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

2.0, it'd be awesome if you'd post any summary info on the color adjustments, too.

 

First cycle I got was 4 hrs and 40 minutes. Thats with pretty much pure webbrowsing.

Second Cycle adding in web browsing and alot of videos I got around 3.5 to 4 hours.

A good mixture of both I'd say its around 4 to 4 hours and 20 minutes.


At least this is what Battery bar tells me

 

2 extra lbs. isn't going to bear on your shoulders any more ... if it does, then you're a candidate for a mbp ...

i used to own a dell xps m1730, in the messanger bag with the massive power brick, usb hdd's, some other stuff too, it was manageable, given the whole thing weighed some 25 lbs.

 

have you tried a 3 hr movie on dvd ?

 

Cinebench results for Envy 14 w/ 450m and HD 5650

 

As soon as the bright sun light was gone the screen was looking beautiful at 50% brightness! I'm here with low light inside and it's great at 50% as it should be even under bright lighting.

 

thanks for that, also, how long did it take you to make the recovery discs? and about how many discs did it take? I bought a 10 pack of 4.7gb dvds...i think thats more than enough.

 

Where did you pull your idle power draw data from? How many cores on is this, at what speed?

 

I dont get it. What's this mean?

 

HAHAHA!!! YES!!

 

Hmm. Interesting. I am hoping for 5 hours of web browsing, so maybe if I try to economize I'll be able to get it.

 

i would strongly advise AGAINST using a laptop cooler, most of them move air in certain directions which may or may not be beneficial to the laptop's own cooling system.

an example of this is the Nyco cooler that was popular for the original xbox 360. what i usually do is put the laptop on a lapdesk, and insert a few AA batteries in the pencil slot of the lapdesk to prop the rear of the notebook up.

another option would be to buy something like this:
XT-Stand Review ? The Gadgeteer

i have one and when i used it on my m1730, it drastically reduced the speed of the fans. because the standard feet on the laptop did not prop it up high enough to get a decent volume of cool air under it.

the ideal alternative is to find a cooler that uses thermoelectric technology to actually chill the bottom of the laptop ... not sure if something like that exists on the market. i could probably design and build one ....

 

Comparing the two Cinebench results:

MagusDraco's i5-520m
Rendering (Single CPU): 3802 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 8240 CB-CPU

Multiprocessor Speedup: 2.17

Shading (OpenGL Standard) : 5093 CB-GFX


dannybht's i5-450m:
Rendering (Single CPU): 3520 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 8073 CB-CPU

Multiprocessor Speedup: 2.29

Shading (OpenGL Standard) : 4934 CB-GFX


Turns out there is a performance boost with the 520m over the 450m. Whether or not it's great enough to consider paying $100 for is up to your discretion.

Also thanks Danny for running the benchmark. +1 rep for you!

 

Can you change some sort of settings or something so that the fans kick in when the temperature reaches 40 degrees rather than 30? I have a program (I8KauFan) for my dell that works nicely, I don't turn the fans on and off but I just monitor my temps while gaming. Is there anything like that for the envy? I don't want the fans to be constantly on.

Edit: My Dell Studio fans turn on when my temperature reaches about 40 degrees if not more and I have never had any problems

 

Well, I cancelled my exchange and just went with a straight up return. Terrible fan noise, terrible touchpad, keyboard flex, and poor build quality... i don't think an exchange is going to solve these problems.

Anyone got some good alternative suggestions? Looking for 14 inch that can play SC2 and has bluetooth, 4+ hours battery and, preferably, a backlit keyboard. A nice screen res would be a plus, but it seems like the envy 14 is the only laptop that has this...

 

Did you actually measure the time or just go by Battery Bar's estimate?

 

Is the openGL score due to a bottleneck to the gpu by the 450m cpu?

 

I'm not entirely sure. I was going to ask if you had the ATI GPU enabled during the testing, but it would show a larger difference if you didn't. Since the CPU scores were very similar I can't see any reason why the 450m would be anymore of a bottleneck than the 520m.

 

You just got a bad one. Mine is perfect except for some keyboard flex. The build quality is superb and I'm very happy.

 

Every laptop in this range has issues. You will end up compromising one way or the other.

And it sounds to me like you got a lemon. My Envy has significant keyboard flex, but other than that, I have none of the problems you report (the touchpad sucks out of the box, but JJB has a good tutorial on fixing that - it's linked on the first page).

 

ya that doesn't make sense, is the opengl score made with integrated graphics or discrete?

 

Hey guys can I use my old xps ac charger with my envy? The wattage is close

 

How much keyboard flex are we even talking here? I have never seen a notebook keyboard that I could not flex if I really pushed down hard, I don't think that is possible, but the key for me is that there is no flex even when I am typing very hard purposely to check the flex.

