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

build and ship date means "when we get it out of the factory and over to fed ex" not when it gets to your house

 

Honestly, I called HP this morning about the price drop and the rep told me nothing has changed. She also "claims" of no additional "slice" battery for sale (standalone) currently. Only can order it when configuring the laptop originally.

Maybe I should call back and get a different rep? Plus, I forgot to use my EPP.

Mine is supposed to ship today, but I did ground shipping.

 

I also called HP about the price drop this morning and to get a status update on my order.

1) Regarding the Price Drop - it did come to 24.50 and she was going to credit it but offered me another deal instead. She offered a free notebook sleeve for the notebook instead (priced at 37.76). I was going to get one anyway, so I took the deal.

2) Order update. She says it should ship out BY tomorrow if not already, but won't get an order update until it clears customs (since it's coming from China) which takes one day.

 

Oh I understand that; I just think it's funny that they've put the dates so close together. Looking at it without any prior knowledge of HP's history of ineptitude, one might look at that July 14th build/ship date and think that it'll be built on the 14th and at my house by the 16th as I got 2-day shipping. However, something tells me that HP will have a hard time getting my E14 from the production line in China to my front door in Ohio in only 48 hours

 

If you ordered the i450 or i520 before price drop, call in and tell them to check your order because what you paid was more than what is being advertised on their site.

 

Are you one of those people who ordered on the 27th or28th?

 

WTH! I ordered my laptop on the hour of release. And has not shipped yet ):<
I was awaiting this day all week, damit.

And yeah, regarding price drop, I just got 22.52 dollars back onto my debit card, which was sweet. lol

 

What is everybody's feeling on the release date of the 540m and the Beats Edition case?

 

has a proper battery test been done yet?

 

Yeah, it first has to clear customs. But once they do, they're flown in to the US (talk about a carbon footprint!) and, if you paid for 2 day, yours might be then be flown to your local distribution point. The flight from China to the US is about 13 hours, so depending on their turn around speed, two day is possible... But I doubt it

 

my estimated build/ship date is july 16. forgot to tell you guys

 

What IS a notebook sleeve anyway?

edit: I mean is it like a little case for the notebook? 'cause I remember getting one of those with my older notebooks. I used it for a little while but eventually said "screw it" and just tossed it in my backpack.

which worked fine.

 

it's like laptop foreskin

 

Whelp. (10char)

 

For those of you on the Envy already and who have ever used a MacBook Pro: how does the trackpad compare in functionality and usage?

I did see mention of how off-center clicks (not tap-to-click, presumably) are a little stiff, but I'm just curious as to whether anyone has any more detailed comments. Two-fingered scrolling, other gestures?

 

people say its ok, not as good as the mbp, but it does the job.

 

actually, the z series is thicker at its thickest point, which is probably how the drive can fit.

 

Noooooooooooooooooo my Envy hasn't shipped yet! BTW I love those temps from like 20 pages back hah.

 

well some dude said it's gotta go through customs for a day so...


If it ain't shipped by the 9th, then you really know it's late

 

Also, the Z has a Tray Loading Bluray. No one ever said that a Bluray drive couldn't fit into the Envy 14 .... only a Slot Loading Bluray is not possible right now.

 

Wow, after waiting and talking to the rep for almost 30 minutes, they gave me a credit back for the difference, which in all actuality brought the price down to my EPP price (LogicBuy $50 credit plus his additional credit).

Still nothing about the slice battery as a standalone option to purchase, which is stupid. I commented on the fact of their poor verbiage regarding the slice battery when you customize the laptop.

 

new envy front page on hp HP® - Laptops, Desktop, Printers, Servers, and more

 

I received one of those UPS slips today claiming that they had a package they needed signed (21 and older-first attempt). For a second I got excited...until I realized my Build date alone is July 8th-Too good to be true. Oh well, I'll find out what it is tomorrow (second attempt), sadly they're coming again at a time when I'm usually not at home (10:20am-12:30pm)....

Btw the slip doesn't specify as to what the package is....so...

 

It's thickest point is at the back where the lid hinge is. The DVD drive is at the front of the Z at the thinnest point. I just toyed around with one the other day. If the 256GB SSD config wasn't so expensive I'd go that route over the Envy 14. 128GB is just too small for my needs.

 

i still think 13.3 inch screens are too small

 

Well yeah, there's that too. If Sony could make a 14" or 15" with GT 335m or 340m (if they exist?) and keep weight at 4 lbs battery life would probably be awesome too. Only thing I don't like about nVidia and Sony are the hybrid graphics drivers are never updated apparently.

 

Nvidia has a new Driver programs as of a month or 2 ago. It should mean that they release the same drivers for desktops and laptops (ie one driver release for all GPU's Mobile and Desktop), and have at least 1 driver release a month. My experience with Optimus on the work laptop is fantastic, once they fixed the teething issues.

Im want to see the mainstream mobile 4** series GPU's, they should have slightly better battery / performance ratios then the current ATI stuff, and you dont need to worry about switching as the laptop does it all automatically as it needs it, regardless of if your on battery or plugged in.

 

i'm fine with mine. for a while i considered it to be the perfect laptop size.

now i want a bit bigger

i think its mostly a height thing, the 16:9 displays are shorter and thats dumb considering the internet is very vertical

 

It also mentions that you can "save up to $300 including free upgrades", but it is the 15 on the ad, but it also shows the Envy 14 as an option when you click it, *crosses fingers*

Of course technically, that lojack upgrade could be the only one for the Envy 14, but I'll ignore that to keep me happy

Edit:HP still being sneaky with their processors, claim it comes with an i5 on the Beats page while any other computer with a base i3 states i3,lol.

 

Yea the 13.3 inch + low resolution on the mbp 13" is already a major turnoff for me without even starting to read the processor and graphic specs.

