*HP ENVY 17 & 17 3D (2XXX series) Owners Lounge*

I'd like to hear how Crysis2 runs on the Envy, if any of you plan on buying it.
If that runs well, then skyrim will most likely run well too, and then I could safely get an Envy (since the alienware doesn't seem to update their GPU in a while yet, don't want the 460m)

 

KJ did you say you're making videos? I'm sure you'll post em. Glad you got the laptop though and I hope that it has no defects or issues!

 

Is it just me, or does it look like there is some fabric stuck in that gap, that causes the outer case to bulge?
Have you tried pulling it our with a pair of tweezers or is the gap too small?

 

that does look like a piece of paper or lint or something.


could just be dust though.


also for anyone who has one of these new envy 17s, does the advanced bios still work? (I'm curious)

you get into it by hitting f10 (or whatever the "get into bios key is") then a.

so f10,a,f10,a,f10,a until you get into the bios.

Though really it probably doesn't even have the same bios anymore now that it's up to sandy bridge...

 

oh right, don't mess with the settings in the advanced bios unless you know what you're doing or else bad horribly terrible things could happen.


also you could possibly get a 10 pound paper weight if you did something really stupid like set fans to not come on til 100 celsius or something

 

sooo nice KJ! congratulations. I especially like your priorities;

1. announce your good fortune and make us all jealous
2. eat dinner
3. THEN play with new SB Envy

:laugh:

 

whats up guys, i ordered my envy back on the 12th and am patiently waiting. I just have a quick question have any of you looked into the new Alienware M17x 3d before you made the decision to get the envy, and if you have what was the reason why you went with the envy instead of the alienware cosmetics aside.

 

Well, the main reason you already mentioned
Secondly, take a look at a similar configuration and you will pay about 25% more for the M17x 3d. Yes the GPU is probably more powerfull, but I personally am not a hardcore gamer and I don't think it's worth that much of a premium.

 

can one of you guys check the display properties and tell me what screen refresh rate choices are available? do you see 120Hz? I'm guessing no...

 

Seconded. And Bad Company 2, too? I need something that can run BC2 well, so it'll run Battlefield 3 well

 

double post sorry, system hung

 

Wooooooooww!!!!!

I just called HP and tried to replace mine because of the gap and they said that the could exchange it, but I'd have to give up my 7200 rpm hd and accept the base configuration which is the 1 TB 5400 rpm's.

That's not even the best part!

I fought with them and said I absolutely needed the 7200rpm hd and that it's available with the 800gb ssd option. She finally gave in and said that I can get my single 640 gb 7200 rpm hd in about a month if I really want it.

It gets better!

She said if I do wait for the 640 gb, a new order would have to be placed and I would lose my $300 coupon and have to pay $160 bucks more!

So basically, anyone who is ordering their laptop with the 640 gb 7200 rpm better pray that it has no defects! Otherwise they'll force you to accept the 1 TB if you want to exchange it!

 

Nope it's nothing actually in there causing the gap because it's basically across the entire right side. On the lower part of it I can actually see the ports through the crack in the edge.

Very disappointed and now I'm stuck with it.

 

Bah, the config I put in my basket ended up at $2200 after tax. That's too much, I guess I'll wait for some coupon or whatnot.

 

What was I thinking? lol, I started filiming the unboxing...but then...I used one hand....and well, you know the rest! Sheesh, zoom in, zoom out, out of focus, looks like camera is falling...so eventhough I did some unboxing it looks like total, utter garbage. Sorry. I give props to those who did beautiful unboxings...with stand, or had a partner filming. Scratch that....

So I still plan on filiming the part with the USB 3.0, that should be fun. No gapping, but what was wierd is I had the center keyboard (whole plate) on the left side lifted up..... I just snapped/pushed the left side of keyboard down, and all is good. I'm still typing from my dv7, Envy is charging, bout to turn her on......

KJ

 

When I'm using the 6850 it defaults to 120Hz, when I'm using the Intel it defaults to 60Hz.

 

Apoxxx, you better wait or I'm not talking to you anymore! Lol, j/k. You've been on here with us long enough to know better than buy it at that silly price. Yeah, even if you can't find a coupon call HP. As you read previous posts, these "special" reps you find on the phone once in a while will go out of there way to find coupons, or make them up as it seems, hahah. So you don't really have to wait, if you call and find that one in a million reps. Do not accept any offer without at least a $300 coupon off, that's an order! Good luck, I know you can do it.

KJ

 

Go go, turn her on

You don't have a Sata3 HD by any chance? still no clarification on whether or not it supports this. I have one, so I guess I'll be the guinea pig in a month or so if there's still no answer on this. (and if I end up with an Envy, which I will unless something awesome happens with Alienware)

I don't have the energy to sit on the phone all day to maybe get a discount. I'll probably end up paying full price, unless they'll give out a coupon for the Envy17 3D.

