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

Had a quick question for those that buy on amazon/newegg, how do you go about getting a warranty? I see that it comes with a 1 year warranty from hp included, but is there a place to buy more? Or whats my options?

Long time lurker, long time procrastinator on pulling the trigger =]

 

I have a 2008 and this weekend I pulled the whole interior out and sound-dampened the floors and trunk. Elemental Designs eDead.40. I'll be eventually putting eDead.80 in the doors. Took a lot of work, and I have to replace a few parts, but all worth it.

 

I bought my warranty from Costco. So far as I can tell it's the exact same warranty as offered on HP.com, but a fraction of the cost.

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I got my second E17 in the mail from NewEgg. No rattling HDD and the case separation is limited to the AC adapter area. Wobble is still present but I put some black tape on that foot for the time being. I'm up in the air as to whether or not I'm going to return it for another one. I really wouldn't expect it to be better.

Have you guys needed to overclock the processor to get decent results? Maybe it's the transition from Ubuntu to Windows 7 but I'm finding that my E17 is extremely slow and laggy. I'm currently running Windows 7 on the performance setting (without Aero and the other eyecandy)with a trading platform (thinkorswim), and the free edition of Everest and I'm topping over 65% CPU usage. Add in Chrome with a few tabs and the computer is almost unusable.

I just received a performance warning on my trading, but it wouldn't even populate the text after 5 minutes of waiting so I could figure out what's going on with it.

Meanwhile, on Ubuntu, I have two instances of my platform, Firefox, Thunderbird, torrent client, pdf client, Songbird, and Pidgin spread out over 4 virtual screens and it's snappy as hell. I've got a AMD Phenom Quad-Core in this computer with 8GB RAM, so I figure it's a comparable machine to my E17.

I didn't do a clean install of Windows 7, so maybe that's in order, but is there anything else I can do before I go that route?

Update: I now have nothing open except for control panel and CPU reading is bouncing between 70% and 100%.

 

The longer I hang out here the less satisfied I am with my laptop. =/

Not that I didn't believe you before when you mentioned that the hiss on your ENVY 15 was less perceptible, but I've confirmed that the hiss I get from my very old desktop computer with mediocre audio hardware is without a doubt quieter then that coming out of my ENVY. All other variables such as headphones and room noise were controlled.

I still wonder if this issue is a quality issue (wouldn't surprise me at this point) or just crappy hardware. Either way pisses me off. I'm coming to the same conclusions of an earlier poster. I really don't like Apple as a company (and as sexy as OS X is I don't think I could handle the lack of compatibility) but they seem to be the only ones who can produce aesthetically appealing and consistently high quality laptops. Possibly even the latter alone.

Can any others out there please help out nohm and myself and see how the hiss coming out of your audio jack compares to other computers?

 

I noticed this happening this morning but only under a 'huge' (see post above yours) CPU load. I was listening to Last.fm and just a lot of what you're describing, to the point that I could barely hear the song. Usually I get some interference if my cell phone is in the area, which wasn't the case this time. I'll look out for it after I do a clean install and report back.

 

How do you configure RAID 0 on the envy 17? In the manual it states that raid 0/1 is supported.

 

Well after visiting here for a few weeks I finally decided to step up and make the purchase. I discovered that my local Frys Electronics had the E17 1011nr available in-store so I ran over to grab one. I figured that now that I wouldnt have to deal with shipping issues if I got a flawed E17, I might as well take the plunge.

Luckily enough, my E17 is seemingly defect-free. No unsightly gaps, no morse code/whining, nothing.

My quick impressions:
-Not too heavy, even with the 9-cell. Especially considering the size.
-Way too much bloatware, but easy enough to remove. Especially with all the useful guides available here.
-This thing is quick. Takes a little longer to boot than I would have thought, but once loaded this beast flies. (may be time for that clean install...)
-Gorgeous screen! I pulled my E17 out at a client meeting when my associates business-grade laptop took a dump. Everyone oohed and ahhed over not only the screen, but the comp as a whole. Definitely has wow-factor.
-This thing runs hot. Really hot. While idle or doing some light surfing it gets pretty warm, start gaming and this thing is on fire. This isnt necessarily a problem for me, especially considering the hardware, but definitely worth noting.

