HP Envy 14: Availabilty, etc.

i keep debating the dual core with switchable gfx vs. quad core. it's great to see that we at least have that option. even though most of the programs i use claim multithreaded support, I haven't seen significant performance boost between i5s and i7s. i'd be interested to hear first impressions on heat, noise, and battery life with the envy14.

 

I'm no expert, and it definitely depends on what you are planning to use it for, but if you haven't seen this comparison on notebook check it has some good info:

Notebookcheck: Review Intel Core i3/i5/i7 Processors ?Arrandale?

One of the main things I take from the tests is that the i7 without switchable graphics will have a significant impact on battery life for what seems like a comparatively small increase in performance.

This might not matter to you though if you will always be plugged into the wall.

 

Where did you get this informations? Just phoned with the Sales morons again and they said something about "approx. 3-4 weeks", knew nothing about coupons etc.

Can I use this coupon, too? I checked it in checkout it seems to work. But I will preorder by mid of next week. Do you know when this coupon expires?

 

nice to see i3 and 1366*768 display aren't options.

 

Man. So it has a 1600x900 screen.

now I'm torn. I wanted to get a dv6t:se. But it looks like the envy14 is the same thing just with a higher resolution screen (well that and 14.5inches instead of 15.6inches).

hmmmm...damn. wonder how much more the envy would cost

 

The US datasheet lists it at 1366 x 768 though. Until its released, I don't think we will know for certain what it will really ship with.

http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/envy/pdf/envy14_datasheet.pdf

 

Thanks for the link, I hawk notebookcheck but must have missed that one. But, that article didn't compare the clarksfield quad core i7's. the latest data sheet shows the i7-720 as an option. tempting.

edit: decent post here on nbr about this debate. Xps 16xx Question/clarksfield Vs Arrandale

 

Going through the ads, on page 8 and on the spec sheet, you can see that envy15 is getting a refresh soon as it's going to get usb 3.0

 

I see.


also thinking about it, a 1600x900 on 14.5inches is kinda tiny.

though 1336 x 768 on a 15.6inch (dv6t select) is kinda the other way around. Eh. I may just say screw it and grab the dv6t select anyway. I don't care about ssd yet.

 

envy 15 already has usb 3.0

 

Pretty much the reason why I'm thinking about getting a DM4 - that resolution is fine on a 14" screen. And its smaller and lighter than the Envy 14.

 

I don't know about you guys but I'm still torn about the clickpad. I really hope they held off another month because they were throwing this one in there.

As you can see that's obviously a newer Envy, probably the 14 from where the clickpad sits. This is a pic from Computex, synaptics was giving private demonstrations which means no video...

 

Oh... I did not know that sorry.

 

Nvm, hard to tell about clickpad position.

 

1600x900 on 14.5 inches is perfect. It gives you almost the exact same pixels/inch ratio as 1920x1080 (Full HD) on a 17.3 inch screen:

Dimensions of a 14.5 inch screen: 12.64 x 7.11 (width and height in inches)
Dimensions of a 17.3 inch screen: 15.08 x 8.48 (width and height in inches)

Pixels/inch on 14.5 inch with 1600 pixels horizontal: 1600/12.64 = 126.6
Pixels/inch on 17.3 inch with 1920 pixels horizontal: 1920/15.08 = 127.3

So pixels/inch on the Envy 14 with 1600x900 is actually a bit lower than on a Full HD 17.3 inch screen, which means things will actually look slightly bigger on the Envy 14 compared with eg. the Envy 17.

 

Well right now this is what I'm used to.

1680x1050 on an Asus G1's 15.4" screen and it sometimes seems too small to my eyes now (though mainly at night).

kinda curious how that just looks compared to 1600x900 on the envy14 and then 1366 x 768 on eh..I guess the same envy14.

(I already know that 1366 x 768 on a 15.6inch d6vt:se is gonna look huuuuuge compared to what I'm used to)

 

crystal humming birds? wow, hps art department is out of control

 

text size should never be an issue. Change it if too small. All browsers support this, as does windows for os text/icon size.

 

yeah. Text and text in icons was part of the problem (and was why I did some of that win7 scaling to up it to 110%, works better).


The only other issue I'd really have with 1366x768 is there are times when I like to go side by side with two word documents or a word document and a website.

Or ya know. biiiiiiiig excel spreadsheet.

