*HP ENVY 14 (1XXX series) Owners Lounge, Part 1*

Anyone know if all 2.5" drives will fit? I want ssd but good heavens Intel is expensive. How are other companies like OCZ and Kingston? Any cheaper recommendations?

 

The 160gb Intel x-25m G2 that is an option during customization of the E14 is currently about the cheapest your going to find at under $300 with 10% student discount.

 

Not sure about the 2.5" drives, I know they patted themselves on the back about making that upgrade not difficult though. I think with SSDs you'll generally get what you pay for, especially at this point. I've heard that Intel is moving SSDs down to 22nm next year, which will reduce the price...the optimistic guess I heard was 50% but I'll believe that when I see it.

 

It's sadly $315. Though that is still cheap, I can't afford it still. I think I'll wait next year to see if Intel decides to get cheap on me. Hopefully competition will push them to go cheaper. I think I'll look into that replacing the optical drive. Keeping a mobile warehouse around seems interesting. Plus I am already pushing it with 1.5 tb's on my desktop. Living without it is going to be tough.

 

Its $283.50 actually. Use the student discount, anyone is eligible.

Its a better performance upgrade than any performance gains you may get from upgrading the CPU or memory.

 

Have there been any official reviews of the 14" Envy yet?

 

Intel should have their new drives / controllers out end of year-ish. I doubt they will reduce in price, you will simpley get more storage for a similar price. Hence their 80GB drive will become a 160GB drive with probably only a small jump in price.

The Intel SSD drives are pretty good value though, being close to the top in terms of performance, and still quiet cheap. There are cheaper drives, and drives that have higher transfer speeds but the Intel is a damn good deal if its the 160GB SSD you can spec in the Envy.

 

Might want to try the ''old'' ocz agility, those have ''good prices''

And I don't think that the SSDs are going to get anywhere much cheaper, since that the competition is raising the prices, not lowering them. Intel is only getting cheaper since the new drives are expected the end of the year, more likely the next Q3

 

Three questions:

1. What's the price range on a CULV i5/i7?

2. Where's the best place to buy one from?

3. Would it even work if I swapped it into my Envy 14?

I planned on undervolting myself because I want over 5 hours without the slice but a CULV would be nice if it's not too pricey.

 

For those of you who like to test play with the products before ordering online, I just went to the Microsoft store at Fashion Valley in San Diego, CA and the representative told me that they won't have Envy 14 models out on the floor until mid-August.

 

The socket is different for the CULV cpus, so no swapping.

 

I am not sure you can undervolt an i3/i5/i7 cpu. I couldn't find any software to do so on these new CPU. I hope I am wrong on this one

 

I loved CUDA. Having a M11x and CULV, cuda absolutely killed video encoding. Let my CPU use just 40-50% and encoded with GPU power.. it helped so much I could multitask while encoding. Plus it was faster than just cpu.. nice!!

 

I snooped around in the E17's lodge, and it seems that the new driver has fixed the awkward touchpad.

Does anyone know if the E14 will have said driver installed upon shipment? I know we won't be getting the new touchpad, but the driver would save a few minutes of frustration.

 

Why go through the hassle of undervolting when just disabling intel turbo boost will give you that one hour you miss so bad ?

 

Might want to add Switcher 2 to the recommended Free Software List, 2.0. Essentially, a hardware accelerated Expose for Windows Vista/7 with more features and a better implementation. Switcher for Windows Vista

 

For anyone that has the German model of the E14 would you be able to post a screenshot of your WEI just for a quick comparison to other laptops...thanks

 

i think you've called too many times and have like a note on your account that says "WARNING: WILL ASK FOR MONEY BACK AGAIN. DENY!"

 

The German owners have gone quiet for a few days now. Maybe that's a good sign?

 

lol you read my mind dude, yeah they've been quite for some time now. Oh well, I guess you can expect this to happen more and more when people start receiving their E14's.

 

lol, I think so too.

 

Personally I think they have just given up. It almost candidates as a full-time job to read this thread. Most of it is about how to save money, or which CPU to choose, not that really something that spikes the interest of our German friends.

 

has anyone received an E14 with an i5-520m and will be able to provide a screenshot of the WEI?? Benchmarks wont start comin out for some time now.. so WEI is ok for quick comparisons until benchmarks are done

 

I see you can tell them you can buy a copy of Win7 Pro with the student discount. What you you already have a copy of Win7 Pro from the student discount? Can I get HP to not make me pay anything for Windows?

 

Why doesn't NBR create a subforum for the Envies, instead of just one gigantic thread? It is not intuitive at all.

 

I think that would be a good idea, considering they are a multi unit series

 

I would think it is because you have too many people asking them to do this and that... and this and that... and this and that... all without mercy. Whatever test pops into someone's head gets asked of them.

Such as...? There's a subforum for almost every model of HP notebook computer. You want a subforum of a subforum of a subforum?

To that I say... CRY HAVOC and let slip the clown of war...

 

Band of Clowns huh.

haven't seen that one before.

