this configuration? Any word on broadband performance? Should I wait a bit for reviews (and coupons, and updates to the GPU) and get it probably in late fall?

I've been lurking for ages, but might as well ask. Please and thank you in advance.

 

there is no point in getting i7 unless you actually need 8 cores e.g. hd video encoding... the i5-520m will give you same or better performance for general things i believe, you only need the i7 if you have apps that actually require several cores otherwise i5-520m is more than enough for your needs.

 

by broadband do you mean the sim card slot addon right? if you're asking about that, performance will depend on which network you're using (ATT, Verizon, Sprint, etc) and signal strength

 

Save some money and get 6GB of ram instead of 8GB. I doubt you'll ever use the full 8GB, it's already hard enough to use up 4GB. If you need the 8GB for something, then go for it I guess.

 

Ugh, I have 2 Envy 14s and I just realized both have the fans constantly throttling problem (Always on disabled in BIOS). You have to be in a really quiet room to notice so I never noticed until now. Does anyone really have perfect fans? Not so much traffic on the fan thread so...

 

At the risk of repeating myself, would I lose the BCB discount if I returned the laptop for an identical one?

 

Another user had an email from HP stating that you will not lose BCB if you RMA for an identical unit.

An HP rep told another user that they would lose it.

The first user had an email, in writing, so I think it should be okay. Honestly, I don't know why they would revoke your BCB if you got a defective unit and just want a new one.

 

I completed a clean install and everything works fine, except for the HD5650. Whenever I try to load a game (I've tried a couple), the screen just goes blank. I can ctrl-alt-delete out of it though. I think someone posted something about this before, but I can't find it and there's nothing on page 1. I also manually selected the 5650 in case it was an auto-switching problem, but that didn't help.

I'm using the ATI ver. 10.7 drivers, is this a bad idea? Is there a special HP version of the ATI driver I need to use instead?

 

Did you install the HP 10.3 ccc drivers first? if not, that is your problem.

The HP drivers has all the correct files for the intel/ati to allow switching. Unfortunately ATI's drivers direct do not work currently, hence the slight workaround

 

If Best Buy won't get Envys until the 22nd I might have to get another laptop instead. Is there any they sell that's comparable currently? The Samsung q430 and Asus UL30j don't seem nearly as powerful, but those were the best options I could find. Maybe I could just get a laptop and exchange it within 30 days or something for the HP when it's released. But it doesn't sound like the 22nd is a definite date.

 

Not really. My Envy 14 (14.5" screen) is sitting next to my Sager NP8662 with 15.4" screen and the Sager is notably bigger. 16:9 machines are 15.6" screens, so would be a bit wider yet, but maybe less deep. The bezel isn't that wide compared to most other laptops I've used or seen.

 

Hi guys,

I have posted this in the " envy 14 and linux " thread too and I am not a cross poster by nature but since many of won't read the linux thread I cross post my reply / impression of the envy 14 here as well.

:


Overall I am very very pleased with it. It did cost a [do not bypass language filter] of money but I find it is worth every euro.

Build quality is fantastic! Hardware issues none whatsoever, no cpu whine, no noticable keyboard flex, nothing.

The screen is gorgeous, I love the chicklet keyboard and the system is blazing fast.., the usb ports are tighter than I have encountered on other laptops but I consider that as a plus. On my Vaio for example I found the usb ports a bit too loose.

There are a few things that I encounter that are solely due to ubuntu or proprietory vendor drivers: random wifi disconnects and the touchpad sometimes behaves annoyingly

I am about to install the free ESX server software now: than it is VM time baby !

cheers.

 

GT 330m and Envy 14 HD 5650 have nearly identical performance. All I'm saying is that you can get a machine that weighs over 2lbs less, same resolution 1600x900, and 5-6 hours battery life in a 13" machine. With the "lower" end Z (which is the one I'm referring to), with the TigerDirect Bing Cashback you can get pricing very comparable to the Envy 14 similarly equipped. Actually cheaper.

I was thinking the HD 5650 was going to be the 550MHz version which would stand out above the GT 330m by a decent amount to start, with room to overclock to 600MHz+ pulling well ahead. But seems that is NOT the case.

That being said, I am really liking this Envy 14 for everything else about it. I'm fortunate to have had a good build one, and am very grateful for that. Otherwise, if I had to return it, Vaio Z would have most likely ended up on my desk instead of another Vaio Z.

 

Hmm, strange. My fn-F10 will turn off my wireless, but my LED doesn't turn orange, then pressing it again, won't turn it back on. I have to reset the adapter manually to get it to work again.

I've done a fresh install, so not sure if I'm missing something? I installed the HP Quick Launch buttons software. No OSD though. Don't really need it unless it adds functionality for that? I don't see why.

edit: Many kudos to the almighty 2.0 for the tip to shut down, unplug, remove battery, hold down power button for 30 seconds, plug everything back in and now it works fine. Strange. Wonder why that happens.

 

I had a 330m in a viao CW before my m11x and then this E14. Even with an overclock and decent 3dmark06 the performance wasnt great. I had to lower the settings in COD WOW and I was only playing at 720p. The m11x's 335 on the other hand, is very similar in performance, if they had made the m11x an m13x I would probably still be using it.
The underclocked 5650 performs well above it, in COD WOW I play it at 900p with high settings (no AA/AF) and its smooth as butter!
BFBC2 plays great, even 32man server (which again the CW failed miserably at, even on low settings).

So I am happy with my underclocked 5650 and wouldnt swap it for a viao Z if you paid me. I am hoping that eventually someone will work out a volt mod and then I will hopefully be able to break this 500mhz limit I am stuck on

 

I had a gen1 m11x and it played remarkably well. It was clear that the CPU was the bottleneck. Although I still have to play with DirectX 9 and mix of medium and low settings more or less. What I don't like is the long level load times (sounds like its an ATI issue) and intermittent stutter.

I did end up just clocking at 500MHz to see if it helped the stutter but nope, but it still ran well.

 

Sorry, I've been inactive from forums for a while.
Anyone notice how the Envy14 got $100 cheaper, but requires $200 for a HD screen?
That's so stupid!
I'm so glad I got mine early.

 

I take it you are still on CCC 10.3? 10.6 onwards gets rid of the long load times. I am running dx11 on bfbc2 and I get in as fast as I do on my m15x

 

I'm running 10.7 actually and still has long load times. With my Sager and GTX 260m I can get it with 5-6 seconds to spare, giving me time to choose my class and maybe a weapon or two. Plus wouldn't it be the driver and not the CCC that matters? CCC is only the GUI afaik.

 

sorry, I was writing quickly. yes its the driver.

Strange, I put 10.6 over the top of 10.3 and I fly in. I have dx11 set in my cfg too.
I will time it when I get home from work and let you know how many secs to get in. will load a couple of different servers

 

Strange. I just did a complete uninstall of drivers. Then installed the drivers from the Envy 14 driver thread here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-drivers-software-forum/496027-drivers-hp-envy-14-intel.html

which is 10.3

I downloaded 10.6 from AMD, and went to install, but it says drivers and CCC are already "up to date", as in same drivers.

What link did you use to download the 10.6 drivers?

 

Yes that's in balanced power plan settings and I'm not sure what you mean by "my max watts are at 20w" your showing 3 computers with different processors in you sig. And 20W max is just about right for the 540M unless you do a true 100% load burn in test (on all 4 threads) with something like Everest, then you'll see ~24.5W, with or without power plan adjustments. The i5's and i7's are unaffected by this control.