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

I have just plugged a mouse in, but I used the touchpad for about 5 hours and didn't find too many problems with it. You can turn it on and off to avoid activating it while typing. There are a myriad of settings in the driver regarding gestures, scrolling, two-finger mode, etc, etc, I didn't play with that too much. It is a large touchpad.

The only issue I found, and it would probably get better with time, is the two buttons at the bottom are part of the touchpad. I am used to buttons that are separate and I found myself clicking on the case on the non-existent buttons just below the touchpad! There is no defining lines or borders (that you can feel) between the pad and the buttons.

When I press alt-f4 to close a program, it doesn't work, neither does ctrl-f4 to close a window. I hope I can find a setting for this somewhere...

Can anyone tell me how I can get intot he BIOS?

 

the bios or cmos? to get into the cmos just press the command key in the POST.

 

There are different keys for different BIOS. But you can try with "Del", "F2", "Esc", keys at POST. It will take you through the BIOS setup page.

 

For those wanting to know about the memory, the RAM appears to be Samsung.

 

@jaxxy
Congrats and thanks for the hands on review

From the looks of it, HP is still making us go through bios to turn on/off the one-touch shortcuts.. -_- If I remember correctly from my Envy 15, you can get to bios setup by pressing Esc on boot. You'll get a menu list afterwards, and bios should be listed there.

If you're having trouble using your usual F-key shortcuts, it's because the one-touch is overriding the F-keys. To use the F-key shortcuts with the one-touch activated, you need to add the Fn key to your combo (ie. alt+fn+f4, ctrl+fn+f4, etc).

It's a hassle having to add the Fn key, so you'd naturally want to disable the one-touch option. However, you'd then have to combine the once one-touch shortcuts with the Fn key, so that can be a hassle as well. I really think HP should allow us to do on-the-fly enabling/disabling of the shortcuts WITHIN Windows so we won't need to turn our notebook off everytime we feel like switching. Anyone else who've used an Envy before feel the same way?

 

From the Envy 17 Service Guide (which I think HP includes on the SD card that ships with the Envy):

Turn on or restart the computer. While the “Press the ESC key for Startup Menu” message is displayed in the lower-left corner of the screen, press esc. When the Startup Menu is displayed, press f10.

 

Jaxxy, here's a thanks from me for all the trouble you have taken to answer our questions

You have made my anticipation and wait for my order only more painful! Wonder how long before my order status changes from the production phase.....

 

OP updated!

And congrats Jaxxy! Looking pretty good so far!

 

Any idea about the manufacturer of the screen and the model number of it?

 

@ Jaxxy

Are you able to report what are you current temps for CPU and GPU?
CPUID is an option

 

@daraj

You have some nice toys

 

The one thing I'm interested in is whether or not they fixed the 4k read speed on ssd drives. Anyone here recieved their envy 17 with ssd?

 

@L3vi
For sure.


Grr, June 1st is slow in coming. I'm hoping HP pulls an early bird and starts the first batch of shipments before the weekend hits...

 

Yup. Eating noodles every night

 

HP ENVY 17 Core i5 Dual Core 2.26GHz 17" Laptop $1,100 + FS - SlickDeals.net Forums

($300 off coupon for Envy 17, posting in other thread for others to use!)

 

You have to buy the base model. The coupon is only for the base $1400 model.

 

I tested the coupon code on a duplicate of my ordered configuration, and it worked. Maybe combining it with BCB made it not work? I tried it with the Academic Purchase Program, and it didn't work, so I'm guessing discounts won't overlap.

This is cheaper than 10% BCB, so you might as well get the notebook w/ it now if you can't wait for the 25% BCB to come back up (unless you max out the specs of course ).

-edit-
I tried the code again via BCB and it seems to work. If BCB pulls through, you can get a $300 discount + %10 off the remaining price (giving you at least $400-500 in total discount). If this is a good deal for you, then you might as well go for it.

 

Supposedly if you do this, BCB will "go through", but they'll cancel your cashback at some point down the line.

 

i can guarantee you they WILL cancel the BING cashback if you use a coupon code. take it from someone who lost 517 dollars for using a 25 dollar coupon code.

