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

No offense taken... I guess. Although I try to reserve marginal judgement and conditional statements like you said " your info above just told me you have no clue about true and accurate music reproductuion"

Nine Inch Nails does create some music in 5.1 (see my 2 examples), utilizing all channels, not just pushing stereo out through 5.1. You might want to research more thoroughly before making unfound statements.

Ive not even stated my sound system or music preference here. How can you reserve judgement on an unknown qualifier? I simply supplied an artist who does make music in 5 channels. Its an example, thats why I brought it up in the context of Envy Beats audio sound output via HDMI, which supports 5.1/7.1.

 

I burrowed someone's sony vaio (not sure the exactly model) and it was soo annoying blasting heat out the right side i had to have my mouse so far away from it. maybe ive been spoiled by this dell that doesnt blow anything out the right side.

 

That's the beauty of the Cal Audio tube preamp CD palyers (wish they still made them ) That combined with the Burr Brown DAC's and the extremely bright and accurate Bryston amp give an incredible soundstage with just enough 'warmth' to sound natural. Oh yeah, the B&W's are the pefect match for accurate imaging...

 

Sooo......anyone here know of any guides to undervolting an i5 and/or the 5650 GPU?

 

Because you listen to Nine Inch Nails Kidding (sort of), mainly because you listen to music in surround sound. Which as I stated, any true audiophile despises, it cannot reproduce accurate imaging which is sort of the whole audiophile goal.

We are way off topic hear and I've seen this 'friendly' debate go on in other forums for days or until it was banned. So why don't we just agree to disagree and save the others from this off topic topic

 

not sure it's possible yet.

edit: undervolting the stuff I mean

 

Many users, including me, experienced this issue with the envy 15.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/459729-hp-envy-15-gen-2-noise-issues.html
You can google search and find computers and laptops dating back to 2007 with this whine issue.

If I really like the envy 14 enough otherwise, i may try isolating the source coil and see about silencing it.

About heat:
I noticed with the envy 15 that temps went down after a fresh install and always on fans were not necessary. I recommend it.

Screen angle:
This is worrisome that it bothers you. I really dont know what HP was thinking. Maybe the same thing when they made a webcam that only works under incandescent light.
We shall see.

 

An iPhone's 2/3.2 mega-pixels camera might be sufficient to see a noticeable discrepancy in key levels?

So did your use of the keyboard level the keys out? Guess they needed some pressure to correctly seat huh?

 

Damn. That's the downside of having new technology. No guarantees of there being available software tweaks.

 

AFAIK their is no way to make any adjustment to voltages on the icore mobile CPU's (yet), you can turn off Turbo boost or throttle to 9x minimum, but that really doesn't do much for battery life. As for the 5650 you can most likely underclock it with the AMD clock tool to get a little power savings, but there is nothing that seems to work for adjusting the voltage of the mobility 5000 series. MSI afterburner oddly will allow GPU fan adjustnments on the E 15 w/ 4830 but not the 5830, you might want try it on the 14 to see if any controls will work....

 

Im totally on topic. HP's Envy have terrific sound quality when 5.1/7.1 Surround Sound is taken advantage of. Music types and methodology vary, as do opinions of High Definition 5.1/7.1 surround sound. The fidelity of upsampled audio is limited by the source material quality, and in this case Nine Inch Nails brought some truly amazing sounds by designing a sound stage that can truly be heard only in 5.1 that Envy 14's HDMI fully supports, especially considering the lengths to which the Envy team designed the Beats internal audio components.

I find high probability that there are more than one type of "true audiophile", and I believe that music artists do have the capability to design a sound stage that can "reproduce accurate imaging" to how they composed and made their music... like NIN (for example! ). Some may dislike DVD Audio when they only take a regular stereo audio stream, and transform it to 5.1 which is understandable. I saw ‘Warren Suicide’ play an experimental live set in Berlin, and I love my Live David Gilmour (of Pink Floyd) DVD - 'Remember That Night' that was shot in 5.1 surround sound. Ive got an Austrian composers DVD Audio on backorder... but it was a live 7.1 recording. Cant wait to hear it!