 

Main reason is I find the Alienware horribly ugly. I never even considered it since it is so ugly to me. I have a cell phone that uses the same rubberized material as the Alienware and it hardly has any left due to pealing and wear. I used to own a Dell XPS 1730 which was hell to lug around, I wanted something lighter with better battery life and no bling. I find Sager ugly as well and I had bad experiences with them and their LCD screens (look at my post history; sager found that screen pic I posted acceptable) so I will never do business with them again. I don't play FPS games so I generally don't need cutting edge graphics.

My choices were down to the MBP 17" or Envy 17". Envy 17 won due to prices/better hardware (USB 3, Blu-Ray,HDMI, Trim Support, Better GPU) and Windows 7 standard. I think I saved just about 1k on the nose over the MBP 17".

 

You don't have to do it all day.
I called once during the week at night and got India. They offered $50 off, so I said no thank you.
Then I got onto HP academy, configured and saved to my cart. Called again on the weekend, and asked if they could do any better. Boom. $300 off.

I only spent this entire morning on the phone because they had canceled that order. The extra discount through that was not intended (still nice though).

So KJ is right. 300 off is minimum. I personally am just bumped out that I did not upgrade the processor after they gave me my second discount, but I was so baffled that I just took it and ran...AND I am not planning to use it for any VM, so I am gessing I am fine. Hell, I was going to buy a i7 860 4 weeks ago, so this is an upgrade.

Good luck on your journey to rebates. Start with HP Academy (I did it as a parent for a kid that is attending K-12...my son will start K in August). That's already 10% off (so arounf 200 on your config). They should give you another 100 without major hassle and there it is 300 off. Guys, don't say you don't have the patience to be on the phone all day. It's not that bad. If you want to wait for a coupon, just give them a call every other day while waiting. It's like 5 minutes each time but could save you big time.

 

thanks spartan jet for your reasons, my reasons for ultimately choosing the envy are identical. However I had a 13in macbook pro which i sold and was considering buying the new 15in macbook, however i got sick of the cult like feeling of owing an apple product and also the OS isn't that great. One thing i will miss is the trackpad, i am not going to lie Apple really did a great job with it. Also i know you say the alienware is ugly, however i think the new black one is appealing but you are right it is more expensive.

 

Apoxx the new alienware M17x has the AMD 2GB 6970 graphics card, if you were looking into it.

 

I just got done playing The Sims Medieval for about two hours and the temps hit 72 degrees...with the cooling pad on high. The "Fans always on" setting is still disabled in BIOS but that shouldn't matter since they are always on when gaming anyways. Should I be worried?

 

I want 3D, so sadly I'm stuck with the older 460M.

Thanks for the tip, I didn't think my school was on that list since it's a private school (pilot training), but it was, so I'm eligible for 10% off, that suddenly makes the price a bit more reasonable.

 

I'm curious about buying Crysis: Maximum Edition or Crysis 2. I've never played either...but is the new one superior to the old one as far as features, game play?

 

I've heard great things about the Alienware (great cooling, easy to swap parts, solid build, etc.), but I ended up with an Envy 17 3D for a few reasons:

-Envy--with these random "coupons" (I got $385 off)--was cheaper, even with 25% off on the Alienware through AAFES

-3D actually makes the Envy $200 cheaper, so I could more easily justify getting it as opposed to spending extra money for 3D on the Alienware (I think it comes out to ~$100 to upgrade from an Envy i5 full HD to i7 3D full HD + Bluray). It's an unnecessary gimmick but it's still fun to play with

- Aesthetics!!! I personally think the Alienware is cool, and I'd probably have fun playing with the lights, but there's no way I could take it to business meetings. The Envy, on the other hand, is more professional looking and a bit easier to tote around as well.

-Gaming is a secondary concern to me. I'll probably grab Diablo 3 and whatnot in the future, but I mostly play games on my xbox and don't want to get caught up in maintaining a bleeding edge gaming PC. And to make this all somewhat moot, the GPUs offered on Alienware 3D vs. Envy 3D seem about the same-- so this doesn't really matter unless you skip out on 3D for a pretty expensive GPU upgrade on the Alienware.

There's a thread on this very topic here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/546446-envy-17-3d-sb-refresh-alienware-m17x-r3.html

 

Nevermind, Envy17 3D ain't on the student discount list, only Envy14... That's stupid.

 

Wow...I'm so jealous. But I don't know if it would help. Like I said, I whined and complained about friends getting $300 off before, even on TOP of the HP Academy discount. And they all said they needed an e-mail address/phone number, so they could pull up the order and see if they could apply that discount to me.

 

I bet they'll remedy that if you place an order over the phone.

 

thanks again for these posts they are helping a lot. xearon thanks for a link to that thread i was looking for something like that but couldn't find it. Also I agree it wont be appealing in meetings but its not as ugly as i imagined.

