*HP ENVY 17 & 17 3D (1XXX series) Owners Lounge*

Basically what he is saying is:

740QM and 840QM = more efficient than 720 and 820 QM.

 

Good to read! Sorry, I can't seem to find the information on Amazon's model. On their web page, it says integrated. I'm not sure what that means. Is it Intel Wireless-N 6200?

 

@L3vi

Thanks for the summary. Was trying to answer someone's question about why the 840QM and 740QM are better than the 820QM and 720QM.

The more tired I get, the more I type. It's ironic I know, but I think it's cause of those all-nighters I pulled this past semester and need to pull still.

Time to force myself to go to sleep. This time I'll try smothering myself with a pillow!

 

Metril - BRAVO for the explanation! Well I have the i7-720QM I'll just have to use a cooler.

 

Funny, I thought he was saying: "I'm a scientific/mathematical genius so I'll create the most indecipherable post these people have ever read, yet somehow leave them knowing less than they did before they read it.

No offense, Metril; but your post was rather, shall we say, jargony.

Here's a question for you to answer that does not require the use of mathematical terms, thermodynamics or even integrated circuit manufacturing technology: since the 720m and 820M were the first Core i7 quad cpus for mobile computers, first released in the Winter of 2009, wouldn't they all have been cut from the same wafer, and there was no such thing as 740 and 840 models for the higher binned dies (oops, I used the jargony thing, my bad), how would you even know if you got a high binned 720m in December 2009 or a low binned one? Are you saying that Intel is selling the same chips as they were in December 2009, just marking up the "better" ones (see, no jargon!) to "740, 840" and selling the bottoms of the barrels as "720 and 820? RU sure they didn't alter the chip architecture at all for the 740/840 lines, and that soon there will be no more X20M Core i7 quads?

 

How does a 740QM compare to a 840QM? Which is more efficient? I'm guessing the 840?

 

this laptop and ubuntu is a hit or miss ....
so far ive installed 10.04 twice and 9.10 once, both load fine once or twice, then become unusable/unloadable.

i like dualbooting, but at this point ill have to stick with windows only.

since i keep my personal files on a seperate hdd and my windows install will never get greater than 50gb, i was thinking of going with an intel x25m 80gb ssd....

anyone have any experience with intel ssd's and this notebook ? i think the hp ssd offering is an intel drive as well.

 

@lovelaptops

Yeah, I was jargony. Wanted to take a break from this paper I was writing, but I ended up..well you saw it. Not to mention that 4 mugs of coffee in an hour makes things just go by so fast. At least it does for me.

Pretty sure they didn't alter the architecture for the 720QM to 840QM processors. However, they probably made slight changes for the 920 series because there is a considerable difference in the TDP; about 10 Watts.

As time goes on, the manufacturing process matures and improves. Thus, theoretically all dies would meet the higher binning requirement. However, even if a processor does meet the 740/840QM reqs, it could still be sold as the 720/820QM. Intel periodically does this to meet demand for certain processors. Furthermore, the multipliers are locked. Thus, you can always get lucky and get a processor that runs much cooler than its same binned brothers.

Edited the original. That stuff about phase change and heat exchangers, yeah my paper was on that. I didn't mean to be an *** or showoff or say "I'm a mathematical genius" (definitely not one, but pretty sure the guy who graduated from my high school with a 4.6 GPA is). Tried to relax, but well I couldn't. Maybe if/when my Envy gets here, I'll be able to. We shall see! 2 more hours!


Now a request for those of you who bought from Amazon.

Last time I spoke with an HP rep, we discussed weight balancing in the Envy 17 with regards to the wobble. It is possible that the bottom assembly is too heavy on the left. Thus, the right side lifts up. However, many of you who ordered from Amazon report no wobble. Is it possible that the 2nd hard drive is heavy enough to bring the right side down?

If you guys could try taking out the 2nd hard drive and then check to see if the Envy sits flat, that would be much appreciated. You won't be voiding your warranty because the hard drive is user accessible.