Sure the Beatles sound engineer remixed the Beatles Mono recordings into Stereo after they left the studio... but both are of interest to my ears. My Dad has both the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Mono Reel and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Mono Record. You can hear words and sounds in Mono that are not evident in Stereo at all. Im not interested in judging the possibilities of music's technological growth because I dont appreciate a specific style or genre. I do find it fascinating that artists have more opportunity and are breaking down The Wall (pun ) of ideas behind (should I say under ) normalized conditioning of how our music should be made and should be listened to. People will grow, change, challenge, and so will our music.

Im curious if there are any thorough 3rd party quality tests of the Envy Beats audio? Never seen em.... although my Envy 15 is music to my ears when using HDMI to output true High Definition 5.1 audio via the HDMI to my sound system!

Edit: Have you given it a chance? It wont hurt... I promise!

 

I am talking about "professional use" where for example a DJ is running a multi-track sequencer in the laptop such as tracktor, he needs to get the audio out into a club sound system, they aren't going to have a 5.1 surround system because that is for home theater, so he is going to bring the audio from the line-out or a USB audio interface, and plug that into a mixer along with all his external gear like a turntable and synth, microphone, etc. Or he could decide he wants to run that external gear through the laptop in order to process it or put effects on it before it hits the mixer, in that case he would plug the gear into the inputs of the USB audio interface instead. Anyways I have not seen HDMI on a mixer before, so that is a no-go, not to mention you need to convert the audio signal to analog anyhow to put it into a mixer, so you might as well just use the standard audio line-out. Line-out is just fine for high quality music, as long as there is no hum or excess noise, mismatching impedance levels can cause problems, long audio cables that run near power lines or supplies will dirty up the sound too.

A DSP is programmable, it is basically like a mixer+EQ+effects unit in the digital domain. Any processing you don't like can be removed, but I am not sure how programmable the envy DSP is for the end user, they might limit you to only using some preset settings. To shut off the extra DSP processing you hit FN+B, simple!

 

i kinda wish they kept the beats logo for the "B" key like they had on the 15. Personally, i thought it looked cool

 

@e14

The function + Beats key is actually another 'scam'. All it does is max out the bass (to +4db) and the treble to +3db in the win 7 'speakers and headphones properties' control panel 'tone control' tab. When you disable it (fn+B again) it just drops both aformentioned controls to the minimum of -8db. So when you enable it it's like WOW it's so much louder and more bass, so most will think THAT DR. DRE IS A GENIUS, LMAO what a crock. SO yes I guess it is a form of DSP control but not like what you were talking about, something like a parametric EQ optimization to calibrate response on the envy's speakers (which is what it should be). That fn+B does not even change any of the EQ or other settings in the Beats (IDT) control panel....

 

Yes I understand, my boyfriend opened up for Hybrid in San Diego, and our other roommate opend up for Sasha in L.A. Until producers of mainstream music need to attempt High Definition 5.1 audio for profit margins or other business practices, it will only be left to those who value this type of creative auditory undertaking. Then again, until mainstream consumers demand this type and level of artistry, it wont be mainstream for a while.

Neat keyboard shortcut! (Although more towards the previous rebuttal you may be referencing... we were speaking of a user preferring less digital to analog conversion & processing, even though Envy Beats audio foundation is digital.)

 

Its unfortunate that HP allowed a decent internal electronics audio package get confused with a poor attempt at what you described above. Agree on that.

Do you know its purpose?

Edit: Maybe this?

