HP Envy 14: Availabilty, etc.

I am not sure if there is even a premium PC maker.

 

Bah.. I'm debating on which I should get.. the Envy 14 and the Acer 3820TG..
The Envy 14 will (most likely) have a beautiful screen with glorious 1600x900 as the Acer will have 1366x768 and probably a less brighter and dull view.. but Hendrickson's mini review, he states that its not bad. And it has the i7-620M.. and apparently it has 8-12 hours of battery life.. AND THE KEYBOARDS ARE SO DIFFERENT. I CRAVE THE ISLAND STYLE KEYBOARDS!

I'm getting a bit thrown off here by Acer's Timeline X, so back to the HP topic.

My bet is that it was sacrificed for the ODD.

EDIT: Eh. Envy 14 it is!

 

tick tockkkk xD

 

"on the clock, and the party don't stop"

 

The I7-620M will not likely be available in the US right away (if ever). The small number of I7's released in Singapore in May seem to be sold out. There is an I7 4820TG (Il Diavalo) with a 160GB SSD for sale in Germany but I have not been able to find a retailer who will import one. An I7-620M 5820TG is on the list of models coming to the US but I am not impressed with the 5820TG. So, if you want a 3820TG, it could be a wait, even for a HD5650 model and then most likely it will be a 450M/HD5650 model. If you want a high powered processor and want it within the next month, buy the Envy.

Bronsky

Thread hijack over ... return to your Envy 14 discussion.

 

I just played with a Macbook Pro 13 at Best Buy. I dropped my keys on it, tried to scratch it with my nails, punched it, pressed hard on it, etc. I checked the seams and it's solid. Amazing construction.

If the Envy 14 can match that kind of quality...DAMN. envy 14 would be the best laptop ever.

 

I'm surprised you weren't "escorted" out of the store.

 

lols... i agrree with l3vi.

 

I think some Best Buys give you a demo to show you how well the Macbooks are built by letting you trying to scratch or damage them. I don't know. LOL

 

Of course, I was discrete about it! When dropping my keys, I made sure the stereos near me were blasting. And when punching it, I only impacted it from 6 inches away to test the sturdiness. It's amazing how solid the construction is. The only weak point would be the aluminum on the lid. If you press hard enough, the screen underneath will distort and change color.

Fortunately, HP has a very generous return policy so I will be purchasing the Envy 14 to see if it's right for me. If it's not, I can simply return it, no questions asked. Apple, on the other hand, isn't so generous since they have a restocking fee if you wish to return.

 

Yea the ODD is kinda dumb. I don't think it will help the E14 in the big picture. And yes the E14/hp have an awesome return policy. Wayy better than apples which is 15% just for open box.

 

Without it, they probably could've offered a better GPU or more room for an extra HDD or an SSD OR just make it a little bit slimmer. But if people REALLY dislike the ODD and crave better graphics and storage, they're forced to take the route to the Envy 15 or 17. Although, the ODD may be a good thing for some.

EDIT: Hmm..
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-ssd-hdd-storage-using-optical-bay-caddy.html

 

yea u can add a storage drive into the ODD slot, but you cant add better cooling or say a hd5730

 

So, for those of us that want decent battery life for work and on campus and decent gaming performance (within reason for a notebook of course), which i5 should I go with?

 

Hmm. I say the i5-430M because I believe it is suppose to use less power.. I'm not quite too sure. And we still do not know the battery life on this. My guess is though if the battery turns out to be a fail (again), we have to buy the battery slice which just snaps on the bottom and offers, I think, 6 more cells onto the laptop, which will increase battery life significantly.

 

The 430m for sure. It has plenty of oomph for gaming and in any event you'll be bottlenecked by the GPU.

 

One of Vista's biggest "failings" was the new driver architecture that broke compatability because hardware manufacturers weren't prepared. I read somewhere that 70% of Vista crashes were nVidia's fault. Because Microsoft entirely preserved driver and application compatability between Vista and 7 they didn't change the version number to 7.x.xxxx because many installers check that the version is equal to EXACTLY what they want rather than checking for equal to or greater than. Pretty frustrating and not forward thinking, but it caused a lot of Vista "incompatabilities"

 

The I5-520 series and above perform significantly better than the I5-430 or 450 series without a corresponding increase in power usage. That is true until you hit the I7-620M which suffers from the addition of more cache.

