HP ENVY TouchSmart 15-j000 (AMD A10-5750M) Richland Review

Review of the HP Envy 15z-jXXX

The wait
It has been about a month since I posted some photo of an Envy 15-j with AMD A10 processor running in store. I considered it, but never brought it at the time. I was waiting for the Haswell with 750M version, with the hope of getting it with FHD. Unfortunately there are none, there are no pre-built Intel models in my country that is FHD, other than just a single AMD model. Not willing to compromise with taking an Intel with a standard HD panel, I decided to take the plunge and get the AMD model with FHD. And btw there is no CTO order in my country.

The model that I got is top of the range AMD pre-built model on our market. Specs are as follows

AMD A10-5750M (Richland) 2.5 GHz base with 3.5 GHz turbo
AMD 8750M DDR3 (128bit)
16GB dual channel DDR3L-1600 (low voltage 1.35v memory)
FHD 1920x1080 touchscreen (Chi Mei CMN15BB panel)
1TB hard drive (5400rpm)
Ralink RT3290 wireless (150Mbps)
Bluetooth 4.0 (integrated with wireless card)
Backlit keyboard (classic Envy style look)
62Wh battery (6 cell)
90w power adaptor (new design plug from HP, 4.5mm)

Faulty DOA dedicated GPU issue
As I didn't have this in the past month (when I could have), I have been looking forward to get this and reviewing it here. I will edit the review on the fly to improve what that may be when it comes about. There is one major issue; I cannot test the 8750M GPU in this machine as I believe it is faulty. Any load on it, and from anywhere from 15-30 seconds the laptop shuts down completely. I suspect the the TIM is not making connection, over heated to 110c in about 15-30 seconds then shuts down completely power off, like thermal overload protection.This one will have to go back before I cannot review it completely and thoroughly.

Impressions out of box
First thing that I noticed when taking it out of the box the unit lid feels cold to the touch, meaning there is some alloy on the lid. Also noticed how thin the front is, with it tapering to actual reasonably thick at the back. Speaking of the back, there is a considerable weight in this area. Brings me to wonder why, and now know that HP are using some counter weights in the unit, which can be found in the parts list on part surfer. Another thing that is noticed when opening the laptop lid, it does not go very far back at all, this will be due to the weight, and to stop it from falling over backwards.
If you are looking for light weight, this does not feel light it all, and feels a bit heavier than my 2012 dv6. It is definitely back heavy; most of the weight is where the battery is and the rather heavy lid.

Inspecting the unit
The construction of the base is nice a solid and you can easily pick it up from a corner without it flexing much. Great that HP has corned the alloy over the edges, this year, rather than just a top alloy plate. When resting your palms on the laptop sides, these same edges are not so pleasant on your wrists, e.g. if you are working/playing with your wrists level on the palm rests.
Looking at the bottom, at first look like it has some massive and excellent ventilation going on here, but unfortunately this is not the case as it may seem. All of the RAM, HDD cover on the bottom has fake grills on it, to trick you into thinking that they are ventilation holes, they are not, they are fully plastic moulded closed. There is actually there is also a small area of fake plastic moulded closed vents over the fan intake area too. Which make this larger area of length of ventilation holes, only about 25% open, with the remaining 75% closed. There is a thin strip of ventilation hole across the thin front part; fortunately, all 100% of these are open for air.
The actual fan vent (for the heat sink) running off the right side is surprisingly large, especially on the bottom side (black plastic part), there is good exposure to make sure that hot air escapes well. There is also a tiny inlet vent at the back near the lid, this draws into the laptop. Overall this look like a good improvement to open up the vent, the heat sink is clearly visible, which give you some reassurance and confidence that the cooling will work well.
The bottom hatch to the RAM and HDD has one single screw holding it in place, which is located under the battery (it is closer to the right hand side), but the hatch/door does not slide of easy. It appears that it is clipped in pretty hard. Avoid trying to open it where the screw is, after the screw is removed. It is a small plastic square. I think you may end up snapping off the plastic here, if you try and force lift it. I personally did not open it, I did not want to risk breaking it, as the laptop had to go back due to GPU fault. There was no easy way to open without force.

Noise levels
When turned on for the first time, the fans spins up fairly loud, much louder than I was expecting if I compare my 2012 dv6 to this, which uses an almost identical platform. I was a little surprised that the fan did not get much quieter while computer was preparing for the first time. I was on the mains power charging for the first time, but still should not be this noisy. There could be something going on with my faulty GPU, I would think so as I don't expected to to be active at that point of the setup, but who knows for sure. Later on when removing the power adaptor, and running on battery the laptop runs very nice when just do basic tasks. It will ramp up the fan quickly if you put some load on it.