I have a question for all of you: I was playing ME2 the other day for a couple hours (full 1920x1080 resolution, settings all High), had the 9-cell in place to raise the rear up to give the vents some breathing room, when I got my first BSOD. I rebooted and all seems well. I dont recall exactly what the error message was but it had to do with the GPU; I have a feeling it probably overheated.

I think it is time to get a cooling pad. I've seen mentions of the NC2000, NC 3000, Cryo-LX. Money is not an issue here, so what is the best cooling pad? What do you recommend?

Thanks in advance.

 

It doesn't have a Raid Option.

 

You all might find this humorous. This is the response I received from Amazon after requesting to exchange my second defective Envy 17 (it had wobble and scratches and marks on it out of the box):

Hello,

I'm sorry to hear the replacement HP ENVY 17-1011NR 17.3-Inch Laptop had the same problem as your first order. This usually doesn't happen. Since it's likely another replacement would arrive defective, I won't trouble you with another order.

Please contact the manufacturer and they should be able to help with this under the terms of their warranty...


Do they think I am making this stuff up???

Update: Called HP and the representative initially said the computer sold to me (as new) was a refurbished model, but then put me on hold so they could check. They came back a few minutes later saying it was not a refurbished model. Either they were telling the truth, or their manager told them not to admit it to me. This is becoming somewhat suspicious though...

 

So... started getting my Oblivion on... and really not impressed. It seems like it was running smooth on the first day... but now, on my spanking new 8GB Ram system I'm running with frame rates of 13-20....

One thing is that I still haven't gotten the original adapter, I'm using a 'slim travel' adapter which isn't ideal (i think It's 65W) so I don't know if that's affecting it... but if not, this is like a 5 year old game... ought to max out easily... heck the xbox version runs more smoothly! (Mind you, I have tried to max out the settings here, so this one looks better, but all for nought if it's not smooth)

 

Did HP mention how they would resolve your issue?

 

They told me to go through Amazon. After telling Amazon this they agreed to do a complete refund. What is still odd is that they offered the refund after I requested an exchange. In the refund email they said it would be likely that any replacement would also be defective again.

Maybe Amazon is recognizing the quality control issue, but they still have it for sale on their website?

 

Hi well i tried the clean install but the recovery and the abr both didnt work so now my new computer is kinda useless i know this is my fault the guide was good i was jest hoping someone could help me get a copy or the recovery partition

 

This may be a dumb question, but how do I find the temps of my CPU and GPU as many have posted about? This is my first time using Win 7 so I am clueless as to where I locate it.

Thank you in advance for your help.

 

perhaps ppl's determination with this laptop may have something to do with its styling ? i wanted something stylish, slim, efficient and powerful but first and foremost is what the machine is there to do for you. when theres a problem with what your buying (especially new)....it just adds to the negatives in a user experience.

for me, i am literally on my 3rd unit but am really counting it as my second because by choice i bought another one in addition to the one i have sent off to service. my rule is 3 strikes. so if the laptop i sent to hp for a second time for the same problem comes back and the issue is still present ... then i wouldnt buy another hp in the future.

reading along the multitude of users experiences here its apparent to me that hp is partaking in some tasteless games.

 

The temperature sensors are built into the hardware these days.

All one needs is the right software to read the sensors' data.

Windows does not offer this feature.

Many companies sell complex monitoring software for customers who need it, but some also offer free software as a promotional tactic.

I use this FREE tool, CPUID HWMonitor, (as do many others): CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting

The latest version is 1.16. You will not need the Pro version.

 

Thanks Ben, I was just wondering how hot this computer was getting as I was running Facebook, checking emails and also listening to some comedy on youtube and noticed it was getting a bit warm, so I tried looking for the temps and didn't know where or how to access it.....now if I can only figure out how to post of the temps that it was running......next I am going to get my pyrometer out and take some external temps of the left side of the chassis....top, bottom and the left side so I can tell exactly how hot it actually is..... Thanks again for the link....!

