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

So can the envy handle all the task I posted up earlier? should i buy it? Help please

 

Care to link to the post, give the page number, or repost them? This thread moves pretty fast, and many questions get lost.

 

(Broke down quote to minimize page consumption-but I read the entire original post)

Well said Zeth, I really-really appreciate you summing this up for me and want to start off by saying~Thank you.

I wasn't a big fan of the OS X, but I figured that for 90% of the applications I was or did plan on using (as you stated) I would need Windows for. Not to mention, this alone would bring the battery life down almost 50% of its life on OS X. Weight and touchpad doesn't really matter to me that much, even though the touchpad was fun to play around with, it isn't a necessity. So...all-in-all E14 is better for me in literally every aspect.

Thanks for solidifying my questions/concerns about MBP, think I can officially say I won't buy it.

 

Give it a shot. Scrolling is activated via Synaptics drivers. Synaptics Scrybe lets you open up different webpages using gestures. I can do it on my Asus touchpad which BTW isn't considered a "multitouch" touchpad.

 

there u go

 

I think you'll be fine doing those tasks. The Core i5 and 5650 are both extremely capable. If you're really worried and don't need the battery life, go with an i7. Honestly, I think the vast majority of people buy a quad-core thinking they need them, or it will improve performance doing whatever it is they're doing, but most of the time it really doesn't make a difference.

 

anyone know if fatwallet discount work with hp academic pricing?

 

To everyone who ordered the Link Sleeve from HP, do you think it can handle the weather in Syracuse, NY. I plan on keeping the E14 in a sleeve with my books in a bag, and I'm worried melting snow could damage it. (I know that I'm a paranoid super-freak)
And if not, can you guys recommend some sleeves or link me to them?

 

Oranges >>>>> apples. Mushrooms >>>>> anchovies as pizza toppings. Coke >>>>> pepsi.

Individual preference.

Kind of looking that way, yep.

Looking forward to seeing some battery life numbers... that 3:51 estimate with 78.1% remaining in one of the batterybar screenshots isn't too terrible, but it extrapolates out to ~4:56 at 100%. Hoping for more than that.

 

The Macbook Pro has a 77Whr battery. HP envy14 has 59Whr.

 

The thing with the MBP is that that one battery is it. With the Envy 14 you can swap batteries or choose to use the slice, or both!

 

terrible example

 

Swapping batteries is a hassle, and the slice seems to be pretty heavy, and a bit obtrusive.

Anyhow, if the slice drops $100 in price, I'll go with it.

 

is the i5 more optimized for working? I'd like to go for a good processor with an awesome architecture, Large data bus, a lot of cache and lots of processing power..is having more physical cores better?

 

How thick is the e14 anyway?

 

I don't know of too many people out there who order extra batteries. Batteries in general are expensive and by the time you need to replace it, it's time to buy a new notebook anyway. A slice only adds to total carrying weight.

 

i5-450>i3-370, its got the turbo boost, and double the bus speed of the i5-520. If you dont plan on doing any VMs, get the i5-450.
More cores is better, but it eats up the battery life like a hungry hungry hippo.
If you dont care about money or battery go with the i7

 

Rofl! Funny thing is I sold my old WoW account for $1200 which is paying for my Envy 14!!!!

 

Let's say this, if you had an i5 and an i7 that both have two cores and are the same clock speed, they will perform almost identically. They are virtually the same architecture.

However, most of the i7s have four cores. More physical cores is better only if you have software that will actually utilize them. If you don't care about battery life and are going to be using CAD software or something intensive like that, Core i7 may be the way to go.

It's just hard to recommend an i7 in the Envy 14 due to the terrible battery life that results from it. I feel like maybe you should consider the Envy 17.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-owners-lounge-forum/493715-official-hp-envy-14-owners-lounge.html

specs are about 1/5th of the way down.

 

Erath could you give us the battery life or power draw (you can read with the other battery software after a good 15 minutes of waiting) on windows's energy saving mode ?
Battery life without intel turbo boost especially ?
You can test the two by opening 3 website with with flash content at the same time in chrome or firefox and disable any kind of sleep or screen saving option.
Would be much appreciated, thanks.

 

Oh and how long do SSD's last for aprox? I want to get the 160GB SSD with my envy but if it only lasts me a year then stuff that! So anyone know aprox how long it would last? If it lasts 3 years+ I'm getting it.

 

It will last more than three years. There's so much hype and misinformation about SSDs.

Don't worry about how long it will last.

 

Are you absolutely sure? I have read that some only last 1 year. I don't want to pay so much for an awesome laptop and then it dies after a year.

 

Oh thank's guys. I'm checking out the envy 15 and 17 as we speak. I'm just going to search up the software and see if they benefit with 4 cores. Thanks for the help i guess, does the eny 14 had a optical drive that's internal or is it still external? any other things i should i know?

 

they'll last longer than that. Unless you get a bad drive or something, nothing a warranty can take care of. But no, overall they are supposed to last for awhile. Theoretically, for a notebook computer they should last longer than most HDD since they can be moved, shaken, whatever while being accessed without getting locked up or have hardware failure..

 

the 14 has an internal optical, but the 15 has an external optical. the 15 hasn't been upgraded yet, either wait, or look at the 17.