 

Hey, thanks for that, LOL!!! It makes sense. So the moral of the story is not to buy a 720QM at any cost!!!

 

But 740QM is still not as fast as the 820QM because it still only uses 6MB of L3 cache. So it's better to purchase the 820QM over the 720 and 740QMs.
Only there are none left because you guys keep sending your's back!! LOL!!

 

And you did a great job with your answer!! However will there be any Envy17s out there without a wobble??

 

What are people talking about when they say there are gaps?


-Please advise

 

Well I thought your reply was very entertaining. I did take physics so I think I understood most of it. The Envy17 I'm looking at has only one hard drive but 820QM. I could get one with two hard drives but it is only a 720QM. They are the only choices. Wobble or no wobble. Do you think I should definately go with the 820QM?

 

The E17 is not a unibody design. Gaps refers to the spaces between the top "slab" of the notebook and the sidewalls. My E17 for example, has somewhat pronounced gaps at all four corners and there is sliver of a black void or space where the two are supposed to meet. If I position my head just right I can see light from the white LED's seeping through the gap in the lower left corner. I decided that given BCB and i5 this is not a deal breaker.

 

I got that information from an HP rep.

 

I just received my E17 from amazon yesterday and would like to add that there are indeed small gaps at the edges. but personally they don't really bother me.

as for the wobbling, i think depends on how much you actually tilt the screen backwards. (i think its a weight balancing issue) The problem goes away if u are using the 9 cell battery.

I have to say that i am still quite happy with my unit despite the imperfections.

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHH!!!!

"Sir, there are no user replaceable parts on the Envy. The Envy is not just a regular notebook sir, but you already know this seeing as how you purchased one. There are over 60 screws on the keyboard alone!!"

/meanwhile I'm staring at an open drive bay a plastic panel and two screws on the desk/

 

Also they have taken the 820QMs off the market in Australia and NZ. All new Envy17's are either 720QM, 740QM or 840QM in these countries.

 

What are people talking about when they say there are gaps? (Specifically where, how big, All units, supposed to be like tthat!!! ahh!!

Also, How is the audio (real Beats or w/e), is it significantly better than the typical Altec Lansing ones?

Only answer if your not one of these people who are bashing the laptop, cause like someone else said its less than 1/3 of people got a compaint and they fill the board up with their complaints when it reality there are tons of people loving it and havnt taken the time to post how sweet it is.

-I like Objective reviews/comments!

(sorry if this was asked or spoken about here! so many pages!)


-Please advise

Thanks

-LDG

 

Yes I know what you mean! LOL

 

Thank you for the clarification.

 

Well...it's not looking good at all. I started up the computer. Immediately I see a grainy, wavy screen. It's like there's a weak signal. The colors appear very washed out. I did not have this problem on the previous units. Furthermore, this still has the wobble issue.

 

and I thought I had it bad receiving a dead battery and a DOA Seagate Momentus XT HDD. That's rough, what is that like two months between all three units?

My new Seagate came intoday, hopefully BIOS will recognize this one, I can clean install and enjoy my Envy.

 

I don't have a camera handy right now, but basically what they are talking about is that where the two pieces of the case meet, the part around the keyboard, and the bottom part, there is a small gap. I feel like gap is the wrong word to use, because it really isn't that big, but it does vary a bit from laptop to laptop. For me, in the top left and right corners, the space is probably think enough that I could stick the corner of a business card in it, but honestly, it does not bother me one bit. I love the laptop so far.

 

Gaps here

@LDG,

here are gaps which we are talking about.
Pictures were posted earlier in the thread.

 

@NAZ_VEGAS

Yup. Pretty much almost my entire summer trying to get a wobble-free major defect free machine. Getting a refund this time. Ordered 1 from Amazon today. Made my brother click the "Place you order" button.