Keyboard and track pad
The keyboard is nice, the keys travel nice, there is a bit of flex in the keyboard when typing. In between the keys appears to be a thin alloy frame, but not thick enough to reduce the flex when banging out words. Most of the flex is around the “SXDERFCVGT” keys. Also take note the entire keyboard area is nicely recessed in with a red colour band around to outside, to give it that classic Envy look.
The track pad is a good decent size this year, and the track pad at first feels bit sticky, as in your fingers stick to it, but after a while, it should free up, maybe it something to do with the oils on your skin from your fingers. Although I did use it for around 7-8 hours, but my fingers never got to gliding smoothing on the track pad, that was always some stick and resistances. Button clicks are very good, the track pad has good resistance when pressing down for the click and is not to sloppy. Both left and right clicks are easy to get done and controllable, without one side affecting the other.

Sound system
If you are wondering what the sound system is like, it really is good and loud. HP has done a good job to make to sound pump out of this laptop and substantial volume. Sound is good across the range from low to high. Remember that is is actually 6 speakers in the laptop. 3 of which are on the bottom, and the other 3 on the top. The 2 speakers of the 6 are quoted “subwoofers” one on the bottom and on the top, but don’t expect subwoofers as you may have in your car from these tiny speakers. My opinion it is these quoted subwoofers that are increasing the volume.

Ports and new mains power connector/plug
Port arrangement is actually very nice, in that each port embedded in the alloy cornering shell. Although there is one port that worries me, this port is the power adaptor port. The port is tiny, and when the power adaptor is plugged in, it moves a lot, and feels like it could break off easily, this adaptor is tiny, and looks weak. This could be especially true if you were to bump it hard, it sticks out on a right angle at 90 degrees. It is actually a bit of a pain to deal with when sitting on a couch, as it needs to move around a lot and has a tendency to come out a little, and the cord bends in different directions in a not so nice way. Best use the new adaptor on a desk if you don't want it to be damaged. The older HP power plugs are large sturdy, the new one is not. Later on when the laptop get older, I can foresee a lot of this adaptors plug, and the laptop jack wearing badly, or the plug being broken off.
One port I like to point out in particular is the SD card reader. The card actually goes in almost totally. Once the card is in there, you can easily forget that it is there, great if you want to leave a card in slot long term.

Performance and hardware
As for performance, this is just the same old A10 core, namely Trinity, with some refinements of speed and power saving and then renamed to Richland, don’t expect any miracles, architecturally the core hasn't changed and still is the same as Trinity which both are based on the Piledriver core. If you are looking for performance numbers on this, it would be best to search the internet for the old A10-4600M and then add on 10% to the performance for extra 200MHz the A10-5750M brings over A10-4600M.
HP has put in a good dose of RAM weight in at 16GB, split between 2 modules running in dual channel, and is also DDR3L-1600, which is low voltage memory that rated at 1.35v
Featured out of the box is dual graphics, which is the combination of the A10 and the 8750M in crossfire mode. My particular unit has issue with the 8750M, and I have not been able to use it all. I have tried to update the BIOS and graphics drivers, which are all very new, with in the last week, but my laptop does not work. I could not run either crossfire mode, or the 8750M on it own. The only graphics I could run was the integrated APU which is the 8650G
Wireless is much better than last year’s cards, the HP's that I had last year would max out at just 72 Mbps are have terrible performance often not reaching just 2 MB/s when transferring files. The Ralink RT3290 in my Envy 15 performs very well, even though it connects at just 150 Mbps, the connection is stable a good. I was able to transfer 250MB files at a good ~6.5 MB/s with peaks up around 8-9 MB/s, which is an excellent result for such card. Battery life is good, nothing much that I can say over last year’s dv6, I think that it is much on par with it. So far I have been on battery for about 2.5 hours, and I am at 56% remaining.

Power and heat
While running on battery, the entire machine remained extremely cool, when doing light duties. The warmest part of the entire laptop is the hard drive area underneath. This is true testament to why you may want to consider buying a AMD based laptop. The air exiting the right side vent feels cool.
When plugged (on mains power) the processor is in turbo mode often, and the fan is spinning fairly fast, producing reasonable amount of noise. The unit remains cool, and even under heavy load when running prime95, the temp of the processor is around the low 70’s in centigrade, the keyboard is fine to touch and bottom is not hot. It too is another good reason to choose AMD, if you want a laptop that is not going to burn you when you are using it.