 

What you need to be asking is "how long does Intel's X25-M SSD last?" It's impossible to answer your original question because there is a huge amount of variation within the SSD category. However, the 160gb Intel X25-M we're supposedly getting in the E14 is more or less the gold standard for current SSD's. Other drives may have higher read/wright numbers, but you can't judge a SSD on those numbers alone. The controller in the drive plays a huge role in both overall real-world speed and drive lifespan.

Intel X25-M SSD: Intel Delivers One of the World's Fastest Drives*

From Page 4: How Long Will Intel's SSDs Last?

"SSD lifespans are usually quantified in the number of erase/program cycles a block can go through before it is unusable, as I mentioned earlier it's generally 10,000 cycles for MLC flash and 100,000 cycles for SLC. Neither of these numbers are particularly user friendly since only the SSD itself is aware of how many blocks it has programmed. Intel wanted to represent its SSD lifespan as a function of the amount of data written per day, so Intel met with a number of OEMs and collectively they came up with a target figure: 20GB per day. OEMs wanted assurances that a user could write 20GB of data per day to these drives and still have them last, guaranteed, for five years. Intel had no problems with that.

Intel went one step further and delivered 5x what the OEMs requested. Thus Intel will guarantee that you can write 100GB of data to one of its MLC SSDs every day, for the next five years, and your data will remain intact. The drives only ship with a 3 year warranty but I suspect that there'd be some recourse if you could prove that Intel's 100GB/day promise was false."


*It's a slightly older article, but it's still relevant. See http://www.anandtech.com/show/2808 for a similar review of the 2nd gen drives; which are what we are supposed to get in the E14.

 

they have no moving parts, unlike normal hdds, so they should last longer and have a significantly lower fail rate

have you ever had ram die on you? any other flash-memory based device?

ive had so many problems with platter based hdds in the last few years that im getting a ssd mostly because im sick of issues and failure and disk errors, etc

 

So I'm guessing that the 100GB/day transfer and 3-year guarantee means most people won't notice any significance performance degradation?

 

That has nothing to do with degradation.

People won't notice it anyways, the Intel X25 series has good firmware based garbage collection, and the X25 G2 series has TRIM support, which is what helps prevent degradation.

 

Thanks! That helped heaps.

 

does this look legit? the configuration would cost almost twice as much as hes selling for.

New Hp Envy 14 Series Price $900 - Computers & Software, Sell & Buy - Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom - Kugli.com

 

I guess I've had really really bad luck with flashed based memory, had 3 16gb Patriot Xporters fail, and 4 1gb sticks of OCZ DDR2 ram fail.
Not to mention about 9 Samsung Platter HDDs, i only use Western Digital now.

Btws, what brand HDD comes in the Envy 14?

 

One last question. If I get the SSD, will it save battery power? Would it be something small like 5 minutes or would it be a big improvement like 1 hour?

 

A tiny improvement, if anything at all.

Maybe a bit noticeable if you have a very low power drive like an OCZ Agility 2 or Vertex 2. In some instances, SSDs consume more power than HDDs (probably not more than a 7200RPM drive, though).

 

based on the looks of the site. I wouldn't give it half a shilling. Those places scare me.

 

wow, i guess i've been lucky

i never had a standard hdd fail on me till about a year or so ago, so i guess i've been lucky on the hardware front *knocks on wood*

of course, now i'm having hdd problems left and right

 

oh nice hmm what else is there i should know about? ahh do u guys already own a envy 14? done any intensive high cpu/gpu work yet? how is battery life when say gaming vs. browsing web vs. media vs. idle vs computation physics/engineering or anything cpu and/or gpu intensive?

 

I've had more RAM issues than HDD issues to be honest. But yeah, in theory no moving parts means less risk of failure.

 

Wow, people must not want to get near you during a thunder storm!

I've been fortunate I guess, as I have never had a HD, RAM, or Flash memory of any kind die on me.

 

See page 16 of the article I posted. It boosted their laptop's battery life by 6%, or 27 minutes, over the 160gb 7200rpm drive it originally came with.

 

Remember the saying, if its too good to be true, then it probably isnt.

 

Anything that uses more computing power is going to give you less battery. No one's tried gaming yet, but when viewing a DVD it lasts 2.5ish hours.
I guess i haven't experienced the portable world yet, but I don't believe I would be away from a standard power outlet, while using my noetbook for more than 4 hrs.
I certainly wouldn't be gaming without being plugged in, nor using very intensive engineering programs without the plug.

when gaming, I would estimate 1.5hrs before you've completely drained it.
Web browsing is around 3.5-5 hrs (noone is really sure)
Idle is estimated at 7 on lowest brightness
DVD is 2.5 hrs
Gaming and physics is around 1.5hrs

I would assume that a less intensive OS, such as Linux or Chromium would get you a much greater battery life

 

Can you buy the slim fit battery later on when it's cheaper?

 

The samsung and Xporter were just RMAs from newegg, They finally gave up and sent me a more expencive WD HDD to replace the Samsung(WD is running almost 4 years now). The Xporter works now and has been going strong for almost a year!

 

More like "If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is."

 

was just about to say that.

 

was just about to say that.

 

Awesome man. So before i ask anything else. I have never heard or used an eSATA port. what the hell is it? Is it faster then USB? what device uses eSATA? A sensor or something?