 

Great!

You can add the data to the posts by Shiboe and myself.

See Benchmarks on the first page of this thread.

 

I am at debate on what to do,i really love this Envy 17,and it's hard to beat the price w/the i7,8gb ram,5850,1080p screen,but the heat is tremendous,i have a Targus 220mm cooler under it and a box fan blowing on it,i am afraid something is going to eventually burn out-here are my heat tests-Hardware Monitors
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Hardware monitor ACPI
Temperature 0 65°C (149°F) [0xD36] (TZ01)

Hardware monitor Intel Core i7 720QM
Power 0 15.34 W (Processor)
Temperature 0 66°C (150°F) [0x22] (Core #0)
Temperature 1 63°C (145°F) [0x25] (Core #1)
Temperature 2 67°C (152°F) [0x21] (Core #2)
Temperature 3 63°C (145°F) [0x25] (Core #3)

Hardware monitor ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850
Temperature 0 68°C (154°F) (GPU Core)

Hardware monitor WDC WD32 00BEKT-60V5T
Temperature 0 41°C (105°F) [0x29] (Assembly)
Temperature 2 41°C (105°F) [0x29] (Air Flow)

Hardware monitor Battery 1
Voltage 0 12.72 Volts [0x31B3] (Current Voltage)
Capacity 0 62160 mWh [0xF2D0] (Designed Capacity)
Capacity 1 60739 mWh [0xED43] (Full Charge Capacity)
Capacity 2 60739 mWh [0xED43] (Current Capacity)
Level 0 2 pc [0x61] (Wear Level)
Level 1 100 pc [0x64] (Charge Level)

 

Continued-Should i keep this or sell it,i can't return because Newegg has a replacement only,I've only had it 2 days,so it is still in new cond,and is near perfect,ie..no wobble and only a couple tiny spaces.Also the heat tests above are from the computer being on all day,doing normal tasks,mostly surfing and installing programs ,i don't know what to do.Are these normal temps? i mean Some are 150F thats hot enough to cook an egg! and the heat is causing my keyboard to bow up in the middle,if these normal temps and i know 6 mos down the road its not going to fry then yes i want to keep it if not,i'd rather get something else though i doubt i'll find a deal like this for $1499

 

These are my temps while doing some light browsing and watching TV via an external tuner:

Hardware monitor ACPI
Temperature 0 63°C (145°F) [0xD22] (TZ01)

Hardware monitor Intel Core i7 720QM
Power 0 55.04 W (Processor)
Temperature 0 62°C (143°F) [0x26] (Core #0)
Temperature 1 60°C (140°F) [0x28] (Core #1)
Temperature 2 64°C (147°F) [0x24] (Core #2)
Temperature 3 61°C (141°F) [0x27] (Core #3)

Hardware monitor ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850
Temperature 0 67°C (152°F) (GPU Core)

Hardware monitor ST950042 0AS
Temperature 0 32°C (89°F) [0x20] (Assembly)
Temperature 2 32°C (89°F) [0x20] (Air Flow)

Only your harddrive temps are much higher, and they are not all that high. Besides, our drives differ. That can explain the temp differences.

I've not seen any numbers for the Envy 17 (w/i7) that are much lower.

Now, the bowed keyboard is another matter. I don't have that problem, but your judgment must control here.

 

I have two 320 7200's the bowing in the keyboard is not to bad just a slight rise in the middle,i read that others are having similar problems the heat causes the metal to warp and rise

 

So, I'm the proud owner of an Envy 17. Replaced my old 14" "gaming" laptop with this one, and man do I like the ekstra screen and proper keyboard. Sure it gets hot in the top left corner, but I expect that a metal chassis would not warp the instant it reaches temps around 50C - I'd like to see a picture of a warped chassis.

