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

I like whiners. They're funny.

 

About the touchpad:

I was just at Sams club messing with the dv5 and dv7's touchpad, and they feel fantastic. Nothing was wonky at all about them. However, I did not get to test out scrolling, because the machine had no internet or anything I COULD scoll, but everything else felt great. Even the texture and look of the pad was great.

 

yeah. if the 5650 works for what I need (most demanding thing will be a toss up between Singularity and Bioshock/Stalker:CoP/Fallout 3/Mass Effect 2/whatever else that's not crazy like metro 2033 or crysis) I'll be plenty happy.

already know it'll do good enough for something like starcraft 2 or diablo 3 since..well. SC2 runs on my old laptop decently at low. I mean it lags some if a big battle's going on but uh....can't help that. Sacrifices were made to play the beta at 1680x1050.

 

Well, to be fair, I'm sure most of the ones begging for the 335M would be willing to pay a couple hundred more for it. When "spending extra" for the Sony Vaio Z means spending $1200 more, it's not exactly a fair suggestion.

At the same time, at such a low price point, it's unlikely Toshiba could fit any kind of discrete GPU in even at a $200-$300 premium - there's probably very little space in the chassis, and even less thermal overhead for adding a hot-running component like a GPU.

On another topic

For those of you who are asking about sticking a 5830 in the Envy 14, doesn't it run hotter than the 5650? Personally, I'm still a bit worried about the 14's heat profile after the trouble they had with the 15, so the 5650 seems like a more reasonable option to me.

 

You're comparing a 17" Asus to a 13.3" notebook. Plus knowing Asus, I wouldn't trust them to put much into build construction. You get bang for buck for components, but not much else in terms of structural rigidity. Nothing wrong with utilizing plastics, but if the design is kind of so-so or if there's nothing to reduce flex, you can get problems.


A better comparison is the Asus UL30VT/JT both which IMO have too much flex, mediocre touchpads, and a mushy keyboard. For $800 (about $100 more), you get neither quality compromises with the Toshiba plus an i3-330M, not some gimped down ULV processor. The dedicated GPU's ok for super light gaming, but I'd rather lose it and go for the Toshiba than spend $700 or more for a liability that Asus may not cover under an extended warranty.


There was a thread some time back posted by some dude from Sweden. Apparently his daughter's UL30VT screen's plastic flex led to the screen developing some funny image quality problems. Parts of the screen turned complete white? I don't completely recall. But the the tech support along with a few NBR members said that could only happen with a lot more than just normal pressure on the screen lid. I'd put a lot more faith in magnesium alloyed plastic over plastic alone to prevent this from happening.

 

That brings me to another point. Once the price point goes past the oh-so-taboo $1,000 price point, you get a fresh onslaught of whiners screaming about price.


The nice part is most people posting here are realistic. We admit we're getting an alright bargain in the Envy 14 at this price point, but we're willing to wait it out until a coupon gets released.

 

Does anyone else share my concerns about the 5650 not being able to run newer games smoothly (Bad Company 2, MW2, Crysis, etc) at 1600x900 being that it has 30% more pixels than the standard 720p screens? It seems almost better to have a lower res screen for the increased fps during games.

 

Funny thing about HP and GPUs...

HP has never put the top of the line Nvidia or ATI in any product. They always go at most one under the highest for the GPU class.

 

I worry too, but you can always lower the res in the game. Benchmarks show that the 5650 can play MW2 just great, and Bad Company 2 pretty well anyways.

 

I'm somewhat concerned myself. Would it solve any performance issues we were to lower the resolution before starting a game?

 

seriously unless your playing crysis or something, you really dont need a better GPU. And if you are playing it, you shouldnt be buying an hp envy 14. The purpose is to be a mix of performance and portability. But I'm happy with my order.

i450m
6 gb
500 gb
standard specs for the rest
got 4 years lo jack for 40 bucks so that was good

1228 i think with tax (8.25% texas) student discount + discrete discount

 

haha. It's to compensate for their overheating problems, which they still have in many laptops.

 

yes you ocan always lower resolution, but for me, I am not a fan of non-native resolution games. It's just never as sharp. I had a Dell SXPS 1640 with the beautiful RGB 1080p screen and as much as I wanted to play in the 1080p native res, I just couldn't with the 3670. Hopefully this is not the case here 1600x900

 

Valid concern.

DerpDerp posted the following:

For reference, an 8800M GTS overclocked (610,975,1525) coupled with a T9300 running the above games on 1680 x 1050 native runs them smoothly. However the 3Dmark to do so is around 9500.

You likely you will have to reduce some graphic detail and skip AA and Anisotropic filtering. You really don't need it with a dot pitch like the one the E14 has. I advise playing at native because it always looks better than dropping res.

 

I would so much rather have a higher res screen and maybe have to lower the resolution in certain games to get better performance than be stuck with a lower res screen all the time. That's just stupid to me to want a worse screen just so a few games might play a little better...just lower the settings, it's not that bad.