 

As I said many times, my envy 17 is fine [had it one month now]. I use the larger battery [which is raised] on a Zalman cooler. I720 and 2 x500 gb Hd

I'm sure most are happy with their E17's and are busy with their life. I don't mind the people with more negative comments. I read most of them.

I think that any intelligent person should know that blogs are mostly lopsided by those who want to blog. When people are having problems, they are more likely to complaint. This is fair and interesting to read. We should encourage those to comment as much as they want.

It is our responsibility to weigh all the comments for appropriateness for each of us personally.

Whenever I might purchase anything on line, I read the comments first, I choose the one star posts first to alert me to the potential for problems.

If you want to hear my one month experience

From day 1, I have been looking for gaps everytime someone brings them up. I can never find any unless I start using my gifted imagination. I'm sure they exist for some people and maybe on my computer but I can't find them so I am not going to worry.

From the moment I unpacked I tried to get it to wobble with no avail. Maybe my touch is too light to effect the weight distribution.

I do not game. I have my laptop on 10-12 hours every day continuously. I download music to listen to and have up to 8 windows on continuously -one of which is updating continuously during the morning. Seattle has been cool this summer and I'm in a naturally cool basement so I'm sure things would be different if I lived in Florida and sat on a sunny deck. While the left side get warmer compared to the right side, it is never very hot. I'm not sophisticated to measure temperatures of chips inside nor do I care.

HP has been more than fair with me when prices were marked down.

I have had 3 occasions during the month when downloading a tune from you tube, I got a computer dump error which is unintelligle to me where I had to reboot. ALL 3 occasions were downloading you tube music.

The only complaint I have is the position and small size of the arrow keys. Also because I use a large 25 inch monitor, the laptop sits more at a slight angle on my desk and thus more difficult to access the keys. I will probably get an external keyboard if I can find one to meet my needs.

to summarize for those on the sidelines, I think the E17 is fine and should do the job for most regular non gamers. However I think it is also important for those to be aware of the negatives that other have experienced.

 

Hey guys, I had a question regarding CPU swapping. I currently have an Envy 15 with the i7-720QM and I just got my Envy 17 with the i5-450M. I want to swap the CPUs and I was wondering if there were any peculiarities or certain things I need to know or do before I perform the swap. I'm familiar with the innards of both as I've swapped the HDDs and installed an SSD and taken apart and put back together both laptops a few times now. I don't need instruction on how to perform the swap, I just wanted to know if there are any quirks switching from an i5 with the integrated graphics to an i7 without it. I know when ordering online, HP specified "different" versions of the 5850 depending on whether you chose the CPU with the GMA HD or not. Was there a specific reason for that other than graphics switching?

 

small update, received my 17 from Amazon earlier. Mine does have the wobble, I'm not too concerned about it as it should be an easy fix. I haven't noticed any gaps.

Haven't had the chance to install games yet because I've been so busy uninstalling bloatware! Crap on a cracker.

Does anyone know if it is okay to remove the HP Smartmedia suite? I've read in another thread that doing so messes up your ability to use the keyboard shortcuts for audio control... can anyone confirm that and how it affects things?

installing Steam now, will post those benchmark comments later today.

 

Yeah, it's the only major gripe i have about the Envy 17 (besides the stupid glowing HP logo on the back). A selling point for me was the numeric pad... and then you realize they sacrificed functionality for form. I laugh at the Envy Product Manger's choices sometimes 'cause they almost get it right and then they go and do something edgy with it instead of recognizing that if a numeric keypad is important to the buyer than maybe they want it with full capabilities.

BUT going from the Envy 15 to the Envy 17, like i said before, they pretty much fixed everything I disliked about the envy 15 so I'm very happy about their overall learning curve...

As for the keyboard, I wish they made the eject button a button NOT on the keyboard (say another power button-looking thing on the right-hand side).