Yesterday I used HDMI for the first time on this baby, and first thing I noticed was that my TV would not do 1080p as promised but only 1080i. Obviously not the envy's fault, but kinda annoying as I can't duplicate my desktop on the tv. Instead I have to extend my desktop and drag over a movie to that screen to watch it properly. Once I had this figured out I tried to watch a movie which simply wasn't possible as the audio had small interruptions every 3-7 seconds and sometimes the picture would also freeze for up to .5 seconds... I was able to make the problems worse by using the computer to light tasks like opening explorer or a web browser - this completely removed the audio. Finally after trying numerous ways to fix this, I disabled ATI PowerPlay and all my troubles are over. I can do anything on the computer while watching a movie on the connected TV and not even Scatman John stutters while doing this. This leads me to think that if the computer is plugged in ATI powerplay still limits the performance of the GPU. Is anyone owning a game which they can't max out? If so please try disabling ATI powerplay in CCC and post the observations/FPS ratings to confirm or bust this myth. It certainly affects the HDMI performance!

In other news, Come on newmodeUS - ship those caddies, it has to travel all the way to europe ;-)

 

Did you create the recovery dvds? Did you backup the SWsetup folder?

You have two options - You can download the full version of the O/S that came with your system. Use the key at the back of your laptop to register the O/S.
I recommend using a USB thumb drive to install. Once you have a Windows7 installer on a USB drive. Connect the USB drive to one of the USB ports. Power on your laptop, you will see a option to select which boot device to boot from, select USB and begin installation.
You then go to HP.com and download all the drivers and software - you will need to know your model number.

Another option is to contact HP and ask them to send you the restoration dvds which will cost you like $25.00

 

My bing CB came through, total cost of my i5-540,6GB,500GB,1080p,bluray E17? $959.

Nice.

Thanks Bing, Microsoft and Sony (for releasing crap product).

 

That is absolutely having an effect; without sufficient power (and 65w doesn't count as that, not for this laptop) your laptop will run as though it's on battery, i.e. much slower. Heck it might even run slower than battery-only, I mean, you're supposed to be using the 120w adapter with this thing, that is quite a difference.

 

Awesome, really happy to hear this. Get my adapter today, so hopefully that'll get me sorted. Thanks for the info

 

I've had my Envy 17 for about a month now and I'm still a happy owner/user here. My first one, ordered from newegg.com

Guys, it's going to run hot. Computer parts are designed to run normal under these conditions that you guys consider 'hot'. Remember, it's a quad core with hyper threading and an high end mobility ATi card and they're sharing the same cooling system (honestly stupid on HP's part IMO). My i7 920 in my desktop runs 75C-85C 24/7 running folding@home with zero issues. The CPU and GPU can take the heat. As well as I'm sure the components within the unit can sustain it as well. Regardless of these conditions, I'm sure the laptop will last 3-5 years, if not longer (I don't know about you fellas, but I normally upgrade every 2-5 years) as long as it's maintained well. It's just like a car. Keep it well maintained and it will run well. Don't leave your laptop on and set it on the bed/couch/carpet (non hard surfaces or dirty surfaces) and make sure to get a can of compressed air and blow out any dust that might have been collected within the system and you should be fine. I had a Gateway P-7811FX that I gamed on for hours and the GPU got up to 85C. This is an NVIDIA GPU and as some of you know, were not the best as far as stability and longevity. But since I kept my laptop in pristine condition, I never had any issues and it still runs flawlessly till this day.

 

you have a valid point that it will run hot because it's got high-end cpu/gpu components. the overall body design of the laptop however doesn't lend itself too well to high-heat situations. this is because it's made up of more than one piece of metal. when things get hot, metal expands quite a bit. a good example is the left i/o panel which wasn't quite positioned perfectly with the body lines. i wasn't around but the machine was on and it probably started an antivirus scan and got very hot. next time i sat down at the machine i noticed the misalignments were almost gone.

problem with the 17 is that the left part of the laptop gets toasty even under light load, but it's not predictable, at least for me. because sometimes when the browser and mail apps are running the fan is not even on (completely silent). other times with the same apps running, it's intermittently getting warm.

on the flip side, the circuit noise i was experiencing has diminished quite a bit and is almost non-existent now. hopefully that noise is gone for good. maybe these machines need to be broken-in with several hours of loading/unloading cycles.