 

I don't mind playing at low settings, already doing that with L4D 2 to prolong my 9800M GS's life. If I can't do any heavy heavy gaming on the Envy 14, that's not a problem at all.

My original goal during my laptop search was to find a machine that was all around ok to pretty good for what I was going to do. The 5650 looks like it fits the bill for light SC2 gaming.

 

"It's confirmed both G53JQ and G73JQ will have NV GTX460M."

Source

 

And us Yanks will be celebrating our victory over England Sunday AND Monday.

 

In before "We never lost the war, we just packed up and left."

 

thank you neotheone i was gonna post that but you beat me too it haha.
5830 is basically what id call a tier 1 mobile gpu.
5650 is a high end tier 2.
theyre similar but in completely different leagues in terms of performance
you simply cant compare a 5800 series to the 5600 series its not fair lol.
and on your oc point, these laptops already struggle for battery (every thin and light) and an oced 5650 would end up using more power than the stock 5830.
so yes thats why i care. lol

 

btw guys. if the amazon model is wrong (which i doubt) you can just complain and get some money back!

 

Actually, 3dmark06 isn't even used by most tech sites anymore. Vantage replaced it a long time ago as a more useful modern benchmark. And Vantage gives the 5830 a score 50% higher than the 5650.

(sure, I'm using Notebookcheck's numbers, but you're kidding yourself if you think you can simply overclock a 5650 to reach the 5830's performance when it has double the cores)


Also, I'm really confused where the past 2 pages of "omg (GPU) whiners suck" come from. Surely you don't think I'm the one whining? The only thing I did before this post was state an unquestionable fact: the 5650 and 5830 are night and day apart.

It seems to me more like everyone else is complaining about what they see in other notebooks' threads, when no GPU whining ever happened here.

edit: I took too long to post this so it's no longer "the past 2 pages" but farther back
also in case I never made it clear, I'm satisfied with the 5650 (sure beats the GeForce G105M in my dv3t), but I'm not delusional enough to think it's only a step away from the 5830.

edit2: lol someone at Anandtech managed to peg the 5650 as a more powerful card than the 58 50 at 1024x768. goes to show how much you should trust 3dmark scores you find on the internet. http://www.anandtech.com/show/3766/msi-gx640-speedy-dx11-laptop/5

 

It's just the general whining. We all do it. Especially when having to lower expectations. Lot of hype and speculation before this unit came out. Still a bit more since no one has it in their hands yet.

 

yea seriously guys im not whining lol its just wishful thinking and future suggestions for i wish hp would consider.
i just said it would be awesome if theyd give me the option to give them my hard earned money for the 5830 because id pay it lol
and the cons of having more graphical prowess (more battery drain, higher temps) can be compensated by intels wonderful core i5 cpu which uses alot less power than the i7 and enables graphics switching (greatest battery saver ever) as well as providing plenty of cpu power to mostly (not all) anyone including an avid gamer such as myself

 

Ack! I just did a transfer from my bank account to my PayPal account so I will have funds available for when I decide to pull the trigger. It says funds available July 8!!! EEK! Now that money is in limboland. I just hope BCB doesn't come out and disappear before the money lands in my account!

 

Sorry if this has been asked before, but, would it be possible to get some money back from HP if you were to receive the laptop and BCB was at 25% sometime after?

 

Can anyone comment on amazon delivery dates on E17 vs those who first ordered through hp? How long after it was on hp before amazon started shipping units. Trying to get an idea on the E14, Thanks.

 

Not a chance. However since HP has a no questions asked 21 day return policy, if BCB went to 25% afterward, you can buy the notebook again with BCB (or coupon if one comes out) and send the other back for a refund.

 

Might want to post in the E17 thread.

 

Waiting is the hardest part
Mine finally says order in production

and as for the SSD talk, in a year or so when the new generations come out, I am hoping the older ones will be a lot more affordable, i really hope so.

 

yeah. waiting really is the hardest part.

 

Does it really take a week when the order is in production? thats sounds like a long time to me

 

depends on the backlog.

sometimes it comes out early. other times, not so much.

other other times, like those envy 17s.

uh. yeah. big delays.

 

My order has been in production since Monday morning..waiting blows. My swissgear backpack is getting lonely =(

 

I think the biggest appeal to the Intel SSD's is their reliability. There was a huge debacle with first gen SSD's that had great sequential specs but performed horribly in real world scenario's. Plus there were many issues from other SSD manufacturers as far as compatibility with hardware is concerned. It was a HUGE mess. Anyhow, Intel was the first company in the SSD scene to make an SSD drive that "Just Works" like a traditional HDD, and while others have gotten better, Intel is still the "tried and true" reliably fast SSD king.

Lately Intel drives have started to seem a little slow compared to the latest flavor SSD's from other manufacturers, but compared to a HDD the Intel SSD's are still lightspeeds faster and guaranteed to not cause any headaches. Sorta how the Core i5 520 is slightly faster than the Core i3 370, but the Core i3 is still way faster than a Pentium III.