 

Read my above post, it's a marketing ploy to make you think that the 'Beats' audio is really a great and wonderful magic sound improvement system. For the average Joe it make the computers volume sound about twice as loud with more bass, in reality when it's 'off' it just lowers the win7 tone adjustments to minimum ( -8). My guess is that HP put in the better quality audio circuitry to differentiate it's overall product quality and market the 'beats limited edition', then they needed something simple for everyday users to be wow'd by when the demo the machines. And the 'B' logo looks cool ....

When I saw the original ad touting a better audio system it got my attention, as a matter of fact I think it worked so well for them that they decided to keep it with all the new releases.

 

Totally off topic per audio discussion, but on topic to a possible Envy Beats 14.... I would love to see a black anodized aluminum Envy 14 Beats edition. Lets get a murdered out * Envy 14!

* That's slang for black on black. Not to worry about harm, as there is only love here!

 

According to the E 14 service manual they have all the Beats addition P/N's listed for the top and bottom chassy and the keyboard, just like the E 15 so I think your wish will come true

Interesting link you added, some of those definitions sound.....interesting.....

 

I believe its listed back 5-8 pages....

 

The last 10 pages or so are about the Beats audio, just double checked and it's not there. The first post has the slice's number but no standard battery. Going to attempt using my 25 dollar coupon on getting an extra standard.

 

Oh sorry, this is useless right now, but you can find battery (and other Envy 14) part numbers here on P.20.

Internal battery: 8-cell, 59-Wh, 2.00-Ah, Li-ion battery Part #593548-001

Slice battery: 6-cell, 62-Wh, 2.80-Ah, Li-ion battery Part #602410-001

 

So anyone else besides me took any unboxing pictures? Everyone has been extremely spare with visible evidence^^..

 

Just woke up, whew... lots of posts today. Do you also find that the right exhaust vent produces the most heat?

Do you have additional battery life ideas, or are you happy with 4ish?

I see some Americans are now with the German ranks.... I too am curious to see some actual pics of these to ascertain if build quality is uniform throughout. Hmmmmm....

On a side note, I got great info from todays Beats discussion. I wonder how Beats HDMI output relates to this?

 

Im so tempted to put myself in your situation, although I cant help but feel that I need to hear more good reviews (although 30% BCB would be a fairly honest temptation to being an HP beta tester LOL... where are you BIG BCB?).

Cant wait till Gizmodo and Engadget review the Envy 14, they tend to not spare the rod!

I want some brutally honest reviews that pit the Envy 14 up against its competition!

 

HP Envy tech support baloney?

Say what?

 

my only problem with giz and engadget, well moreso engadget now that gizmodo had that whole iphone/apple crap, nonetheless I find their reviews to generally be rather biased against anything that is non apple. The iphone4 review would make it sound like the most amazing phone in the planet, if you are a righty. I've lost faith, I prefer slashgear personally. Techcrunch/crunchgear = sheep.

 

Brutally honest review of the envy 14:

beautiful, powerful, amazing machine, with a less magical *battery life than promised.

Best purchase you can make for the money

 

Something completely different..
Does any other ENvy owner notice the light added granularity in the picture if you watch rapidly changing images, for example in action scenes?
Its not really a deal, even adds a bit celluloid feeling to the movie, but I wanted to check..!

 

Right, FYI...

Envious14 and e14 are not the same person. Just thought I'd throw that out there since it was insinuated that they might be.

Carry on then.

 

I haven't noticed it, but to be completely honest, I haven't done a whole lot of movie watching (or much of anything to be honest) on the machine. The noise it makes gives me a headache. With my wife now gone, i've commandeered her Fujitsu Tablet.

One other thing that's bothered me significantly is the fan. I've turned off the 'fan always on' option in the bios, but it's pathetic that it turns it off only at temperatures under 35. As soon at it goes up to 36, it gets kicked in the junk, and starts blowing hard. It will blow for about 5-7 seconds, then turn off when it goes below 36 again. 20 seconds later, it turns on again for another 5-7 seconds. It's horribly annoying in a quiet room, and given that I spend a LOT of time in my tranquilly quiet living room and the library, it's bothersome.