Display and touchscreen
Now for the most important part, the touchscreen and FHD panel. This panel is 1920x1080 resolution, and while is looks great in store, I found the panel once home to be a big disappointment. The panel is made by Chi Mei and is model CMN15BB. Maybe I have been too spoiled by my 2012 dv6 matte IPS like panel. Even still, this Envy 15 FHD panel is not good compared to other TN standard FHD panels. The viewing angles are disappointing, and the picture inverts easily looking up from below, you don't have to move much for this to occur. When looking from the top (and not by much) the screen looks washed out. This is normal for a laptop TN panel, but this panel is particularly bad. The brightness is just ok and I expected better, I had the brightness on full the entire time I used it and this is not like me to have it up this high especially since it is night time, contrast is reasonable. Without doubt the panel is better than a 1366x768 type, which generally are poor in everyday. But there is one thing that brings this particular panel down to the standard HD panel level. This particular panel has vertical banding, similar to what you might find on bottom bargain basement models, it kind of looks like every second pixel line from top to bottom is arrange like a vertical striped shirt. The vertical banding it highly annoying.
The actual touch screen is very nice to use, if you scroll on a web page, the glass is nice with fingers moving nice and easy on the glass pane, and the page scrolls are very smooth, much nicer than a track pad or even a mouse can do, the glass screen is the best scrolling method, pretty much for everything that scrolls. Pinching and zooming work every nice using the touchscreen. Windows 8, when using explore to manage files or as such, the ribbon is excellent to reach out and touch rather than clicking with the track pad. I found that a FHD panel make things a little to small on the screen, and results in missing icons, or smaller things you are going to touch. For this you could up the DPI, but for me I don't like using any DPI higher than 100%, but for the sake of the review I used the out of box DPI which is 125%. I will likely downgrade (I have even surprised myself) to a standard HD screen for the sake of using touch with native resolution icons at 100% DPI, and of the fact the panel in my opinion is below par and not acceptable enough. In general touch add a new element to your user experience regardless of panel you may choose.

Thoughts
Overall I like this unit; it still has HP’s dv6 flavour, with some hint of old Envy more so around the keyboard and palm areas but not the same quality. You get what you pay for in the end, and with it being price the same of that of the old dv6, that is what you basically get. It is different, not a light weight and is back heavy, that must be taken on-board, there are some refinements that need putting into this machine to make it great, but at the moment it is good. If you are a HP die hard like me, then I am sure you will like it, just as long you are expecting a dv6 and not a classic Envy.

Btw. Please don’t quote this post, it is much too large, and is a work in progress, which I will be editing to improve quality where possible. Hope you enjoy it

 

Reserved this space for extras I will add content, although circumstance have now changed.

I return the laptop back to the store. I did not option for another replacement. I am concerned that the dedicated 8750M GPU had issues right out of the box. Any load for more than 15-30 second the machine would turn itself of completely (screen goes black and the machine go off fully). I monitored with GPUZ and the temperature of the 8750M reached 110c and that when thermal protection kicks in more than likely.

I had concerns about getting a replacement from the same batch. Has me thinking about the quality control about the unit I received from the batch it came from.

Even though I suspect that that the TIM was not making contact in between the GPU and the heat sink, due to it actually running fine for a few seconds. I cannot be sure is that is the real issue, that is just what the most likely diagnosis is without physical looking inside.

One other reason for not accepting a replacement, is the FHD panel is of below par quality. Usually FHD panel are much better in brightness, contrast, and viewing angles, the panel in mine was about the same as a standard HD panel in these respects, not happy about that at all, also it had vertical banding, this reminded me of a cheapest Compaq 1366 x 768 screen I had some time ago.

Touchscreen was less enjoyable on the FHD touch screen compared to my wife's standard HD touch screen. Even with the FHD panel being set to 125% DPI, the smaller items to touch were simply to small, and making mistakes was to easy. With all the above put together, a sub par screen and easy making mistakes when touching items, I could recommend a standard HD touch screen for better ease of touch use. Only reason to go FHD, is if you get some other kind is very good quality panel in your unit, should not end up with a Chi Mei CMN15BB panel.

Parts of interest:

The lid does not tilt back very far at all, the entire back is heavy, therefore I am guessing the extra weight has been added in by purpose by HP in the front thinner area, to stop it from falling over backwards, with the following part from parts surfer:

Part: 720547-001 DUMMY WEIGHT

Take note of the motherboard part used in the machine, by the wording it appear to be an AMD A76M FCH chipset, there is little data on this on the internet, about this chipset. Part number is:

720578-501 MOTHERBOARD DSC 8750M 2G A76M W8STD

The wireless card performance was surprising, last year cards were very poor. Even though the new card is not something spectacular, it works well for what it is. It is just a 1x1 card and does 150Mbps max, transfers are excellent, stable and speed downloading was 6-8 MB/s, with part number being:

690020-001 Ralink RT3290LE 802.11b/g/n 1×1 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 combination adapter


Screen/Panel. Beware of the FHD screen panel which is Chi Mei CMN15BB, this panel is pretty bad. Expect to get it in either models of AMD and Intel. If you are lucky you may get another manufactures panel, if you are unlucky you will get the Chi Mei CMN15BB panel.
There are two parts listed under the display section. One of which I believe is the touch matrix, and the other I believe is the actual panel. I will list that part only to save confusion. It is likely that this TN panel part number will be the same (as in generic part number) for all units, regardless of the actual manufacturer of the panel.

