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

Are you going to be using headphones, or what? If you want the best audio possible, wouldn't it be better to get an expresscard sound card to improve things? Even so, I'm told that most laptops come with an integrated HD sound card.

If you want great speakers while at home, invest in a decent 2.1, 5.1, or 7.1 system. If you're constantly on the go, you always have iPod speakers.

 

The next advance in audio will probably come when a company teams up with cowon for their notebook dsp and audio output (headphone jack, not speakers). Maybe a future envy release or some other higher end notebook in will add something like that in.


Would be nice too if someone more technically inclined about audio quality did tests on various laptop audio outs to measure noise and clarity and whatever else.


EDIT: the audio out is supposed to be better than average on the envy series, but it's the kind of thing that is hard to quantify. It's like going to an audio forum like head-fi and asking for subjective opinions on can quality.

 

Have to agree with Zeth here. Not that Envy beats audio is not good. It is. But nothing quite compares to external speakers and/or a good set of studio monitor headphones. Music. movies and gaming with externals or a good pair of studio monitors is the shiznits.

It's a very rare thing to find good speakers on a notebook. And they pretty much all use the same audio subsection made by either IDT(sigmatel) or Realtek. I think Apple and Sony use something else.

So the subject of tonight's lecture is rhythm. The beat. The driving force that holds our live together. So with that let's say, hip-hip. Chin-chin.

 

Victor Wooten would have a field day with tonight's lecture.

But yes I do have a good pair of Logitech z-2300 speakers... I like them, and I think they are pretty good quality.

But I just wanted to know about Beats for when I am not at home or something

 

well both 15s ive seen at bestbuy, idling with no battery.....hot to touch; other laptops around it were nowhere close in heat

 

as a bit of an audiophile i'm drawn to the beats feature for just that, but i don't expect much else from it other than some cleaner output

 

Uh-oh.

List:

1. <s>Envy 15</s>

1. Envy 14.

 

I've had the same experience, only it was at the Microsoft Store.

 

...and that's with a perforated counter beneath it for total air flow. god forbid someone puts it on a desk or *gasp* a lap

 

@Lvivkse

the envy 15s that you saw were the first gen, they are hot.

the envy 15 2nd gen, don't get nearly as hot.

Stop saying things that you don't know, I had a envy 15 gen 1 and complained a lot about the heat

Those at the microsoft store were also gen 1

 

Yeah, I thought so.

 

only HP has the commercialization option of the gen 2 in the world of large retailers. And in canada there is only the gen1 available.

Which is a shame the gen2 arrived in Brazil, with a price tag of 4000 dollars

 

yep the ones at the Bestbuy and other stores are the first gen, canada bestbuys dont have the second gens on display or at all..

the cpu is under the palm rest i was told? but they were extremely hot to the touch, the second gen doesn't suffer from that.

 

That's really cool. How'd you do that?

 

So I was wondering... did anybody notice that there's no vent holes where the RAM is located? Why would they put a long vent through the middle, where when you pop off that panel, it's just sitting in a random spot where there's this long felt black tape (according to erathostenes' photos)?

Strange HP...

 

I've seen two 15s, nothing I said was wrong

 

Hehe. Nabbed that off a tumblr blog.

 

I'm planning on pairing the HP Media Docking Station ( HP USB Media Docking Station | HP® Official Store) with this monitor for my home office ( Newegg.com - ASUS MS238H Glossy Black 23" 2ms Ring stand & Ergo-fit LED backlight LCD Monitor Slim Design Built-in Speakers250 cd/m2 10,000,000 :1 (ASCR))

Do you think I will be able to get the 1080p resolution on the monitor with a VGA cable?

 

I don't think laptop RAM gets particularly hot, or at least not like desktop RAM that needs heatspreaders. Especially stuff an OEM puts in there, it's generally not high-end stuff.

 

You can get 1920 x 1080 over VGA no problem. As for progressive scan, AFAIK, all computer output is non-interlaced (progressive).

 

You're probably right. I just thought that they might get hot, since this is a high-performance comp. My dv2610us only gets hot where the HDD is (palmrest), and where the CPU is (top left of keyboard, around the WASD region). Hopefully this comp will blow the air out well, cuz there's no circulation/vents where the fan's are located-which is another worry for me.

 

But do you get the free iPod touch?

 

I agree with you about the circulation, I'm wondering if it's only pulling in air from that single slotted vent on the bottom of the notebook. The cooling design looks like it would be effective if it had enough air for the fans to pull...

We'll see though-- early reports on here have said it doesn't really get that hot.

 

there are none ram for laptops that get hot, actually the 1333mhz is the fastest right now, with a doubtful CAS9 against the 1066 CAS7...

@Lvivkse

you didn't even knew that there were gen 1 and gen 2?

The motherboard is different to the point that even changing only that the pc was cooler.