 

I agree that it's not as bad as some people make it out to be, it's a bit thinner than its predecessor and and can be tamed down by turning off the various lighting effects (although the glowing alien head on the back might still raise an eyebrow at a meeting). If I knew I'd only use the laptop at home or in a college setting, and the prices were equal, then I might have swung the other way.

But regardless, the envy is a really pretty machine and it ended up being a bit cheaper for me.

Good luck with the decision!

 

Figured it out, now if I only could get a coupon on top if this, it would be a total steal

Sadly I can't order yet as I'm in the process of moving.

 

Just put it on your cart. Once you are logged in into HP Academy the discount will show.

EDIT: Ok, your post came before I replied. Nix the above said ;-)

 

I'll be more than happy to give you my order number, once mine is in transit
Don't want to take chances of them canceling it again, because they realise that they might have made a mistake.

 

Yeah I had to change my email for my current account to allow me to create a new academy account with the correct email. Silly system. Damn I want to order right now, perhaps I'll ask the manager in the building to give me a call when it arrives even if I've moved out, so I can just drive back and pick it up

 

LMBO!! I certainly understand!! So you got $173.50 off through HP Academy and then $300 off with a coupon for a total of $473.50 off. I am soooo upset. I got a total of $326.50 off. LOL

 

It does 60/96/120.

I asked earlier if anyone had tried watching DVD's at 96 and nobody wanted to play

 

Should I try to get a discount before ordering, or have them add it to my order later on?

 

$660 off They let me used a $500 coupon code I used to purchase the defective dv7 SB (now returned) on top of an EPP order.

 

Wow. I hope you choke on a piece of hard candy. (just kidding)

 

To those that who have been replying to my posts, one of the main things that i like about the alienware laptop is the HDMI IN port they have. Also i read many posts and threads where people have compared the GTX 460 in the alienware with the 6850, many have said they are equal in performance and some have said the 6850 is better and others have said the 460 is better. I believe they may be equal in performance while giving the 6850 a little bit of an edge. Altogether I paid $2000 for my envy 17 3d, i got the i7 2820, 8gb of ram, the 640gb hard drive, the extra battery, and the 3 year accidental. Im contemplating if i dont like they envy when I get to return it and pay an extra 100 for the alienware i configured, what do you guys think. Also does anyone know where i can buy the laptop hard drive caddy for the envy, i remember someone posting a link but i cant find it.

 

Apoxxx, I'm crossing my fingaaassss for ya! LOL. Really hope they make it happen for ya.

Anyway, on my side...so far its running super silent...love that, and super cool, barely warm air... Than again, I am using the 9cell bat. so its raised up. So after popping the keyboard left side back in all is good..... When I turned her on for the first time, the HD seemed to make that noise many have mentioned. I am about to turn it off and back on and see if the HD is still going to do the "kick in" sound telling me its on...sheesh.

Have not installed anything yet expect my free download of Avast Home Edition free....and in control panel uninstalled one silly bloatware -Bing Bar...which is nonsense. I'm hoping to do the USB 3.0 video tomorrow when I get back from work and really deal with my Envy.

P.S. Very important...guys, what the heck? I had like a black out screen, the message of warning tell me about AMD driver not right/need update...ugh...anyone know how to fix/or where to get the right drivers for our display? Thanks.

KJ

 

I don't want to hear it. Prior to the SB Envy I just got, I was using a Toshiba Satellite Pro P35-S609 that I bought back in 2004. I had to put a little money into it with a 7200 RPM drive and 1.5Gb RAM, but I also managed to get Windows 7 running on it (minus Aero - damn you ATI) and I simultaneously ran a virtual machine. Boy did that thing suck! Slow! Slow! Slow! except for the fan which ran constantly at high RPM!

 

I'm weak, it better be good. Turned out at $2000 exactly, after tax (with mouse and pegasus backpack). Not too bad, but I'll contact them tomorrow and say that I'd like a better offer to not cancel my order

 

CONGRADTS!!!! Way to go Apoxxx. It really isn't a bad deal, true. Yeah, call tomorrow and see if you can squeeze another $150 out of them. Can't wait till you get yours.

KJ

 

Thanks, I hope I won't regret it
Atleast I can give you guys an answer on the Sata3 stuff... In a month or so
Got the Crucial RealSSD 256gb here. Do I need some extra stuff from somewhere if I wanna use the 1tb 5400rpm drive as a secondary?

 

And I thought I got a blazing deal . But I guess I can't envy you (since my envy has not arrived yet)

 

Get a cable/caddy kit from newmode.us.

 

Killa Joe: Up and running with your Envy yet? Got any temperature reports for us?
Nevermind, just saw your old post. Would you say it's alot cooler than the previous ones, or about the same?

 

Call this number: 800-492-3341 Monday thru Friday 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. MST.

Oh, and I would probaly add the bigger battery as well ;-)