720557-001 DISPLAY RAW PANEL FULL HIGH DEFINITION BRIGHTVIEW


Also found this extract in regard to the chipset used in the machine:

11. Based on testing and calculations by AMD Performance Labs, the 2013 AMD A-Series "Richland" platform enables 780 min./13:00 hours of Screen on idle / eReader. Battery life calculations based on a 6 cell Li-Ion 62.16Whr battery pack at 98% utilization. AMD defines "all-day" battery life as 8+ hours of battery life in Windows Idle. “Richland” and “Trinity” data based on the “Pumori” reference design with the AMD A10-5750M with AMD Radeon™ HD 8650G graphics with the A76M FCH and the AMD A10-4600M with AMD Radeon™ HD 7660G Graphics, 4G DDR3L-1600 (Dual Channel) Memory, 14" 1366 x 768 eDP Panel / LED Backlight set at 100 nits, HDD (SATA) - 250GB 5400rpm, a 6 cell Li-Ion 55Whr battery pack at 98% utilization and Windows 8 64bit. RIN-5

Source (for above): http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/amd-rejuvenates-mobile-2013may23.aspx

 

Thanks for the review! Did you resolve your issue with the video card? How come the HWiNFO64 says you have a 8650M?

 

That is the integrated video card for the A10-5750m

 

Can't wait to hear more. TYVM for the pix! There's no CTO for the touchscreen version here either...yet. As of today, for $749 USD the touchscreen offering in the US is prebuilt with:

A8-5550m, 8GB 1600MHz RAM, 750GB HD, four USB 3.0 slots, 1366 x 768 15.6" touchscreen, NO backlit keyboard, and oh! It's made in China!

http://www.shopping.hp.com/shopping/pdf/e0m22ua.pdf

I'm considering either getting a version similar to yours when it's available, or waiting for kaveri offerings to come out. Still happy with my A8-3530mx and 6750m though. I really want my next laptop to be a touchscreen one. Are your touchscreen experiences good ones where you'd recommend it for my next computer? Also, the 2012 dv6 had 2 speakers plus a sub right? How does it compare to the 15z's doubled amount of speakers? And what was the price of it of your 15z?

 

How many HDD slots does it have ? what about mSata ? Also does it use the new msata v.2 NGF ?

Also how hard is it to open up ? I know you said it's clipped in but have you actually opened it ?

 

Yep, everything from from china, I don't think they made them anywhere else. I thought you can built your own AMD based model on HP USA webpage?
The touchscreen is very nice to use. I did have but of difficulty using it in desktop mode with FHD, as everything get a little to small to touch, and ended up missing what I was trying to touch. The quality of the FHD panel is poor. At this point a standard HD panel may not be all that bad. Overall the actual touch screen is pleasant to use, and I enjoyed it. Comparing to last year 2012 dv6, yes it does have a sub woofer under the keyboard somewhere to the left, and basically one extra speaker. The sound is loud and clear, with volume right up, maybe louder than last year 2012 dv6. In any case, sound it awesome.

Yeah that is the APU which is integrated into the A10-5750M, which is actually called a 8650G. There is a screenshot using GPUZ of the 8750M after the photos

No I did not open it up for a look in, there is no easy release, and this one needs to go back from where it came from today. I will only have space for one hard drive. I cannot comment on the msata at this stage.

 

Thanks for all the info!

Would you mind posting your product number, or s/n and country so we can compare parts against other models on the part surfer? That would be great!

Thanks!

 

Thanks for the fair and balanced review T2050. It's really too bad about the screen not being IPS, but considering that TouchScreen requires more power draw and so does IPS, that could have been a large power drain on such a sized laptop. Plus not having IPS obviously keeps costs down.

 

Indeed you can, but it does not have the option for touch screen. ATM, the only way to get the touch screen version here is the pre-built one =\. There is an Intel offering that can be customized with the touch screen included, but I don't want to empty my wallet -_-. Oh and there's an option for a 24GB mSSD, I'm assuming that means this computer has mSATA? Or at least the intel version does?

 

Model is HP ENVY TouchSmart 15-j002ax Notebook PC with part number E3A58PA this model is New Zealand's top pre-build AMD model. The part number is searchable with results in part surfer.

Appreciate the good comments.
I have updated the review, corrected some mistakes in words, and expanded on some areas with extra text.
Yeah the screen is far from IPS, it is a TN panel and a very poor one at that, has vertical banding which look much like a poor quality 1366 x 768 panel, and even most of standard HD panels don't have that issue with vertical banding. The FHD panel is made by Chi Mei and is model CMN15BB. I anyone out there gets this one in their unit, then look out, it is not good.