 

i actually haven't done this yet for the machine i have now, but i ran PCMark and 3DMark on the 2 previous Envy's i had. each test took about 1 hr +.
this time around i want to put the machine thru a full stress test that will run for several hours and test as much of the hardware as possible.

anyone have suggestions on programs that can do this ? what about the on-board diagnostics, would that be adequate ?

 

I tore apart my ENVY yesterday and I'm wondering if anybody else has noticed this:

Upon taking off the rubber feet to access the screws underneath I noticed an extra sheet of rubber under one foot that was not under the other three. This got me suspicious and sure enough, the rubber slip was in the lower right foot. Those of you that have had rocking issues should recognize this foot as the one that doesn't make contact with a flat surface. See what HP is trying to do here? The worst part is that their rubber slip isn't even thick enough in some or maybe even most cases.

I am actually wondering if there is some way to get HP in trouble for this shenanigan. I wouldn't tolerate a fix this shoddy on a budget laptop, much less a top-of-the-line ENVY. HP is screwing its customers in order to save pennies. I imagine this is how it went down at their manufacturing site:

Lowly QA employee to boss: "All the chassis's we've produced so far are warped, I think we need to throw them away and make a new batch."
Boss to random higher-up above him: "Yeah they're warped, what do we do?"
Higher-up: "Don't throw them out, just make one foot thicker to accommodate."

For all we know they didn't even fix whatever is wrong in the manufacturing of the chasis; it's cheaper to just throw a slip of rubber on all the laptops coming off the line. Explains why people are STILL getting rocking laptops three months after release.

EDIT: I wanted to add that I HIGHLY DOUBT that the warping is caused by heat from the processor. If it is then why are ENVYs only resting on three feet right out of the box, before the laptop has been used?

 

i also doubt any part of this laptop would warp at all. the bottom is not plastic. it is powder coated magnesium alloy. as a matter of fact, the entire chassis and covers are all aluminum alloy and magnesium.

it makes sense that the wobble would be caused by uneven rubber feet, because if it was due to the chassis, then they really have serious manufacturing and engineering issues. i am a mechanical engineer, so i know about casting metals. i also previously owned an xps m1730, who's base was magnesium alloy. on that laptop the armrest top cover was plastic, but the mainboard and all the guts were inside a completely metal chassis surrounded all around. no warping issues with any part of that laptop either, even the plastic parts.

if there was a secondary strip of rubber in between the feet, then we may be experiencing supplier/vendor disgruntlement with HP. otherwise the rubber feet could be cheaply made so that they were coming to the factory all different thicknesses.

simply amazing.

i am still curious about whether this screen is really glass or plastic. tried tapping it with metal and it doesn't sound like glass. i'm worried about microscratches when i clean it.

 

Finally mines finally came in! So far it's perfect. Slight wobble but I might improvise something with the rubber feet.

Perfect timing too, Mafia II just came out so I might sample it on this laptop and post benchies/temps.

 

You misunderstand me. The extra strip of rubber is not because the feet are unevenly sized--it's because the chassis is not being manufactured as it should be. I am 100% sure the issue is with the chassis and not the feet. How else can you explain that seemingly every wobble issue is caused by the lower right foot not making contact? If it were an issue with the feet we would be seeing wobble problems on the other corners as well.

As you said this is a serious manufacturing issue. Making matters worse is HP's shoddy "solution" to the problem, which is essentially just a cover-up and not a true fix.

 

Jees! Some of you guys are such whiners! This is such a sweet laptop, mine had no wobble and only minor gaps in the seams. But if it did wobble and I could fix this with a rubber foot that was 2mm taller than the other three I would be completely happy.

As long as thing does not wobble who cares if the chassis is not completely even. As long as the laptop performs correctly what difference does it make?

For what you get for the price this laptop is such a bargain, if you want the kind of aesthetic perfection you seem to expect, then spend the extra $1500 buy a macbook pro and install windows on it.