 

Guys, is it possible to take the optical drive and hack a hdd into the SATA ports instead? I know it would need some custom plastic to keep it in place, but if it has the standard power and SATA ports, it might work. That's the only reason why I would buy this machine over the Acer 3820TG. But given it's price in Europe, it is actually a terrible deal over the Acer.

 

I'll check it out. Though I might end up submitting this to the free windows thread first. Peeps over there test stuff out.

 

All 2.5" that are a standard 9.5mm height will. All 2.5" SSDs conform to this metric.

 

I do believe the service manual said that 12.5 mm 2.5" hard drives would fit as well

 

Since it hasn't been done yet on this particular model, I will say theoretically it's possible.

If you look at the service manual (link on 1st page, then page 64-67 of manual) you will note that the drive itself is removable. Looks to be of standard configuration. NewmodeUS sells drive caddies in the shape of an optical drive. NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

Then it appears a simple matter of mating the connector board (see page 65, 9 b service manual) to the caddy's SATA interface.

 

Yep, that too. I was addressing the question of SSDs in my usual backwards sort of way. I should of have said that there are no SSDs in 2.5" form factor with 12.5mm height available.

 

gdi why didn't I order with a SSD

 

Does anyone know what picture viewing program the German guy that did the YT review video was using? It looked sweet!

 

The program is Picasa.

 

Ah man my battery and ac adapter died on my laptop so now all I have is my iPod touch until my envy 14 arrives

 

They've been quiet because they've been pounding down their brews in anticipation of their loss to Uruguay today. If you hurry you can catch the game now.

Or they've sold their Envy's to get to the game!

 

ChemE, do you have any experience with Dell customer service? I just switched from Dell after about 20 years, and I have to say that HP has been so much better to deal with. Dell used to be awesome, but good lord, their customer service is horrendous now. I guess I'll be able to make the full comparison if I ever need technical support with this HP PC.

 

Yeah, I'm gonna wait to upgrade to a SDD, too. They're just too pricey for me right now. I'm still a little shocked that they're so understocked on HDD's, though. I guess they were anticipating that more techies would jump on the SDD's with the E14.

 

Wow... 20 years with Dell I almost feel sorry for you.

 

Haha. I know, right?!? It was a legacy passed down by my father.

 

So $290 more for a CPU/memory/HDD upgrade isn't too much, but $315 for an SSD is just too pricey for you? Even though the SSD upgrade will likely give you a more perceivable jump in performance than the options you chose.

 

Thinking of ordering one of these myself. Got a Vostro 3400 a few months ago, have grown to absolutely hate the screen and I'm iffy on the build quality and keyboard. I haven't found a laptop that I've truly loved since I got rid of my three year old MacBook a year ago. I'm not a big fan of the Mac OS, but it was a damned solid machine.

My biggest question is what processor to go with. I'm basically stuck between the i5-520m and the i7-720QM. I have an i5-520m in my 3400 and really don't want to go with anything less powerful. I'm considering the i7 for two reasons; the first is that, obviously, it's more powerful and has two more cores. I run virtual machines on a regular basis, so this would be fairly valuable to me.

The second reason is that it looks like I can't use the ATI reference driver if I'm using a model with switchable graphics. Because the i7 doesn't have integrated graphics, an Envy 14 with it would be compatible with the ATI reference driver, right? I've been burned by relying on the manufacturer for graphics chip updates before and I'd like to avoid it if possible.

How is HP with releasing graphics driver updates for their laptops? Also, although battery life isn't a huge concern to me, could I reasonably expect 3 hours of surfing or so with the i7? Thanks!

 

I have no clue what the expected battery life will be with the i7.


someone who ordered with an i7 has just shipped (they picked a ssd too. all the hdd orders are delayed) so you'll be able to find out..

uh.

in a little while.


as for switchable not working with ati catalyst updates. I dunno. I've been told that's for intel chipsets not on an i5 but then again...*shrugs*


I'm gonna go ask the dv6t owner's lounge since the envy 14 is really just a dv6t se with a better screen and a slot loading dvd driver

 

Yikes, man. What's your deal? Lay off.

My point was that they're a relatively new technology that is incredibly overpriced right now, but which will drop dramatically in price in just a few years. I need the extra storage (500gb) on my laptop now, so a 160gb, or even the 256gb, SSD through HP wasn't even an option. So, yes, the upgrades I chose for my computer still total less than what I'd have to shell out to get a 500gb SSD now. Capiche?

 

What I mean is that why aren't these forums structured as cleanly as other forums that I'm on? I am on Android Forums and Mac Rumors forums. You can't even do separate threads for the Envy 14 besides just making a one gigantic one and have people type in every possible kind of question in it about the Envy 14. Everything is all mashed together.

 

dont really get what u mean
so what subforums are u talking about for e14?
e14 hdd
e14 gpu
e14 benchmarks etc etc

imo this thread itself is sufficient

 

There was a 640 gig, however it only came with a 5400 rpm option so not many people would've chosen that.