 

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this statemnt is false.

I killed my netbook's battery using this logic, and had it sitting on hibernate for close to 3 weeks. Hibernate still uses some power, even though it's ever so little. I'm not sure what it uses it for exactly, probably to keep the HDD state it was left in. Either way, when I went to go use my netbook again lo and behold the battery would not recharge; the li-ion cells had been drained to absolute 0%, leaving me with a forever dead battery and a frown.

So you can't swap batteries while on hibernate from my understanding. You should do a complete shutdown because as soon as you remove the battery it loses that HDD state data.

Is this mostly correct? I'd like to know my battery did not die in vain!

 

1:00 PM EST and no shipment notice or status update. C'mon HP, don't put me through the same thing I went through with my Envy 15...

 

So what do the GPU temps look like while doing intensive things? Any updates on that?

 

unfortunately, not everything is done on the internet or a web browser

 

I thought the 5650 could only drive 2 screens at once? Are you using both external outs plus internal in this pic??

 

That's probably just because your battery died and not hibernate's fault. From what I understand, hibernate just means it stores whatever's in your ram to a file and then shuts down. When you turn your computer back on, it puts everything in the file back to memory, leaving you with where you left off.

 

Well, hibernate writes everything that was going on when you initiated it to the hard disk, then "shuts down" the computer. I've had a similar experience, however (though it didn't kill my battery). When shut down, I can leave my laptop off for days or weeks and notice no (or minimal) change in the battery. However, on hibernate, it usually wakes back up several days later with 10-20% less of a charge than it had previously. Considering my UL30A-A2 easily gets 8-10 hours (REAL hours!) on a charge, I doubt it chewed through that much of a charge just shutting down and waking back up from the hibernate.

I have a feeling that hibernate keeps certain system sensors on (perhaps temp sensors, free fall sensors for hard drives, etc.), which slowly suck down some of the juice. It's sort of like keeping turning a desktop computer off (shutdown) but still plugged in - there are several LEDs on my motherboard that stay lit unless the computer is physically unplugged.

 

I don't know what you call hibernate, but if it's the extended hibernation mode a laptops automatically enter to when they hit 5% battery, you can perfectly swap a battery. That hibernation mode is basically a shut down of the computer plus a save of the state of currently opened applications and such.

 

It's an illusion if you look at the laptop screen you seen pic of 2 monitors and the laptop... Look at the screen in the pix

 

thats why im a 16:10 fan. best of both worlds. abover 17" i like 16:9 though

 

Yer if you look he is using the mini-display port and HDMI port as well as the Laptop screen. This IS NOT considered Eyefinity as each display has a different resolution and Eyefinity drives one massive resolution over multiple screens.

The 5650 can drive 6 displays which on the Envy 14 means 2 as it has only two display ports. But it can drive another 3 as USB ports can be used with adapters to connect to more external displays.

 

wot you saying that the laptop screen isnt running just the two externals?

 

I ordered on the 27th

 

They're running 2 monitors but look at the laptop screen it's a picture of the picture

No I'm not on drugs xD

 

I just bought a Momentus XT from Newegg for my new Envy 14 thinking that it would be a perfect match of SSD and traditional HDD, But the more i read articles and reviews, i get less and less confident in my purchase. On Newegg there is some reviews of there being a spin down problem which causes lag. Also this article i just read Today's solid-state drives: The value perspective - The Tech Report - Page 11 which shows not that much performance boost if not lower performance in some categories than a standard 7200 drive. Should i just return it and wait for the SSD's to come down in price and put it towards that?

Also dont try to convince me into buying a SSD right now, its just to impractical for me. Way to much money for so little space.

 

No you are mistaken, as the laptop screen may be a picture of the surroundings, it is in face different than the actual picture posted. (look at the angle and differences between the two)

He is driving three displays, two monitors and the laptop display itself.

 

Thanks guys for de-mystifying the hibernate mode for me. + rep for you all

The battery in question was a third party battery so its reliability is certainly in question.

 

Wow, this is a LOOOOOOOOONG thread. I'm new to the thread, please don't kill the newbie!

I'm an owner of a Thinkpad T410s and after one of the worst warranty experiences known to man, I'm on the market for a new laptop. I just found out about the Envy 14 and have read about 200 pages of this thread but had a couple of questions. First, thanks to all the owners for posting their impressions! It's been a huge help.

1. How's the keyboard? I've read that it's pretty good, but I've been spoiled by a Thinkpad keyboard for several months. Can anybody offer a comparison?
2. I've read about 100 posts debating the battery life. Any definitive word on this yet (after removing HP bloatware), or did I just miss it somewhere in the thread?
3. The build quality seems amazing. How's the build quality in comparison to a MacBook Pro 13? Is the sexy aluminum case easy to scratch/grease up with fingerprints?
4. Anybody got an SSD and can report on boot-up and shut-down times?
5. This is the important one for me after my experience with Lenovo: how's the warranty service for HP? i.e. hypothetically, if my system board needs replacing, are they gonna make me send in my laptop and keep it for a month while they escalate my case a half dozen times and emergency order a part from China?? Sorry, excuse the bitterness seeping through

Thanks in advance to anyone that can help me out!

 

As Anand put it, the Momentus XT doesn't really feel like a SSD when you're using it-- it feels like a fast hard drive.

You can't really get SSD performance without a SSD.

As many have said here, once you go SSD, you don't go back. I'd encourage you to try a PC with a SSD in it.

 

Ok, just finalizing the purchase, and am going to be buying tonight... I was just wondering, is it worth the extra 100 to upgrade to 6GB ram. I have 4 on my desktop atm, and I feel it is just fine for what Im going to be doing. But I always like some wiggle room. Your Opinions?