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

I am pretty sure that backlit keyboard on the envy is the same as the dv5t that my dad has. If that is the case it is perfect brightness in a dark room, it isnt too bright that it is distracting but you can see the whole keyboard easily.

 

Please, do a processor torture test too. You can use Prime95. I want to see how hot the Core i5 gets on the Envy 14.

 

Display on highest brightness, illuminating the rest of the computer:

Display on the dimmest setting, keys clearly visible...


No stress tests for now, maybe more on Sunday..

 

wow brightest is pretty bright.

 

its nothing flashy like alienware but it seems to get the job done

 

you mean not TACKY like the alienwares

 

That screen is bright but the keyboard seems slightly darker than the backlight on my dv6 keyboard.

 

Well....gotta make sacrifices somewhere.

unless there's a thing to control the backlight brightness like with the mbp (don't think there is though)

 

Hey erathostenes..how are the palmrests during web surfing and watching videos? I am sure they are pretty cool seeing the temps you reported.

 

I'm really impressed with the dual fan design. The only thing I want to know now is how long the battery will hold out with normal browsing @ low to medium brightness, wifi on and no dvd usage. If that looks ok I'm buying this.

What's the consensus on the HP July 4th sale? Will the E14 going to be added over the weekend or is the price the price until sales fall off?

 

Thanks for the pics man...+rep!

 

you're not alone! i'm not pulling the trigger yet either. it is very tempting, though. i can wait until mid-august cause i decided i don't need a laptop for orientation.

anyway, i've never owned a laptop before. what should i do right out of the box?

 

Apparently an HP CS rep said that there would be a site wide sale on July 4th and when asked if it would include the Envy 14, the rep assured them it would, but as always with them you need to take it with a grain of salt as these are the same people who said the Envy 14 gets 20 hour battery life

At a minimum, clear out the bloatware that you won't use, trial programs, etc. I'll probably take it a step further and do a clean install of Win 7 Ultimate, but there is a sticky on what to do with HP laptops out of the box including what each piece of bloatware does in the main HP forum if you want more info.

 

"Lives up to expectations," eh? It looks like HP did a complete 180 with the initial Envy 17 fiasco if the experiences of the 2-3 people posting here are indicative of what we'll be getting.

I like that. But I'm not buying into the kool-aid JUST yet! Wish I were vacationing in Delaware so I could dodge California's death taxes!

 

LOL. At 252 pages, this owner's lounge has surpassed the Envy 17's in page numbers. Wonder whether it has anything to do with the fact that the first 100 posts or so are all pure speculation.

 

I'm curious to see what the July 4th sale will be, if its a discount above 10% I'm going to be somewhat pissed, unless it doesn't stack with my student discount.

I can only assume it will be buy item X get $50 off printer X-or something like that.

 

What color is the Envy in person? In one of the pics, it looked more of a tannish brown color. I thought it was silver from what I have seen on HP's site?

 

Well there is a July 4th sale going on right now consisting of some instant rebates and free upgrades, so the rep might have just been misinformed and made up the part about the Envy 14 on the spot, but it may also be added to the current sale like the Envy 15 Beats Edition apparently was, so there's really no way to see what HP wil or will not do.

 

Has anyone ever confirmed the brand of 256GB SSD?

 

I haven't pulled the trigger yet either! Been following this laptop for weeks but I will hold out for any big coupons or anything over 10% BCB till I make the purchase.

I'm also waiting for a more thorough review, but so far, the new owners are reporting good things. Yes... those darn California death taxes are making me wait out for more savings!

 

According to one of the German owners, it's a toned down bronze color. Some one said the colors on the HP site was probably edited to remove some of the bronze.