Let me explain that again, envy 17 from newegg / amazon : $1500. equivalent macbook pro $3000 and still has only one HD, no Blue Ray, no HDMI out.

 

you maybe right about some things you said but if its isnt perfect what do you expect?

it should be perfect no matter what because you are buying a premium notebook. it does make a difference between the outer parts of the laptop and the insides of the machine.. performance does matter and by the outer appearance it should be perfect. this laptop is top of the line for a premium notebook... so in this case it does matter to some people who bought it...

i am getting mine prob tomorrow and now im aware of those issues. i am going to test a few things out by end of the week and give a brief review about it.

if hp represents top of the line they should back it up with good results of a notebook itself.. and if we customers find faults of it who fault is that? not ours lol

 

Well that's my point, its not top of the line nor "premium" The price reflects a mid range laptop.

IMO a top of the line laptop will run between $2500 - $3500

I would rather take my envy 17 as is with a few gaps and running a little warm and save $1500 than what I would have to spend to get the same specs and "perfection"

tl;dr if you want perfection, pay for it.

 

to some people it may not be but to others well i dont know yet..

but the fact is that this notebook is one of top best this year i think thats what i heard with some reviewers.the fact is hp said this is a premium notebook... they maybe stretching out the truth but who knows lol....

too me in my opinion only the performance matters and what it can do. i really dont care about the price of the notebook as long as the notebook can do premium things... im no genius or a cool techie like you guys but thats what i prefer..

hp is responsible for the issues at hand lol

can i rephrase that?

if you payed for it it should be perfect
i maybe wrong here but thats just not me

im with you dude but to others they might think differently

 

Porkyhack, you've really come across something here, most alarming.

As I've said heaps of times now, with my first wobbly one, the service centre replaced the entire bottom chassis (which included the rubber feet) to try and fix the issue. Same amount of wobble.

So your absolutely right, it has to be a very complex manufacturing issue, nothing to do with the length/width/size/height/colour/smell of the rubber feet.

It sounds like they've (HP) cut a disgracefully big corner with your discovery, makes you wonder if they'd suspect no customer would ever examine the rubber feet and the bottom chasis in detail?

Despite that, I'm still enjoying my third E17, and it's been working flawlessly for the past couple weeks now. I have a Zalman NC3000U which I think seems to be working really well.

 

Here's my temps using Zalman NC3000U, IE browsing with 4-5 tabs, iTunes, Messenger.

Hardware monitor ACPI
Temperature 0 53°C (149°F) [0xD36] (TZ01)

Hardware monitor Intel Core i7 820QM
Power 0 20.28 W (Processor)
Temperature 0 52°C (150°F) [0x22] (Core #0)
Temperature 1 50°C (145°F) [0x25] (Core #1)
Temperature 2 49°C (152°F) [0x21] (Core #2)
Temperature 3 51°C (145°F) [0x25] (Core #3)

Hardware monitor ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850
Temperature 0 53°C (154°F) (GPU Core)

Hardware Monitor doesn't record temps for my SSD and my WD 1TB drive used to record a temp but for some reason it doesn't anymore, but everything runs very cool anyway.

NOTE: I copied and pasted from a previous post and just changed the degrees temps, so ignore the fahrenheit.

 

kiwi_style what was the issue with your 1st and 2nd envies?

 

The title pretty much says is all but i am planning to manually upgrade to windows ultimate. i thought i read somewhere on this board that there might be an issue with beats audio working when you do so. does anyone have any input on this or any other known issues? thanks.

 

Both had ridiculous wobble, I'm talking a huge visible gap between the right-front foot and the desk.

I thought I must be going crackers and my desk wasn't flat, like some others on here suggested might be the problem. So I put it on 3 different surfaces and same story.

Took me 7 weeks and 3 units to get to my current near-perfect one, which HP kindly upgraded me to a near-maxed out model, worth a lot more than the 1st one I purchased.

@ SteviePL you were most likely referring to the "whiners" in general, but let me just point out that in this part of the world (New Zealand and Australia) we pay a massive premium for electronics. In the US you may pay US$1700 for this laptop, we pay NZ$3499 (US$2455) retail for the lowest possible base model. See the huge difference? If I want the latest technology it costs me an arm and a leg here and for that price I expect something that doesn't wobble. Full stop.