Damm no touch yet for AMD, if not now, then likely soon. Sorry could not remove the bottom cover, had to return it due to faulty GPU out of the box. I pretty sure the motherboard should be mostly the same (GPU dependant), or at least have an area for mSSD if that is an option.

 

How do determine the manufacturer of the laptop display?
I have a new 17t-j000 (intel) w/FHD and the screen looks better than you describe.

 

Nice review... Sadly I was eager to se how perform the dual 8650g + 8750m since there is None info in the web about this combination.... Wondering if is going to be a fail like previous dual graphics arrangments or finally AMD improved this tech tjat promised a lot but so far has not live up to the expectations...
Are you gonna exchange the product soon to be able to test the 8750?

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

Hey,

Thanks for the review. It was very informative. There seems to be a lot of negatives going on with the laptop.

1) Would you still recommend it once the Haswell version comes out with 750M, now that Sweeden's HP website is showing a GDDR5 model. I am in the U.S. and still waiting for it.
2) I am currently using a MBP right now, and the trackpad is one of the most important aspect. If the MBP's trackpad is a 10, what would you rate this?
3) The screen, as you stated, is not as good as expected. Would it still be usable and better than a non-retina MBP's display if you had ever gotten your hand on one.

Again, thanks for the answers in advance.

 

Download HWinfo, and then click on the monitor tab, copy and paste in your result. With yours being a 17 inch model, with all certainty it will be different panel for sure.

HWiNFO, HWiNFO32 & HWiNFO64 - Hardware Information and Analysis Tools

Sorry, with the 8750M having issues I was not able to do that test. This is what I was interesting also. I still have my A10-4600 and 7730M, and that is on Windows 8, it does give me any issues in crossfire, although the performance is not noticable than the 7730M alone. I believe the 7730M is about on par with a 8750M, the 7730M might even be a bit better, more shaders and 16 ROPS, but lower clocks.
I turned down the exchange, I didn't want another machine for the same pre-built batch. Also the FHD panel was below par. If the FHD was excellent, I would of exchanged.

1. Yeah I would recommend it still. I still have my 750M on order (I did not cancel it, luckly), it should be with me in the next few days. Mine shows that it is DDR3 though, I heard mixed things from the supplier that mine is GDDR5 even though it is listed as DDR3. With that I would hold out high hope for GDDR5 on both mine and your model.
2. I too have the MBP, nothing can beat that track pad, yes it is a 10. The HP is nice a large, but finger tips tend to grip to the track pad, it is very plastic like (not much slip on it) and does not tend to free up much after use. It just ok, and nothing more.
3. Screen is below par for FHD, viewing angle about the same as a 1366 x 768, quality about the same, and the only thing it has going for it is the higher res. Yes I have a normal MBP at work, without retina, and they are miles ahead. For touch the FHD can be a bit of a pain, if you want to touch smaller items on the screen, standard HD might work out better in some circumstances, but vice versa it will depend on what your are doing.

 

That is good. Will you be doing another review with the Haswell laptop? It should be the same, but if you don't mind let us know of anything new that you find out. If you could check to see whether it is easy to install an SSD, that would be great. Maybe if you have time, a video review would be fantastic, as we have not seen many around. I am crossing my fingers for yours to be GDDR5 as well. There is nothing here in the US yet regarding the 750M, and I don't know if HP will update that any time soon.

This link is from the Sweden HP site showing the GDDR5, but I remember you posted that you're from NZ so it might be different: HP ENVY TouchSmart 15-j002eo Notebook PC - HP Store Sverige

I am currently contemplating in waiting for a Haswell Retina MBP, but the HP might be a bit more cost effective for gaming and stuff on windows. Plus my current MBP (2010) is still holding up quite well along with my iMac. This would be my first HP; therefore, I am trying to get the best I could with the 750M.

Thanks again for the reply.

 

Battery is detectable right ?

 

We can only hope that the GDDR5 listed under the specifications isn't a typo, and that other countries will get this card too.

Grafiskt subsystem
Grafik
NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M (2 GB GDDR5 dedikerat)

 

Well yeah the 2 GB 750M GDDR5 is an excellent upper mid-range GPU and should ve better than the good old 650M. But I'm thinking of buying a AMD Richland Laptop for the time being as I don't want to buy Haswell yet. Richland will perform satisfactorily for a couple of years then when Broadwell or Maxwell or the latest well that comes out, will be my next Laptop. As Haswell is just an incremental upgrade over the current Ivy bridge. But Broadwell and Maxwell will be substantial upgrades over Haswell and Ivy Bridge. There is also the AMD Kaveri APU's coming late this year but I can't wait till then. So Richland will be a good option I think.

AND YEAH THANKS A LOT FOR THE REVIEW!!!