 

Just to recap for my own benefit:
Pros and cons of the i5 envy 14 over the i5 envy 15
I assume heat isnt much of an issue for either

Pros:
Physically smaller (except depth)
Improved build quality/cooling
Radiance screen possibly higher quality than brightview?
Battery life +1/2/3 hours over the 15? (Envy 15 gets 3 hours max in low/normal use)
Opens to a greater angle
Doesnt have annoying left column of keys

Cons:
Radeon 5830 >> 5650
Thicker than 15
Smaller screen (can be considered a con)
Can't accomodate 2 hard drives?
Heavier by 0.1 pounds

For me it all comes down to battery life. If the envy 14 can pull at least 5 hours on normal use it's worth it. Otherwise, I'm not sure how the 14 can be truly justified over an equal 15 with a better gpu.

 

Is it really cooler and better built than the 15? Thought they were similar with the dual-fan system. I would think the 15 would run cooler with the absence of an optical drive. I tossed in the LED backlit keyboard as a Pro for giggles.

 

I did the math according to the battery stats they provided. It was 57 Whr with a 15 watt draw if I remembered correctly.

Anywho, 57/15 = 3.8 hrs

 

Has anyone confirmed that this cpu only runs at half its speed when unplugged. I need to know asap. My m11x is about to ship and if this processor runs at full speed unplugged then I will order one.

 

QFT. CA taxes =[.

and thanks sdawg36 +rep

 

Yeah I figured ~ 4hrs with 59/15. Either way it appears to be a lot lower than what Barry (i think that was his name) stated in the youtube video. He said 7 hrs battery life which just is not going to happen with the stock battery with 57-59 whr. I mean for 7 hrs then it has to draw 8 watts which i doubt can happen with normal usage.

Edit: He also said up to 14 hrs with the slice since the slice doubles battery life. So that would really be ~120 whr/15 watts or 8 hrs at best with the slice. Seems like a lot of money to get to 8 hrs with the $200 slice.

 

The CPU will underclock when its not being used, this happens to basically all Intel CPU's, and i would assume AMD aswell.

They only speed up when the load is placed on it, whether its running on battery or plugged in.

There are some controls in windows for setting up minimum CPU speeds ect, but i would leave it, the CPU is not crippled in any way, its just trying to save battery.

 

4 hours battery life?
Does this mean the Acer 3820 will also have a bad battery like this?
I understand if the numbers are off by an hour or so, but from 7 hours to 4 hours... really?

 

does it underclock or does it just stay at the normal frequency? I asked this question earlier and was told that it the stays at normal frequency (no turbo boost) and does not underclock less than that. that was apparently an issue with a previous envy model . the underclocking was hard scripted into the bios and was not changeable.

edit: i was not able to get anyone to confirm that this was fixed in the new envy but i think it's pretty much assumed.

 

Well based on the numbers thats what it seems to be. Unless there is some sort of magic involved i dont see how it can reach 7 hours with average person usage e.g. wifi, web, email.

 

must ... hold..... onn!!!!

 

What's wrong with a cpu underclocking? My desktop core 2 duo does it...why would you want it to run at a frequency that isn't needed and waste power? You wouldn't even notice? I don't get it

 

Normal frequency but the multiplier drops (i think, not 100% on all this). Subsequent voltages drop aswell, though not dramatically.

You can usually disable it in BIOS, though obviously if its locked maybe not. But it really only saves battery, the speeds pick up again when the CPU is places under load.

 

yes, all battery claims are exaggerated. to get the real battery life, always divide what they claim by 2.

for acer 3820tg, it's different. it comes with a 67 Whr with an idle draw of approximately 12 watts. i'm not sure how they get it to do that but they did

67/12 = 5.6 hours is battery life for the 3820tg

 

Oh I see I was miss informed then. So basically only if the speed is needed it will used it to its fullest whether its plugged in or not. I thought if it was say a i5 core at max say 2.5 when on battery it would only reach half that speed even if it needed to use all 2.5.

Well then maybe I should cancel my order then for my m11x. I got the i7core with 4gigs and 250gig @ 7500 rpm for 925.00 with tax and shipping. It was a great deal, but it seems that this envy 14 is looking good right. What do you guys think. I like running my games on highest settings and I dont think I will be able to with the m11x. Games I play are bf2bc and MOH beta and cod 2. Would the i5core be able to run these games at highest settings.

 

Yes, the Envy 15 would downclock a 2.26GHz chip to 1.2GHz on battery and wouldn't go higher. User has no control on the Envy 15 it seems.