 

having taken the feet off a few times, it looks like these parts of the base were final machined after the part is removed from the casting.
they probably inject the metal from the 4 corners that then get machined out for the feet. still a manufacturing issue probably related to how the part was held in place for machining.
i had 3 units all recent builds. the one i just bought from amazon had f08 already on board and swi shows me the ram was manufactured in late july. havent seen wobble with any of them

 

is anyone else getting a weird squeeling noise out of the speakers/headphones, cant really explain it, suppose it sounds like the noise on a bad phone line?

Only happens when the internal soundcard is being used and doesnt appear related to the microphone (have muted/unmuted etc etc)

 

Key word: IMO. HP itself would call this a premium laptop. The only reason companies like Apple charge so much for their laptops is because people like you will let them, and that quite honestly disgusts me. HP could correct all the issues with the ENVY and still turn a profit similar to what they are now (which I imagine is pretty high).

For the record I don't care about the heat, I fully expect in on an i7 notebook. Blatant issues with build quality on the other hand are unacceptable. If I didn't care how my laptop looked I wouldn't have bought an ENVY; aesthetics are an obvious selling point on this laptop and HP has failed to deliver what was promised.

 

I never said that I owned a macbook, and I don't think I ever will as I agree they are totally overpriced.

The Macbook Pro is the closest thing on the market to compare the envy too. All other laptops of similar specs that i looked at, just do not have anything close to the aesthetics that Macbook Pro has and the Envy is emulating.

However, for what they are attempting, I think they have underpriced the unit at the cost of some build quality issues, so the question is, should HP have charged $500 more for the unit and had tighter manufacturing QC?

Personally, I am happy with paying less and having a few very minor gaps in the seams. A wobble would bother me, but if had one and HP repaired the unit or made it with one foot 2mm higher to fix it, this would be perfectly acceptable to me.

What I am amazed at are posts here about people RMAing there units due to things like the keyboard bezel being 0.5mm off, or even due to only software configuration problems. To a potential buyer of this laptop reading this forum, would seem like everybody who buys an envy hates it and has to RMA 4 units to get a good one. It seems to me this is just the vocal minority.

I would like to put a voice out there that this is an amazing laptop, the screen is of absolutely amazing quality. Having dual hard drives allows for the ultimate combination of speed and storage with one SSD and one HD. All other similar laptops with these specs on the market much larger, heavier and uglier than Envy. (apart from the top of the line 17" macbook pro which looks nice, costs way too much and actually does not even match up to the specs of the envy 17)

I could not be happier with my purchase. For $1500 the envy 17 is an absolute bargain.

 

Hi Guys,

I was alarm to read some people who tried to restore their O/S using their backup Recovery Disc had major issues. Which lead me to look for a method to burning the Recovery image to a USB drive. It took a few minutes to find the instructions via google. Here is the link on how to backup the recovery partition to a USB drive - Creating a Recovery Disk on a USB Flash Disk HP ENVY 17-1012nr Notebook PC - HP technical support (Poland - English)

 

i think this refers to creating a recovery 'disk' using microsoft's recovery media feature. i say this because the actual recovery discs that you create with the HP utility consists of five 4.7GB dvd's. that's approx. 23 GB of data, that would require you have a 32GB flash drive.

why not do a clean install using the 3-file method, install all your drivers and then use clonezilla to backup the entire disc image onto an external hdd ? this is guaranteed to get you up and running again much much faster than having to do a factory restore. you also wouldn't need to keep the factory restore partition on your hdd as you could completely remove it.

 

Hi Zero,

I've actually swapped out my 320GB for a Intel 160SSD and install Windows 7 Ultimate and used driver magician to reinstall all my drivers in one step.
I just wanted people to know there is an alternative to using DVDs which are not very reliable.
After installing Office 2010, Photoshop CS5 and my other applications, I used Acronis to make a image of my drive.