 

What he said. Any coupon, EPP, Academic discount, etc. *will* cause the BCB to be cancelled, probably near the end of the 60 day waiting period. The only thing that will successfully stack is an instant discount that HP puts on the original price in their listing.

Any little thing that is out of line will cause the BCB to be cancelled. I lost ~$600 on my Envy 15 order just because HP held up the order for a security check on my credit card. Once it was resolved, the Bing people said they had no link to the order and the HP people said I couldn't cancel. So I had to accept delivery and return the machine for refund.

 

Question:

If a purchase was made using Bing Cash Back, and HP decides to refund a small credit back to the transaction after the transaction went through (Order not cancelled, just a small credit back to the credit card), will the BCB be cancelled? According to HP rep, it will not affect the BCB. Should the rep be trusted?

 

Okay guys! Here it goes. The coupon does work. You cannot combine the coupon with any other discounts.

I called in and told them I wanted to cancel and reorder because I would save more. The representative offered me $80 refund, then $100, but I asked why I couldn't get the $147.12 that I would save with the coupon. Finally, I was transferred to a supervisor who offered me the $147.12 refund so I would not have to reorder.

Note to everyone who ordered already. Reconfigure your Envy again and see what it would cost if you ordered today. If you used student discount, then use it. If ya used EPP discount then use it. It seems that the price of the Envy has dropped by $55 or so. I reconfigured mine with EPP discount and included tax and for my config, it comes to $1998.21. I originally paid $2046.36.



In response to the poster asking about BCB and a small refund, your BCB should not be cancelled. Your BCB will be adjusted based on price you paid. HP has 60 days to report how much you paid.

UPDATE: The price of the Envy did not actually change. Instead, there is no extra charge for upgrading from the 320GB to the 500GB harddrive.

 

Hey Metril, thanks for your quick reponse to my question! I know that BCB is very sensitive to any changes made to invoices, that was why when the rep wanted to refund me a small credit back to my card, I was hesitant. I did not want to save a small $amt and end up losing the larger BCB $s. I kept asking him to verify that I would not lose my BCB, and he said he can guarantee it wont be lost. I did not trust him than. But after you confirmation, I guess I could go ahead and let him apply the small credit back to my card.

 

mobilezila, my answer about BCB is based on the policy and terms of BCB. It is not based off of any personal experiences.

 

Dang, BCB is really anal! Thanks to those who explained their bad BCB experiences- now I will always remember not to combine it with any other offers. I'm just glad that I got the 25% savings while it lasted

 

Let's keep our fingers crossed...we don't have it yet. Folks on the 8740 forum who had selected the new DreamColor2 display had their orders canceled when the panel was delayed.

 

Well, in for an Envy 17. Using Bill Me Later (no payments for 6 months) anyway, and it was irresistable with the $300 coupon. If I like it, I'll keep it and maybe sell my Envy 15 Limited Edition. If not, will return it in less than 24 days. Only upgraded the screen and memory to 1 DIMM. I will swap out my i7-820QM and 8GB RAM if I really like the notebook.

 

Welcome. I've enjoyed reading your hands-on posts on the Envy 15 forum and can't wait until you open up the 17 and do surgery.

 

Do you like your Envy 15 Limited Edition Beats? I love how it does not have the metal etching. However, do the same issues plague it as the Envy 15 Gen2? Or did they never update the Envy 15 Limited Edition Beats to 2nd Gen?

I feel that the Envy 17 will be too big for me (going into college for IT next year), but that the Envy 14 will be too small. I wish they would upgrade the Envy 15.

Or do you all think that the Envy 14 will be large enough for me (is it wide screen or 16:10?).

Thanks!

 

Ha, my warranty arrived today. Not much fun to play with it though...

 

So Jaxxy does the Envy 17 support integrated GPU? What kind of battery life are you getting out of it?

 

Can't find the info on the panel, if you know where it is let me know and I'll look.

For those who are interested, a picture of its guts:

 

I'm not sure, where would I find that information? I couldn't see anything like it in the BIOS.

I'm using this as a desktop replacement so not sure about battery life, in fact, to answer my own question, you can remove the battery and just have mains plugged in to use the notebook. This means I can put the battery away, just need to find something suitable to cover up the whole from dust

 

any else got one besides jaxxy? still curious about the battery life, with the $300 coupon, i'm willing to buy the 17 as long as it has decent battery life, if it doesn't im going to hold out for the 14...

any estimates on battery life?