It really benefited me to make a decision of buying Richland Laptop. Although the Laptop I'm buying has 768p screen, no touch screen, 8 GB RAM, 2 Gb ATI Sun Pro HD 8570 Dedicated GPU, and With all other standard Laptop features. So once I get my Laptop I'll definitely post a review.

 

Providing I get it on time, then I will be ETA was today but they are not in yet. I have been told mid week to the end of the week, I am hopeful but slightly doubtful I get it on time. Anyway I will review it, with focus on the 750M. Expect the laptop to be exactly the same on the outside as this review though. So some things go without saying, like the design, weight, build, keyboard, and will be exactly the same.

Thanks for the link, I was looking for it but could not find it. Doesn't look like a typo, as you would have to make a mistake with two letters, G and 5. This does have be thinking, that maybe if you buy a model with lower TDP 35w quad then you may get a GDDR5 memory type 750M? Who knows, HP often make mistakes, recently there was a dv6-7316TX with 635M listed with GDDR5 on HP's website here in NZ, although when you go in store to view the model, it only DDR3. I have seen this on another model as well. With other manufactures I have seen options for different graphics card, and then the same card with different amount of memory (1GB and 2GB), haven't seen a manufacture list a GPU model which is the same and offer it in either a DDR3 or GDDR5 version. Usually when you are hoping for more by chance, chances are its usually less.

I have bootcamp on my rMBP, even though I have some games on the windows partition, it gets way to hot and is extremely uncomfortable to game on anywhere near your lap. Also the keyboard becomes ultra hot too, cooling fans are loud, power pack feels like it going to catch on fire. I find gaming on my dv6 2012 model much more pleasant even if it does not have the extra fast hardware, remains cool and the fans are not to loud. So yeah, going for a PC is great, and letting the Mac just do it Mac things works out better with me. Pretty good choice going for a PC for gaming, that why I am doing this too.

Yes it is and it is a 6 cell 62WHr

 

Is there anyway to check the display panel / mSSd slot with taking it apart or downloading something ? I'm going to Best Buy to check it out today .

 

No, don't think you can tell unless you had a service manual if the slot is empty.

No, you will have to do your best will just the display, make sure you get right up close to it and look for vertical banding, it will look like very thin lines running from top to bottom of the screen (king to like a wood grain,if it were all even and packed close together), white back grounds such as windows explorer, light blue or green show it up best, look for in on solid colors in larger areas, e.g. the live tiles.
Make sure you tilt the screen back and forward to see how much the screens inversion bothers you or not.
This kind of poor display is somewhat expected on some 1366 x 768 panels, but I don't expect this on premium 1920 x 1080 panels. Remember you are paying extre for FHD in the price, as the price of the unit is bumped up, no matter if buying build you own to order or from a retail store.
I am pretty fussy, others maybe not be, will come down to personal choice. It is your money you will be handing over.

 

Only saw the 17 inch model, wish I could find a 15 to check out the screen .

 

How was the 17" model btw?

 

Surprisingly good, looking at the other higher-end models of the different brands, it seemed to match them in color . I suspect it may have been an IPS as well but a 17 inch is to big for my needs .

I saw the 15 sleekbook with touchsmart and the color was hella washed out on the 15 compared to the 17 .

Seems like the person in the other post has the same screen but I don't see that much of a wash, is it possibly that the faulty GPU may have caused the washyness ?

 

Well the 17" will not be portable if you're travelling often as most laptop bags are madw for upto 15.6" and also 15.6" laptops are lighter. But still the screen quality if a 15.6" should be better than the 17" one f9r the same resolution. Although it also depends greatly on the screen quality and manufacturer. But screen quality is very important for a laptop else it becomes difficult to use over the course of time.

And @T2050, the new laptop which you got with 4th gen i7, 2 gb gt 750m gDDR5graphics have you received it yet? I just wanted to know:

1) Battery Life using Integrated HD 4600 Graphics (If the Laptop has NVidia Optimus)

2) Performance of the 750m in games and rendering (if possible)

3) Heating issues (This is the real deal as the Ivy Bridge i7-3630qm heated up quite a bit when use intensively)

Any help woukd be greatly appreciated as now I have decided to wait it out and not go for Richland APU. Will either buy Haswell i7 Laptop or will wait till Kaveri comes out. So any help on your side will be greatly appreciated and will help me to make a decision about buying a new laptop.

P.S. How does the Lenovo Ideapad Y510p compare to this HP model? Thanks.