 

for me, when typing normally, there is no keyboard flex at all, even when pressing relatively hard there is none. the only place where there seems to be significant flex when pressing hard is on the "p" key.

 

I think it just depends. Some people don't report much flex at all. Some report it in certain areas. I have moderate flex around P but around WES I have quite a bit (I went to Best Buy today to buy some DVDs and couldn't find a single model that had anywhere near the flex I had in this area). From some angles it looks like the entire area bubbles up slightly; maybe that accounts for it. I guess HP has some quality control problems keyboard-wise.

Despite all that, even flex as bad as mine doesn't affect typing. It's really not that big a deal.

But what does this mean: "the key for me is that there is no flex even when I am typing very hard purposely to check for flex" Seems to contradict your first statement.

 

I'm not sure how accurate my cinebench 10 was because I had some things going on in the background (ok only firefox was opened. I closed it when I went on IGP and I had a higher score than on Dedicated GPU)

redoing my cinebench to make sure

 

OK so to those who are saying I just got a lemon - are your fans on all the time?

My fans are so loud that I don't understand the complaints of CPU whine... I don't see how anyone could hear whine over the fan noise, it's really very loud.

I really wanted the E14 to work out, and I'm tempted to reorder... maybe I'll wait to see if build quality improves down the line.

 

As long as it does not flex when I type the hardest I ever actually type then it is flex-free to me.

 

I actually don't hear my fans at all. My apt. does have a little ambient noise from the street outside, which probably accounts for that. I can hear the DVD drive when I'm burning a disc, but that's it. Nothing I would ever describe as "so loud." You probably got a lemon.

Have you called HP to complain?

 

My new results after ending every task that had the letters hp at the start.

MagusDraco's i5-520m
Rendering (Single CPU): 3802 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 8240 CB-CPU

Multiprocessor Speedup: 2.17

Shading (OpenGL Standard) : 5093 CB-GFX

 

The discrete was on.

 

Ah, ok. Can't help you there since mine seems to be a bit worse than everyone else's. I do remember that most people reported flex around the P key, but not much.

 

I was just thinking, could it be possible (if someone really wanted to), to take the disk drive out and replace it with another battery? So you can get at least an extra hour or two battery life?

 

Nice! Is this after a clean install?

 

Awesome awesome. I'll update my post here and in the 450 vs 520 thread to reflect these scores. Seems you do get a performance boost with the 520m after all!

 

no it's not a clean install yet.

I just picked and chose some things to get rid of in the task manager


I'll be doing a clean install next week sometime (after I get around to burning the recovery discs/saying "screw it" and buying a $50 16 gig flash drive)

 

Also, wouldn't the battery last longer without the fans on constantly?

 

Don't blame you for waiting. I'm in the middle of it right now. It takes forever.

 

NOT SO FAST! I got 4933 for the OpenGl score now.

 

LOL... If the recovery discs require 16gb, and since I have a bunch of CD's (like 75) I calculated how many CD's I'd go through. Apparently it's gonna take me about 25 CDs...

 

What did you do to get that? For the best comparison, can I ask you and Magus to run OpenGL with no other activities going on? IE no browsing, just letting it run by itself. I know it's a far cry cause, hey, you guys just got your laptop and we all know how much we'd want to play with our new babies.

 

Ok ill do that.

 

danny.

go into task manager and close anything that starts with hp.

that's what I did

 

I have a question regarding my Envy 14 configuration. Do I need to select the Integrated WWAN to connect to the internet wireless or can I do it with the wifi? If I can connect to the internet wifi couldn't I just buy one of those Verizon usb modems if I wanted wireless internet later?

 

WWAN is for yeah...integrated cellphone tower modem thing

 

So I can still connect wireless with the Envy 14 without it right? I just will have to be around an internet connection. Couldn't I put one of those usb modems on the Envy 14 later on if I decided I wanted to connect to Verizon's cell phone towers?

 

Alright, everything HP related close

 

Just over 3 hours from start to finish and four DVDs later. The SWSetup directory is about 4.7GB but you can only get about 4.3GB on a 4.7GB DVD. You can also grab stuff off the HP Tools off the E: drive. You can only create the recover discs once.

 

it looks like that only got the open gel thing and not the cpu speed too.

and...uh half the thing got cut off

 

Yes and Yes.


Also, whats up with HP's shi**y quality lately? Everything at the store has flex flex flex. Why do they do that now? How come my dv2610 doesnt have flex? Why does the E14 have flex if the E13 at Frys didnt? Is it a kb on a platter, or are they individual keys poking through holes like MBP?