 

No one here beside jaxxy has received one and there are no posted reviews elsewhere.
It's unlikely that the battery life will be much better than the Envy 15 since the 17 has the same CPU options and a slightly more powerful GPU, as well as two HDDs and an integrated optical drive.
Extrapolating from reports on the Envy 15 forum, with the 6 cell battery and i5 you may get ~2-3 hrs and with the i7 ~1-2 hrs with typical loads.
Read 'em and weep.

Of course YMMV depending on what you're running.
The 9 cell battery should improve this by ~ 50% but I'm not sure if it attaches over the base battery as does the Envy 15 slice, in which case it would add 150%.
I did see ~6 hrs on my Envy 15 i720 with both batteries attached and a moderate load.

 

Up to 2.5 hours (6 cell) - So more like 2 or 1.5 hours IMHO.
Up to 3.75 hours (9 cell) - So more like 3 hours IMHO.

Click Here

 

Houston there may be a problem. The notebook is running extremely slow, so slow that it can't even play the sample video without major stuttering. It happened yesterday too after java auto updated...so I thought it may have been that, so I used recovery disks and brought it back to clean slate. This time I didn't let it update java, just 2 critical updates from windowsupdate. I have not installed anything extra...what could be the problem???

 

LOL, thanks. I will not open the 17 at all until I am sure I want to keep it. If I do, I will definitley post pics, do thermal paste upgrades, swap out the CPU, memory. May even do a post-bluray upgrade. Definitely will do SSD, so yeah... Will post plenty of pics.

I sort of hope I DON'T LIKE IT, b/c then I will have to buy a 3-monitor setup just b/c I have to use eyefinity. Currently using a 40" samsung, but 3 of those would be overkill.

 

Jaxxy, are you going to do a complete reinstall of windows 7? I removed all HP bloatware with my ENVY 15 and my performance scores shot up big time.

 

How do you do that? Do you use the recovery discs or do you have your own windows disc? How do you remove all the HP bloatware? (I have disabled quickweb as that's a joke).

I noticed there was an option to do a 'minimal os install with minimal drivers, etc' when I used the hp recovery manager tool, but I chose the one above it which includes everything I think. I might do the minimal option and see if it improves...

 

The warranty I ordered from Costco arrived a while back. I love how they sent it in a huge 1ftx1ftx1ft box, when all it contained was an envelope

 

Maybe for the time being download CCleaner or using MSconfig and disable all the unneeded startup programs and see if that helps.

 

Poor trees.

 

You would have to get a "fresh" copy of Windows 7 since the recovery disk you made still has all those programs that are slowing down your computer right now.

You can check online for a windows 7 iso, the version that you have, and use that code on your Envy to get it up and running.

Also, which Envy did you get again? The cheaper or the expensive one? If you got the cheaper one the integrated gpu should work as soon as you unplug your computer (so it runs on battery) and you set your computer's performance setting to "power saver". If you got the "big spender" edition with the beffy i7 quad, then there wouldn't be a integrated gpu to use on the CPU.

 

Trees.

Circa, dawn of time - 2010.

R.I.P.

:cry:

(Unless it was post consumer content.)

 

@johnnobts

I've been reading some of your past posts, and I'm impressed with the very hands-on parts swapping you've done on your Envy 15. I'm dabbling with the idea of painting my 17 case in gunmetal black among other mods. Did you happen to find out how much the case enclosure parts cost for the 15?

 

Jaxxy, can you comment on the heat on the bottom of the laptop chassis? Does it get hot during web browsing? What about when playing games?

 

You want to make sure its the OEM version.

 

If you install it to a USB drive you can change it manually in the EI.cfg file with notepad. Same with Home Premium or Professional.. it doesn't matter what version you download, they all contain all the data.

 

The heat under the nb is not bad, most of it is on the left side, hottest near the screen side. Would be OK on your lap I'd say. Most of the heat comes out of the vent top left side, so there's where yuo'd put your coffee


I ran memory test in BIOS and it said it was going to take 3.5hrs to complete, is this normal???