Back to Envy 14, if normal web use, etc is only 4 hrs, then this is a whole new ball game for me. Although I don't see much out there that is much better as far as weight and components in a total package, adding 1.5lbs with a slice battery and +$200 makes this a 6.5+ lbs laptop for almost $1600 with taxes normal price for i5-520m, 500GB HDD, and the battery of course, about $1900 if you opt for the SSD. The Vaio Z is looking a little more appetizing. $1700 gets you the 128GB SSD with 1600x900 screen, GT 330m GPU and 5 hrs real use battery life, in a 3lbs. package.

 

we are talking about forced underclocking... not allowing me to use my cpu at normal frequency on battery if i need it (ie. high performance mode)
on some envy's, the cpu would still underclock in high performance mode.

edit: person above me said it as i was posting, can't delete my post^^

 

1. i don't think that the i5 will turbo boost when unplugged, but it shouldn't downclock (see previous posts for details)
2. your bottleneck is the gpu, check this chart: Notebookcheck: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 bfbc2 will play on high at 25 fps, 14 at ultra (unplayable)

 

Z starts @ $1919....

 

I think your right sony vaio Z is looking good right now. Where did you see them for 1700 though??

 

i found it on newegg about a month ago for 1700 but i didn't have access to my funds then. I'm not sure if that deal is still there.

fyi, 5650>330m

 

microcenter has it at $1699

linky

 

lol $1900 for base config of Vaio Z? Thats pretty expensive.

With some higher end upgrades on the Envy 14 you can get a much cheaper but powerful laptop.

-i7-720QM
-6GB RAM
-160GB SSD
-1GB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 5650
-14.5'' HD Radiance Screen
-2x 8-Cell Batteries

All this for $1864.99 w/o Student Discount or Tax....

Not bad IMO

 

I'm almost going to go for the E14 now, but I still have one last reservation before I'm really sure: Compared with i5 540 or i7 620 or i7 Q's, how different is the core i5 520/450? i.e. what can those more powerful CPUs do that the i5 520/450 can't? I know the core i5 CPUs that the E14 is configurable with right now is definitely enough for me for now (I play some games and do some pretty heavy stuff in photoshop, but otherwise just normal video watching/web surfing etc.), but I probably won't be getting a new laptop for 4-5 years, so I don't know how the i5's on then ENVY 14 now will hold up in the future and if I should just get a notebook with a better processor.

I actually have an old Compaq that's 5 yrs old right now and I can't do much without the CPU going to 90-100%, and it cost 1.5k when I bought it...so basically will it be better in the future if I get a faster processor now, or will future programs etc inevitably kick it's butt anyway so it wouldn't matter?

If anyone has any input I'd really appreciate it!

 

So I have this order for Envy 14 which in production and is to be shipped on the 8th.

520M, 320GB (I have Crucial C300 256GB SD to swap in), 4gb

$1278

However, I I found a B-stock Sony Z11 at CDW today which I bought...
520M, 4GB, 192GB SSD, 900x1600 screen for $1780

I called in to HP to cancel my order (but they offered me some extra incentive not to cancel my order. I really like Sony Vaio which I am typing on right now, but now I am to receive Envy 14... so I will have to choose between two). There is a $600 difference.

I am getting 500Mb+ and 300mb+ read and write speeds on Vaio ssd. I think Vaio is more aesthetically pleasing than Envy but I have have to decide if that is worth $600 for me. Any idea?

 

^^if i had the money, i'd take the sony in a heartbeat.

 

How much incentive did they offer?

 

The preliminary battery life numbers are somewhat disappointing. I see no reason that the dv6 should be getting the same battery life as the Envy and the dm4 should be getting more, both with smaller batteries

 

Well you have to ask yourself whats the big difference. Personally with that much money you can upgrade the Envy 14 to even better specs than the base Sony Z. Anyhow it all comes down to preference, I still don't see what the Vaio Z provides that would be greater than the E14-but then again I won't bother checking since I can't buy it anyways.