Though I don't deal with the giant excel spreadsheets as much as I used to. And I could always mess around with the zoom.


I guess my only other other question would be how gaming would be impacted with the 5650 if it was running at 1366 x 768 when compared to 1600 x 900 (so mainly the dv6t:se vs the envy14 with the same/very similar configurations).

'cause part of me wants to get the dv6t right now. the other part wnats to wait for the envy just to see what it costs/what the options are.


it's gonna show up mid to late july, right?

 

the reviews? maybe.

 

oh. well damn. what's the rough rough estimate of when the envy14 shows up?

october?

 

The higher the res, the better! You can always make text larger on a high res screen, but you can't get more screen real estate out of a lower res screen.

 

The difference in screen space between 1366 and 1600 is not enough for me to sacrifice 50% of gaming power, aka running new games at high for at least one more year.

1336vs1600 : photoshop workspace
Imageshack - img0515v.jpg - Uploaded by speedwithjj
Imageshack - img0630o.jpg - Uploaded by speedwithjj

The space in seven is not an issue as you can downscale the GUI or upscale it at will with some tweaks.

Also I rather downscale big res pictures to 1366 (yay downscale perfect resizing); than upscale most of the pictures to 1600+ (enjoy the ugly interpolation, okay the result will be nearly the same due to pixel number compensation but you still end up with 50% less graphics and less battery...)

 

I don't think going from 1366x768 to 1600x900 translates into a "50% performance degradation in games." I think the 5650 should be able to handle it just fine. Having 1GB of VRAM over 512MB always helps out when you get up to higher resolutions.

 

I don't know if anyone has noticed but the ual channel memory can only be achieved with ddr2? In that case what's the point of buying 1 stick of 4gb RAM when you can't double it? (unless the 1 stick is ddr2, which doesn't make sense)

 

Concerned about the GPU - really seems like the weak link.
Can the 5650 be overclocked? Worth doing so?

Love the size, screen, keyboard, just want to game without choppy gameplay getting in the way.

 

come on serious the 5650 is pretty awesome. it can run MW2 at its highest. take a look at this dude with a laptop with similar specs to the envy 14, he has the 5650 and i5-430m with 4GB RAM and the game runs beautifully:

YouTube - Modern Warfare 2 on Ati Radeon HD 5650 highest settings:The Hornet's Nest_Part 1/3

EDIT:

and even bad company 2 on a reasonable high detailed config

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qKRH7OxA7Q

 

Really? I thought ddr3 supported that as well... well in my desktop i have ddr3 trichannel so i'm pretty sure ddr3 dual channel should work no?

 

it looks like the dv6t supports dual channel (on the dv6t:se) if you have symmetric memory (2x1024 or 2x2046 or 2x..whatever the 3gig is in mb...etc)

 

yer i saw this a couple of weeks ago, as well as some other games on the 5650 and i really don't know why people are so concerned with it, seems like a mighty fine graphics card for a notebook to me.

 

So why can't you run the games at a lower res? Having the ability to run it at a higher res doesn't mean that you have to.

 

Hey guys don't get all hasty, when I say 50% thats naked in pixel density. Graphic cards have compensation mechanisms to lower the loss. 1366 to 1600 should translate to around 10-15% fps loss in most of recent games, but some games have way higher losses from resolution gain. But to me on future and newer games that can matter and be the little push above 30 fps over which it becomes playable.

 

I still don't quite understand why you can't just run the game at that lower res on a high res screen. There should only be minimal losses compared to the major usability gain you receive from the increased screen real estate.

 

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking.

 

Because on LCD screens if you run at a lower res than the native res of the screen (ie 1600 in our case) the image will be blurry and distorted because of the (very poor quality) software scaling of images. That is unless HP integrates a $$$ worth special interpolation chip to the display. Which I doubt of.

Just try with your current computer, run at a lower res your desktop, you'll see things way blurrier.
And did I mention that the more your raise the screen resolution the more the cpu gets involved to compensate the gpu additional work, that's leading to more heat aswell...

1600* is not THAT bad anyway, you'll just lower shadow detail or antialiasing by a notch and fall back to 1366 perfs so heh, it's such a great display with radiance. I'd just like a 1336 option that would be the mobility gamer's choice.

 

That's only when it's in a different aspect ratio for me. Same aspect ratio yields negligible blurriness on my screens.