That way they'd have the extra button to give us a numlock. Of course for me I want them to give me a dedicated insert key as well, mostly since when using WMWare images, ctrl-alt-insert is the Guest OS's way of receiving a ctrl-alt-del...

but once again, I'm very happy with the Envy17 overall

 

Yes you can uninstall it. It's just HP's proprietary "Media Center-like" set of applications as far as I know

The only HP thing I still have is HP Tone Control, I believe that lets you manage the Audio Beats settings.

Actually on that point, does anyone know what you lose if you uninstall HP Tone Control?

 

I got my Amazon order 2 days ago, no wobble but there are noticable gaps in the upper left, lower left and upper right corner which is very dissapointing because this is something that should not be happening on a so called "premium" pc. Has anyone with amazon returned thiers because of this? I don't think I will. Was just kind of dissapointed to see it there. Im also guessing that it would only be a matter of time anyway even if it didnt have gaps due to the heat. I will probably be looking into the laptop cooler. Right now it sits atop a book which actually has the laptop cool lol. Don't get me wrong though I like the laptop though.

 

Does removing everything besides the Beats setting still allow you to use the audio controls on the top of the keyboard?

 

Hey, has anyone else had the problem where after a restart, Catalyst loses the color adjustments I put in? I put them in when I got the laptop a couple days ago, and it kept them after multiple restarts, but when I started it up today, it was all set to default. Anyone know a permanent solution?

 

Would anyone mind posting a list of the bloatware that can be removed?

Does HP separate the bloatware from the drivers or are they all in one folder?

Thanks.

 

shirleyellenp @ Did you order your Envy 17 to Amazon.ca ? If yes, can you tell me in detail the spec. Thanks

Is there a way to get the HP Envy 17 with 1080p resolution in Canada ?

 

Neil and Lennon thanks for the info and your experiences with it so far. I just ordered mine two days ago and im really excited, I have heard a lot of good things and am not worried about the negative comments cause 21 days will suffice for determining if its a keeper............

The arrow thing I agree with you I also have a new HP g72t and it has the same thing.. but you get used it, its not so bad.

And the funny thing is when I was telling the HP guy about the potential issues and that people are talking about the wobble, heat ect. he said to me dont worry get it and "try it" if it doesnt do what you want it to or it is damaged send it back for a full refund or exchange. That statement reinforced how much I perfer HP and that Ill be the one to make the determination not posts on the internet. So I gave him the magic digits and am waiting for my newborn. Lol.


Thanks again!.. Enjoy your machines! I cant wait for this new badboy.

 

Is it really worth removing all excess software that HP preloads or is it negligible and wont effect anything?.. if so what should you remove and how because honestly im scared to mess stuff up.. like anything important that shouldnt be removed.

I would really appreciate an in depth answer/explaination.

-Thanks!

Thank you!

 

Just a little off topic here, canon camera that I have creates these raw files but I can't see thumbnails. I tried to download raw codec, but hat doesn't help. I found some paid software, but before buying anything I wanted to make sure if there was any free software that can show thumbnails.

 

yes all the "action" keys at the top of the keyboard still work: Screen dim, volume control, mute, wireless, etc...

 

Has anyone else had some trouble with headphones and microphones... I couldn't for the life of me get a microphone to work at all, and then until I disabled the "independent headphones" in windows sound options, I couldn't get my headphones to work with anything but skype. Like all the other sound would still just come out of the speakers. I understand, from having a background in djing, that it could be helpful in those scenarios, but the way they went about doing it is overly complicated...

 

Hey Guys? Quick question.. do you need to burn the recovery disks, I thought windows/hp prelaods it so you can just restore to facory setting.. why do you need recovery disks??? I back up all data to my external... do I need to do this when i get my Envy?

Please Advise..

Thanks!

 

Missing NUMLOCK Key (2nd best/good enough?) Fix for Envy 17 Users

A partial solution for the Envy 17 missing NUMLOCK can be found by using the Windows 7 On-Screen Keyboard. The Windows 7 On-Screen Keyboard is a part of Windows Accessibility features found via the Ease of Access Center and elsewhere. This solution is simpler than loading third party software or hacking the registry to remap keys. You can decide whether it is good enough for you.