 

No not yet. There seem to be a problem between HP saying they have stock and the retail store calling HP and HP telling the store they don't have any stock. Now the unit have gone past the ETA, and there is still no stock, there is also no new ETA, now this is all getting pretty crazy, I placed my order for a pre-built over a month ago

1. I can answer, it will have Optimus, this is a given with any new Intel and NVidia setup.

2. As I can only get a pre-build model, and there is no Intel with FHD, then I will be doing the performance at 1366 x 768, which will be best for gaming for a 750M which was only DDR3. I'm ok with this, otherwise gaming will suffer at high resolutions, and I don't like to downscale from native (looks ugly). I'm expecting gaming at this res to be pretty good, the 750M has some high clocks stock, with a decent boost clock. Maybe worth the wait.

3. Yeah I am expecting heat too, as mine should come with a high TDP i7-4700MQ. I never had a dv6 Intel quad with 650M, but I did have dv4 with intel quad and 630M, and that got hot and loud. The good thing about AMD, it will get hot, but stay a good 20c cooler in most cases, keyboard stays useable and not burn your fingers around the WASD keys.

I kind of in a difficult situation with the waiting, and the unfortunate GPU issue with the AMD model I had, poor quality control (don't want another from the same pre-built batch) and the sub-par FHD screen were deal breakers for me to take a replacement.

I wonder if anyone can help me? I am looking at this as a replacement for the Intel Envy 750M that has no ETA another more. I am looking at a Toshiba touchscreen FHD with i7-4700MQ and 745M. Can anyone recommend the Toshiba Satellite P50t-A01C from the link below? Will it be prone to over heating?

PSPMHA-01C00L - Toshiba Satellite P50t Computer - New Zealand :: Toshiba :: Computers, Laptops/Notebooks, Tablets, Televisions, DVD and Blu-Ray Players, Camcorders, Storage, Accessories, and more

 

I hope you get your laptop soon enough. I'm also thinking of waiting till more Haswell High-end Laptops become available in the market. So maybe I'll buy my new Laptop in September or October (if Kaveri comes out till then then it's even better to wait a little longer).

And about the Toshiba Laptop that you mentioned in the link, it's a good looking piece of Hardware but the major downside is 4-cell Battery. That's too low for a 15.6" Laptop. The Average Battery size is 6-cell in most 15.6" Laptops so battery life will not be more than a couple of hours on a single charge.

And the second downside is the GT 745M. It's better than the 650M but not as good as a 750M gDDR5. Though some trade-offs can be tolerated but overall the HP looks and feels better than the Toshiba one.

And yeah heating issues might still be there as it's a High-end Processor coupled with a Beefy GPU and RAM. But I think with Haswell, the temperatures of most laptops will be lower than that of Ivy Bridge Laptops with same clock speeds. But still while doing Intensive Tasks such as Gaming and Video Rendering, it's bound to heat up a bit.


P.S. And the waiting rolls on and on.... WELL or KAVERI?

 

Have you seen the real machine? it looks very cheap as the whole body is made of glossy plastic finish and the design is outdated. I may not right about the look as it is very personal but the specs is not bad.

 

I have seen the non-touch model and I was not impressed, the touch model seem to be the same design, without seeing it.
I was looking at the cooling on the right hand side thinking that is would be good for gaming, keeping the heat away from the left hand gaming key fingers. Although I could not think how well a 47W quad would work with a 745M GK107 core, and then considering the single cooling solution, it looked like it was going to be in for trouble.

With the 8750M being faulty on the notebook in this thread, I wasn't wanting to take another from the same batch. So I flagged it for the Intel model with 750M, even though it is only 768p. I only considered the 745M Toshiba only because the 750M HP was taking to long, but I got it just a few days later. Had the 750M for 4 days now, and it goes good considering it is only DDR3 for the graphics memory.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...7-4702mq-nvidia-750m-haswell-quad-review.html

 

I had it for two days but I have some issues with the HDD, it is not quiet. it has some annoying sound, its not loud but its very annoying, its like the sound came from a aged HDD. I took it to the store but the sales said we need to contact HP as it is not a fault unit, he noticed the sound issue but he can only replace it with a RMA no from HP.... if not i may just change it to SSD...

 

I noticed no noise, well just the normal and it is very quite. I know that there are certain model laptop drives that like to do annoying cycle checks, it could be one of those. Mine where both the same model but different size.
What the model number of your notebook? If you download HWinfo, then run it, post you model number of the hard drive and then Google it, then you have some sort of case or complaint you can say that it is a common issue (depending on findings), then you should not have to accept it as a grounds for return.
Like the NZ model, the Australian model should have a mSATA slot free, buy like an Intel 520 120GB for cheap, or if you are going to spend a bit more, go for a 256MB mSATA drive.

 

Hi guys. I also got an Envy 15 with A10 5750 and Radeon 8750M. Mine is a Canadian model with a 15.6'' 1366x768 display, backlit keyboard, 8GB of RAM and 1TB 5400rpm HDD.
Btw the battery on my unit is 58WHr and not 62WHr other people mentioned.
Let me know if you have any questions. Got it today, still exploring around but feels pretty snappy so far.