The performance advantage of the 520M and up, is due to features that are absent from the lower powered units (called the Comm suite). Once you commit to an I5-520M, it is a small increase in price to gain the extra power that an I5-540M will give you. Take that price increase and calculate it over the life of your computer. How long do you expect to use it? Then consider the increasing CPU demands from software developments over the life of your computer which suggests that you should try to buy as much CPU power as I can get without paying a disproportionate premium. My main use, however, is business, not gaming. For gaming, the equation is somewhat different becuase of the importance of the GPU, which is really the limiting factor for performance.

Bronsky

 

This is one of the reasons why I am actually considering the idea of purchasing an MBP. I would like to get a 15" with an i5 and the high-res anti-glare screen as a refurb.

If I can't find that in the Apple Store refurb section within the next month, I will buy the Envy 14, most likely.

 

remind me to never let you near one of my laptops.

 

I don't know, I'm on the fence about the optical drive. I admittedly really like having an optical drive on my notebooks, as it's very convenient, but if I could swap the optical drive for an additional or larger battery, I think I'd go for it.

I guess another slot to put an SSD in would be nice, but it's not a big deal. I'll just put an SSD in the notebook then put the drive into an external eSATA or USB enclosure.

 

Same here.

 

:\ E3 is tomorrow, you would think HP would give up some information on the ENVY14 there, I hope they do!!!! Im stressin and waiting everyday for the works and M11xr2 lol.

 

E3 is going on now, but I have a feeling HP won't bother to do anything there...

 

yeah microsoft, EA, and ubisoft had their press conferences.


they ranged from awesome to hilariously bad.


Looking forwards to need for speed hot pursuit by criterion (burnout guys) and Rez 2 (Child of Eden)

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (AC 2.5) looked cool as well.

 

iirc the 5730 is just a 5650 with a higher clockspeed, people have overclocked their 5650s to a 5730.

 

Deus Ex Human Revolution will be where it's at. Too bad it's not expected till 2011. Then with mandatory delays....

 

yeah.

Looking forward to Batman Arkham Aslyum 2 as well.

 

Well the games I'm looking to play in the future are Red Orchestra 2, Fallout Vegas, and Civ 5.

So either the i5 430 or i5 520?

 

It depends on how much HP charges for the upgrade to a i5-520M... The i5-430M is definitely plenty fast enough for a Mobile 5650, it's clocked at 2.26GHz and can turbo up to 2.53GHz, while the i5-520M comes in with the slightly bumped up clock speed of 2.40GHz, but it can turbo up to 2.93GHz.

Obviously the i5-520M will perform better, but if it's $200 more or something like that, I'd skip it and stick with the i5-430M.

Edit: Off topic, but I'd like to say I think Red Orchestra 2 will be awesome if it's anything like the first one. I absolutely love Red Orchestra.

I don't know where you heard about this "Comm suite" stuff, but the only real differences between the i5-430M and the i5-520M are the slight bump in clock speed, and a few minor things like new AES instructions. Logically, the i5-520M should offer a bigger bump in performance due to the turbo being able to reach 2.93GHz compared to 2.53GHz on the i5-430M. The slight bump from 2.26GHz to 2.40GHz without turbo shouldn't be significant at all.

You can check the spec sheets here, directly from Intel's website:
• i5-430M Specifications Sheet
• i5-520M Specifications Sheet

 

Here is where I read about the "com suite stuff"

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

As in this quote:

"As expected, the efficiency of the single CPU has a direct impact on the test's total score. Apart from the "HDD Test Suite", which merely checks the used hard disk's performance and is consequently almost always the same, a constant increase of the Core i3-330M up to the Core i7-620M CPU can be seen in almost all sectors. That is, with one exception: The 620M, 540M and 520M chips show an excellent rate in the "Communication Suite". To be more precise, PCMark Vantage tested coding and decoding of data, data compression, email search and audio transcoding, all of which are very CPU-biased applications. The reason could be special features in the new Arrendale CPUs that can score especially in the cited processes and which have been left out on the smaller chips (new AES instructions, Intel trusted execution technology)."