The Fix
Press the Windows Key and type the following in the input line: On-Screen Keyboard

Note that the program will probably display after the first few letters are typed.

You can run the program by left clicking on it, but you can also create a shortcut for the desktop for mouse/touchpad access.

To do so, while the program is displayed from doing the above, RIGHT click the program name and hold the right button down, dragging the program to the desktop. This creates a shortcut with an icon that looks like this:



Regardless of how you start the Windows 7 On-screen Keyboard, it will appear like this the first time:



Note that the NUMLOCK key is NOT displayed; however, an Options key is displayed (bottom right).

Click the Options key and then check the "Turn on numeric key pad" box, like this:



Click OK to close the window and the On-Screen Keyboard will look like this:



From now on, starting the On-Screen Keyboard will display the NUMLOCK key.

Note that the NUMLOCK key is highlighted to show that it is ON. This, of course, is the standard boot state of the NUMLOCK key. Clicking this key causes it to go dark, like the other keys. Closing the On-Screen Keyboard leaves the NUMLOCK state as it was at the time of closing.

The Envy 17 numeric keypad number keys will function like most keyboards:

Code:

[FONT="Courier New"]
7-Home		8-CursorUp	9-PgUp
4-CursorLeft	5-nul		6-CursorRight
1-End		2-CursorDown	3-PgDwn
0-Insert			.-Delete[/FONT]

The Code box is used to preserve formatting only.

 

solsviken, I'm really interested in your side-by-side comparison. Any updates?

Did you try tweaking both laptops with some custom monitor profiles?

The Vaio_F12xxx 1080p EU Premium matte is using a dual wide gamut CCFL backlit technology with 100% Adobe RGB color space coverage. How does it compares to the white LED found in the Envy_17 1080p glossy? What is the color space of that display? sRGB color space like the US Vaio_F12 1080p glossy or Adobe RGB?

 

My Amazon order has shipped. I had some trouble with HP when processing the return authorization. They typed my email address wrong so it took longer than it should have, but forgivable. What's not forgivable is that I've gone through 3 Envys and they all had one issue or another. I thought about shimming the 3rd one to fix the wobble, but turns out that the screen is defective. Every boot and shutdown, I see the screen snow up and it looks like a tv receiving a weak signal. Not at all acceptable.

When I spoke to an HP rep, they gave the option of exchange, but with a build date of August 5th. YEAH RIGHT! They delayed my 1st Envy by 4 days. They delayed my 2nd Envy by 11 days. The best they could do was offer a $50 credit?!?! Not going to risk it especially since I am going back to campus mid August.

Well, here's to a good Envy from Amazon. If not, I think I'm going to jump ship. Feel free to throw me a life preserver. If this shipment fails, I'll a pin ready cause I'd rather drown than sail home with HP.

 

Thanks BennyPac!! I forgot that the "0" and "." keys on the keypad mapped to Delete and Insert!!

going back to remapping keys, the easy tool to remap keys on Windows is KeyTweak. A description and download link can be found in this blog:
How do I ... remap my keyboard with KeyTweak? | Microsoft Windows | TechRepublic.com

 

Does your camera comes with any image processing software?
usually installation of that software should allow you to view the raw files as thumbnails.

i know my nikon does.

 

You can download the RAW thumbnail viewer from Microsoft.

 

This link seems to discuss your issue, but only you can say if it fixes it: Canon RAW CR2 files do not work in WINDOWS 7

Taken directly from the link, this text claims a fix:

 

Yes there is the recovery partition on the hard drive which you can use to go back to factory settings should things go belly-up, but if this gets damaged/corrupted due to a virus or whatever then it could be unusable. What would you do then?

That's why it's recommened to burn the recovery disks, so that in the event that the recovery partition is unsalvageable, then you can boot your Envy with the DVDs.