 

I wish the envy 13 had i5 (or even i3) processor with an ATI 5650 graphics card. That would be sick, I'd much rather have the 13 inch than the 14 because I need to take it to school. Oh well.

 

Well, the i5's arent supposed to get hot though, right? I'm just worried that the GPU itself would get hot. Time to bust out the ____ (bevel/bezel/dowel/dreidel/dunno the name-the thing that you use to drill plastic, to carve out your initials or to smooth/sand down small surfaces)?

 

I'm aware of it, but how the heck should I know what SKU I was looking at

 

the gpu is different 4830 against the 5830

 

14.1 is what my notebook is. 15inch isnt that bad. 16in is pushing it though, for lecture hall desks.

 

I sampled a MacBook Pro (13.3 inch) for the first time today. I was amazed how good the build quality was. Just... incredible! I'm hoping the Envy will feel similar.

 

Well, if you look at the photos, the GPU and CPU share a single heat pipe, with the CPU having an additional heat pipe.

Heat pipes won't matter if there isn't sufficient airflow to the actual fins of the heatsink to dissipate the heat.

 

Go to your local Frys and feel up the E13. It's gonna be very similar. Hell, even feel up the G5x and G7x and the dv series. They're pretty similar in build. There's even a Compaq that has similar shape to the ENVY line.

I'm beginning to think that this is what "MUSE" means. It seems like a chassis code. Similar to how The Camry = ES = HS-hybrid, or how Accord = TSX = Crosstour. Shady as$ HP and their marketing. Fortunately, their marketing only reaches youtube, and not mainstream TV haha.

 

I don't know if it is considered 'hot' but my RAM gets to 60 degrees celsius at times when I am doing some serious multi-tasking or a program that uses heaps of RAM. But I don't think it needs a heat sink or whatever they're called.

 

In the case of E14, is that a good thing or a bad thing? What should we do? Should we panic/worry?

 

Shady might not be the word, more like "misinforming." On purpose or not, many of HPs claims about the Envy 14 have been false so far.

Panic? No. Our friends in Germany who have had their Envy 14s for a bit here haven't reported it getting particularly hot, even while doing lighter gaming (WoW, I think it was?). Just because it looks like it won't cool well doesn't mean that it's actually not going to cool well.

We really just need someone to load up Crysis or Furmark and let it run for 15 or 20 minutes, that'll give us an indication of how hot it will get.

 

I'm not talking about the claims regarding E14, I'm talking about their "MUSE" scheme, which means absolutely nothing to me. I'm guessing MUSE just refers to the chassis shape (cuz all the notebooks I listed earlier look exactly the same, minus the actual materials used). They appear to be made from the same mold.

 

I second that. I'll mail a candybar to anyone who's willing to do the test

 

Very unfortunate but seems like this is the case.

I vote for Crysis. Even FarCry2. Borderlands also. There's more going on with these games than with the benchmark progs.

Also to report ambient room temps. Can't tell you how many arguments occurred in the past because of that missing info.

 

your best bet on stressing things out is playing empire total war or napoleon total war, those are demanding games both cpu and gpu wise

 

it's just a design ethos for hp's design team. MUSE = materials, usability, sensory appeal, and experience. they carried it out to the envy line, pavilions, and mini series. basically these notebooks have similar design characteristics, which i think is nice but probably saves HP bunch of money to produce.

 

Okay, so basically, we're looking at ~5:00 without the slice battery doing the usual light office tasks, half-brightness or so, and with Wi-Fi on, right?

 

I'd say more like 4 hours. It was 4:10 with 60% brightness and wi-fi on doing light web browsing.

 

huh? empire total war? not on the gpu, its just the poor programming and glitches that bogs the game down

 

It's estimated shipping day!

 

try to play it with all details, you're not going to get it depending on the map, climate, unit number... the problem here is that the game uses too much vram and other processor intensive tasks leading the gpu to be overstressed, although the fps are good...

the only board that I saw that could play the game with all details was a 5870 with 2g

I'm a member of the TWC community, try to drop by there sometime, right now the ite is down

 

Shouldn't there be some air vents under the laptop where the fans are? The e14 only has 1 vent running along the middle of the laptop about where the heat sink is.

 

i've lurked the forums from time to time. i played empire on my desktop though

i eventually quit the game after conquering Britain caused the game to collapse into itself. I don't think I've ever been so frustrated with a game.

 

I think he was asking how you posted an animated gif.
Us underlings can hardly do anything beyond simpl text formatting, quoting, and linking.
hell, we can't even cross out text in quotes

 

right now empire is quite good, the most famous mod for that game is now the darthmod 6.0 encore...

but darthmod for me destroys the game.... although I played a older version, it intensified the bugs in strategy...

so yeah... I like the series but the AI is very poor

@protoid you can go advanced for more features... but the one to post a image is right beside the one to post a link

 

Can anyone tell me if it's possible to get an i5 processor with switchable graphics.. and then upgrade it with an i7 quad so I can have an i7 with switchable graphics?