It's the same thing as watching 720p video on a 1080p LCD.

 

Honestly, just read some reviews on the 5570 desktop part. I think that will clear up some of your worries about the performance at this res.

 

Yea as I told you it depends of the quality of the software scaling.



8 fps drop is nearly 20% tho :/

 

Just asking, JayJay. I've seen and enjoyed both of those videos before but what about GTA:
YouTube - Gta 4 high/very high on vaio e series ea16 5650
Acceptable, but still a bit of lag.
I'm probably going to end up purchasing the Envy 14, just curious how I can get the most out of it.

 

u kidding me for the size of the GTA4 map and the constant GPU draw distancing on top of the high settings i would say to myself "wow that is awesome for a mobility platform of 14.5" that i can carry around that isn't a gaming power house notebook like the mx11".

seriously its awesome for what it is!

 

We're now debating on whether or not the screen resolution is too big now? Seriously...? It aint a 15.6 1366x768 and it ain't a sony z 13.1" 1920x1080. It's somewhere in the middle which is just about right. If you look hard enough you can always find something to complain about

 

You guys need to remember, unless the screen has pixels in a multiple of two from the resolution you're rendering at, you will get visual distortion.

I would never run at LCD at it's non-native resolution if I didn't have to.

 

Well we are all so bored and impatient ^^
This thing makes me feel like when I was a kid, speculating awaiting awaiting christmas day rofl.

Whatever, now let's discuss a more useful topic...
As someone said before do you think it'll be possible to easlity remove the optical drive and put in a SSD instead for maximum speed whislt still keeping internal storage ?
Even if its not possible or too complicated theres always the solution of getting a SSD plus one of those ( http://www.ipevo.com/USB-30-25-HDD-Case-UDC-10_p_92.html) esata/USB self powered external hdd boxes in which I could just put the envy hard drive I replaced with the SSD. That would make a cheap 230$ (200ssd + 30$ for the case/box) SSD + 500gig external usb/e sata powered storage upgrade.

USB 3.0 (twice faster than 2.0) is faster than E-sata anyway aint it ?

PS: that one is damn sexy http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3.0-superspeed-external-enclosure,2597-4.html

 

Envy 14 doesn't have USB 3.0.

 

It's only minor distortion though. You can't tell me that watching ESPN in HD is visibly distorted on a 1080p TV. It's just not that significant.

 

Ok.

Question.


What the heck is Beats Audio?

 

I really can't imagine why at this point, either. It seems as though any laptop claiming to be "premium" should have USB 3.0 included by this time.

Beats is a line of audio products produced by Monster cable. They make headphones and put it under the beats name with celebrity endorsements (Dr. Dre, for example).

The beats audio thing on the Envy line is premium audio for the speakers in the envy. It could be product placement, or they could have actually developed them.

 

Envy 15 got usb 3.0 added... why wouldn't the new envy have it ?

 

EDIT:
I realize that this is a few posts in the past.

To those who are worrying/wondering about the HD5650 gaming capability and the 1600x900 screen res on the ENVY 14.

I haven't gotten my hands on a lappy with similar setup so don't quote me on this, but here is my rant/thought.

Mobility cards can only perform so much compared to their desktop counterpart. While mobile cards (nVidia & ATI) continue to get better and better and offer more gaming capability, I think you have to be a little more realistic in expectations on your gaming performance on a laptop.

Yes, you will be able to play current and future games.
Yes, you will be able to set the settings to ultra.
No, you cannot expect to get 30fps or greater using high settings.
Yes, you can get 30 fps or better if you lower your settings.

What did Crisis teach game developers? Large system requirements can alienate a huge market (it might have helped hardware sales but it got to he point where the game was free for GFX card upgrades). Most developers focus on optimization so optimal gaming experience can be done on a system 2 or so years old. Also, if you are concerned about what games look like on low quality, check out some vids on youtube. Low quality isn't as bad as the stigma it once had in the past.

Yes, I do want to be able to play on high or better, but I think performance outweighs shiny.

 

not sure exactly what it means for the HP, but I assume higher quality. If you've seen the Beats headphones by Dre, they're more for enthusiasts (at least price wise) so that's really cool. I mean we're talking $150-$200+ headphones, so I'm all for the HP beats audio addition. I just don't know exactly what that means in terms of the audio port.. maybe extra wattage like an amp for powering nicer headphones?