I've had it on my lap on powersaver mode for the last 30 min, and the fan has gone through this fan cycle the entire time. There is almost ZERO heat coming from the right side....does it really need to do this?

 

im thinking about buying a bookbook case for my envy 14. here are the dimensions of the thing
BookBook Case - BookBook Case - Twelve South

Looks to me like it'll fit in the 15 inch case. Will it be a bit too big for the envy? I dont want my baby being tossed around in there

 

For that reason I bought a Logitech Portable Lapdesk N315
--> Portable Lapdesk N315

It just fits under the Envy 14 and it's small enough to keep it in a messenger Bag together with the Envy (at least my Belkin 15.4-Inch Messenger Bag is large enough).

Envy14 on N315:

 

I have that option turned on (Fan always on) and dont have issues so far..
I am doing CAD Design on a three display setup and can hardly hear the fan over the room ventilation..
If I really try to hear it, its there as a background noise, but very faint..

About the noise, I dont know if you are talking me into hearing it, if I put my ear close, I can also hear it, but its not bothering at all..
But maybe thats all because my ambient noise level is quite high..

 

Has anyone got an Envy 14 with a screen res of 1366x768.

I ask because the UK is only being given the 14 with this resolution and I just want to know if the screen space is bearable.

Thanks

 

Nobody got theirs yet? What up here dudes? Tell HP to get their a**es moving! I wanna see some data.

Bronsky

 

They're all in alaska bronsky.


Customs is having their fun. (They had their fun in Shanghai too)

 

At least 2 people in the U.S. got theirs, with alaskajoel giving quite a few impressions but the other dude not so much.

 

I think customs is suspicious of all the palettes being declared as Gifts with $30 value.

 

Heh sorry, haven't had time to use it much myself anyway. Later today I will be playing

Starcraft 2
Unreal Tournament 4
Left 4 Dead 2
Borderlands

Hopefully that will do


(btw someone asked me if my keys on the keyboard settled...I was not the one having that issue.)

 

Does anyone here have experience with flashing an alternative BIOS? Specifically, would something like OpenBIOS or Coreboot have compatibility with the Envy and open up access to the hardware?

 

Thanks alot. I really appreciate the test. And yeah Aion will run amazing, the Graphics card just cant be viewed correctly i guess. Everything spec wise is double or 100x

 

I don't want to talk about shipping in this thread, but as of an hour ago my laptop was in the Fedex truck coming from KC to my house. (about 25 min in distance)

I get off work at 1 (central) and I can do (some) tests for people.

(I'm also getting the last of my desktop parts so I'll try to be assembling that too hah)

 

thanks alot cant wait to hear from you.

 

Not possible. BIOS has encrypted components and whitelists. You'll simply brick the envy in the attempt. Not that you can't recover.

 

oh please do tell us how SC2 runs at certain settings. as well as the temp and noise while you are playing these games.

 

if you do, keep in mind that at the moment the beta is being all sorts of "lol let's heat up your computer 'cause we turned off the fps limiter on the menu or something"

 

Quick question, does anyone know what kind of power plug the Envy 14 uses? I don't have much experience with HP Laptops but have owned tons of Dell laptops that span across all their lines (consumer, "enthusiast", and business) and Dell uses the same round power plug for all their laptops. Not sure if HP keeps the same uniformity across all their laptop lines.

Anyways, I've accrued a good amount of Dell power bricks over the years so I just leave one in each area I use my laptop (home: living room, bedroom, and work). I noticed that my Dell power plug (latest revision 90W brick) fits in a HP Elitebook 8730w and a HP Touchsmart TM2t. Would the Dell power plugs fit the Envy 14 and you think its OK to use? I have 65w and 90w bricks.

 

could you post a vid of sc2 playing on the envy on youtube please =D

 

tell me how borderlands goes.

also SC2 I guess