 

I couldn't run any benchmarks for anyone here, due to getting a faulty unit and not accepting a replacement from the same batch. Please run some benchmarks with crossfire enabled and with the 8750M just on its own.

 

Would also like your second opinion on overall build quality. Was yours the touchscreen version? What do you think of the display's quality? How is the sound system (compared with any experience with other sound systems from previous laptops if possible)? Any keyboard flexing like T2050 experienced?

 

I just received my 15z-j000 from HP. I ordered directly from them. Mine had the A8-5550M with 8750M, 1080p screen, 6GB RAM, and 1TB hybrid hard drive. I had problems with it overheating when just sitting idle or with Internet Explorer or Firefox running. It even restarted on me when I was writing to HP support about the overheating. I have an RMA already to go. It's sad that I just got it and have to send it in for repairs the day I got it.

Mine is not the touchscreen version. I didn't notice any problems with the screen. It's brighter than other laptops I have had and doesn't look that washed out. The sound for me was about par for the course for laptops, but I didn't really get to play much music. There is not mSATA available if anyone is interested in knowing. I also did not experience any keyboard flexing.

So now you guys have heard of two that have had overheating problems. Buy at your own risk.

 

So is it confirmed that the non touchscreen version has no msata slot? That's very disappointing. Been eyeing this system and for below $700 with 1080p and 8750m, it looks like a solid deal. Though, without an msata slot, the storage options are very limited as there's no ODD.

 

I didn't see mSATA slot when I opened it up. That was actually my purpose in opening it up, too. I was saddened when I didn't see one.

 

That's a shame. Seeing all these problem reports are making me skeptical. The specs I want include the A8-5550, 8750m, 1080p, backlit keyboard and it seems like all the configs with the 8750m have issues. Would love to see the benchmarks on this laptop. I might take a gamble and see.

 

The 8750m on mine was not actually overheating according to GPUz. It was the APU that was. Speccy said the CPU was at 85* C and GPUz said the 8550g was at 80* C. I just sent it back yesterday. Hopefully it comes back in better shape.

 

Ok. Maybe when you get it back you can post benchmarks and any other thoughts. How soon can you expect it back?

 

It should be back in about a week.

 

Alright. Till then.

 

I just got it back. The fan is still constantly running. Speccy and GPUz still say the APU is running really hot. I don't think HP did anything when I sent it to them. They created another service order. I told them that I understood that's what they needed to do, but they owe me something for making have to send it in twice for repair when I didn't even get the pleasure of using it. We'll see what happens.

I found out I made a mistake. GPUz and Speccy are reading from the wrong sensors. HWMonitor reports the correct temps for the CPU, APU graphics, and 8750m. I'm going to apologize to HP now.

I did run the benchmark on Tomb Raider 2013. At 1920x1080 with low setting, I get 28 fps for my low, about 34 fps for my average, and 46 fps for my high.

 

How's the build quality and battery life? I'm planning to use it for university, so I need to know if it can withstand at least 5 hours of general use.

 

Can you please run this again, but this time at 1366x768 and set it to ultra, cheers.

 

The numbers seem about right. Can u please post a gpuz screenshot? I want to have a good look at the 8750m. Thx.

 

Here are the GPUz screens. One is of the 8550g + 8750m, another of the 8750m with dual graphics enabled (it should say 640-bit memory bus), and one more of the 8750m without dual graphics enabled (256-bit bus). Neither bus speeds are correct for the 8750m. It's a driver thing. I noticed it did the same thing on my old laptop with a 6520g + 6650m.



I don't get the option of 1366x768 when I bring up the options for Tomb Raider. I don't know why that would be. Any suggestions? I can try another resolution if you like. I think the closest I can get is 1280x1024. Minimum, Average, and Maximum for that res are 3.9, 21.7, and 30 respectively.

 

128bit bus is correct for the 8750M

128bit bus is correct for the 8550G, your has dual channel RAM other anyone else with a single DIMM with be at 64bit bus

There is something wrong with GPUz reporting. Right click on the desktop and look into AMD properties then look in the about hardware tab at the bottom, you will see the spec listed correctly for the bus for both.

Running crossfire or dual graphics mode will not make the bus any higher.

If you can bench at 1280 x 720, that should be fine or near a bouts like 1280 x 800 would actually be better if you have that one.

 

Catalyst Control Center doesn't report what the GPUs' bus speeds are, but it does report the correct memory bandwidth for them, 25.6GB/s for the 8550G and 28.8GB/s for the 8750m. I could run it at 1280x768. The fps for that are min: 5.7, average: 24.6, and max: 33.0.

I updated my drivers to 13.6 Beta and 1366x768 became available. FPS are Min: 3.9, Average: 23.2, and Max: 29.3.