 

It feels like only yesterday that AA and Anisotropic filtering was a daydream that sounded great on paper but hardware didn't exist that could actually do it and keep frame rates playable. Maybe I'm old school, but I've just gotten used to never turning either of those options on and just playing at the native resolution of the LCD panel I'm on.

 

Whew... I managed to catch up on all the useful posts and squabbling going on here.

I had an Envy14 config open in a tab when I closed my browser yesterday- when the tab loaded after opening my browser just a few minutes ago a

page appeared.
Has something changed in the config? I wasn't able to notice anything different.

 

Does anybody know how the audio compares to let's say a MBP?
I don't mean the speakers itself, but the audio card inside.
If I were to plug in high end headphones, perhaps Sennheiser HD 555 or higher, how would the audio compare to other notebooks (specifically the MBP)?

What exactly is this Beats Audio? Actuality or marketing scheme?

 

I had an envy 15 and the audio was pretty amazing, a lot better than mbp. I'm not completely sure but I think it's just refering to the speakers though, I think the sound card is the intel integrated hd one.

 

the audio system has a higher power level so it can drive high end headphones better. I found the line to be noisy compared to a nice desktop soundcard, but I think it's still better than a typical laptop's sound chip

 

can you only buy these online? Will bestbuy sell these?

 

I see. The reason I ask is because I'm currently a college student looking to purchase a new laptop for next year. As of right now, I have a 17 inch dv7 at home, and a netbook for school. Bringing the netbook to school is perfect for notes and whatnot because of the weight, but producing music is one of my greatest hobbies and netbooks just don't cut it.

I plan on giving the dv7 to my brother, and picking up a new notebook for myself. I plan on using it to edit/produce music and make fliers (Public Relations major).

I'm torn between the Envy 14, or MBP15. Money isn't too much of an issue, because either way, I plan on having this notebook for a while. I'm looking for reliability, something that will last for years.

Radiance display of the Envy14 (good for making those fliers) + Beats Audio (still iffy on the audio part), or the reliability of the MBP?

Another thing is that although I'm a proud PC user, and have been all my life, my school uses Macs for anything art related (music production, graphic design, etc.) so, either way I'm going to have to end up learning the Mac OS like the back of my hand.

HELPPP?

 

rock on, I love the Senn HD555's. But I've heard conflicting things.. that the beats audio is just for the line out and then someone else said for the actual speakers.. beats themselves are decent cans but they are overpriced. I'd rather have a set of Sennheisers.. but the Beats have that cool factor IMO. =D

 

Re: Everyone talking about GPU performance:

Are there any similar sized notebooks (smaller than 15") that have a much better graphics card than the Envy 14? Those better GPUs throw off more heat, and so you need more space and better cooling, making for heavier and bigger laptop.

edit: Oh, and my Envy is listed as "in production" too. Looking forward to it!

 

Hi guys been following the post for a while and I just have one question about the video card. Do you guys think it will be able to run sc2 at ultra settings? Thanks.

 

Good question, as Ive seen it about 30 times on all Envy forums, but only have seen one answer that comes form the horses mouth...

-Board is specifically laid out with attention to Digital to Analogue crossover. Careful attention to layout give us very clean output with almost no line noise.

-Added amplifier to assure strong and clean listening experience

-Added Digital Signal Processor to dynamically enhance the sound profile. The Beats Audio profile are tuned DSP settings that were designed with direct feedback from artists and music feedback.

We designed a very good hardware platform with a DSP that allowed our sound engineers to work with folks in the music industry to work on an audio profile that produces great sound for music playback. We had engineers down at Interscope records with Envy working with artists and producers working to tune the system....

I may have incorrectly used mouth for arse, seems as if HP Envy's FredFrenzy speaks allot from it... and Envy pages are taken down because of it. In actuality, who knows.

 

No. Smallest you'll find would be 15", the ASUS G51jx or the MSI GX640. But in doing so you sacrifice a number of things, most noticeably battery life.

 

None that I can think of. Though Sager/Clevo has a 15.6" system with a 5870 or 285M GTX in it. Clevo W860CU/Sager NP8690

custom gaming laptops - Welcome to Sager Notebooks

 

pitchblaknight, do you mean that that's what notebookcheck considers them??

Notebookcheck: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650



Ooo, on that custom laptop posted above this post, the upgrade from a 320gb hard drive:

160GB Intel SATA2 Solid State Disk Drive [+$450.00]

Thats pretty expensive compared to our lovable Envy 14 upgrade cost!

 

all this time waiting causes me to think a lot. I'm wondering, was the Envy 13,E15, E17 considered successful? Critically etc?

I mean I haven't heard much about the E13 except trackpad, E15 had a lot of heat issues I've heard and I never even researched them, and so far the E17 some chassis problems? I mean what's to say the E14 is the end all to these issues we've seen in these other Envy's? I feel like for me, and possibly some other people, are putting all their eggs in one basket. I still really want one, but this lack of reviews is really putting me off and making me think a lot...help!