I think it's that stuff that you call a "few minor things".

Bronsky

 

Assuming the base spec starts at the 430m, it will be 100 dollars to go to the 520m and 150 for the 540m.

 

Sorry, when you said "Comm suite," I thought you were referring to some on-die technology Intel had implemented.

That is tempting... I don't know if I can afford that, as I definitely want the 1600x900 display. I was really thinking I'd need the battery slice, but maybe I'll just order one later if I feel like I need it. Maybe investing $100 in the i5-520M would be better spent. Mainly because the Envy 14 would potentially replace my aging desktop, and I'm throwing an SSD in it.

If the Mobile 5650 can handle it, I might overclock it, as I've heard you can push these chips a bit. Cooling is definitely my biggest concern, due to the previous Envy track record.

 

Based on other Envy pricing, I'm expecting:

i5-520m = +$100
i5-540m = +$150
320GB HDD = standard
500GB HDD = +$25 (or free as is with the Envy 17)
Battery Slice = +$75
Wireless N + Bluetooth = +$25

So for me it's:

$999 base +
$150 i5-540m +
$100 1600x900 screen +
$75 battery slice +
$25 Bluetooth
=

~$1350

Here's to hoping for a 25% BCB, that would bring price to a little over $1000! Not bad.

If they offer the i7-620m, I'll probably go for that, if it's only +$200 over the i5-430m.

 

Assuming the i7-620M is an option, and I can get 25% BCB, then I think I would go with the same configuration you have. Otherwise, I'll skip out and go with a lower priced processor.

 

I'm totally in on this - I've been a huge fan of DX since shortly after it was released - my total of playthoughs is probably approaching double-digits. I'm planning on playing through the Shifter mod soon (Tagline: "Removing the suck from Deus Ex" - basically a bunch of tweaks to improve the gameplay experience), though the new(ish) DX10 renderer taxes my current PC, so I'll either wait for my Envy 14 or deal with the older, uglier graphics.

Here's hoping that Eidos Montreal manages to successfully create a worthy successor to what many consider the greatest PC game of all time.

$75 for the slice? I thought that they were $125-$150. Then again, I haven't been in on the Envy craze for very long. Your build looks like what I'm planning on going for, but I'm gonna stick with the 520 - the 540's clock speed increase is too small for an extra $50 IMO. I'll probably be tacking on a 3-year warranty as well - anyone know what the base-level 3-year warranty will cost on the 14?

 

If the battery slice really is only $75, I might just scoop it up too!

 

I think it's only $75 when you purchase it with your Envy, as it is.. I believe over $150 when you buy it separately.
For the base-level 3-year warranty (HP 3-year Care Pack House Call Service for HP HDX, HP TouchSmart, or HP ENVY Laptop PC), if you take a look at all the other Envy products, the warranty prices are exactly the same. So it will most likely be $319.99.

 

Just preordered my Envy 14 today here in Germany. With a 5%-off coupon for the Envy 15 and an additional 5% Yingiz cashback for the HP store, it will cost around 1169 EUR which is a good price IMHO for the german base configuration.
Unfortunally, the slice battery is not available until now but since I have another 25EUR-off coupon (amounts > 99 EUR), I will save a few backs on the slice battery, because Yingiz cashback will work here, too.

 

Assuming you are comfortable doing it (It's really not that hard) I would suggest getting the 520m and overclocking it up to the 540m. From the information I have seen, they are the same except for the clock speed.

 

Been reading these forums alot about overclocking. Is it as simple as what I did on my desktop's Athlon 64 3200+, where I went into the bios and changed the 200mhz to 250mhz? Or is overclocking a notebook more complicated (also explain how to overclock an i5-series cpu).

Thx

 

obligatory post. rep this man

 

The vast majority of notebooks do not have overclocking options in their BIOS. Unless the previous iterations of Envy had overclocking options, what will have to be done is either software overclocking, or actually doing an conductive trace on the physical CPU itself.

 

That poem has brought me out of my longtime following of this thread to actually make a post..

Just fantastic, well played.

 

I wonder if we can reduce the refresh rate of the screen, that gives 30% more battery. I couldn't find the option to do this on old Envy 15

 

Does Yingiz really stack with HP coupons ?
The US BING cashback doesn't stack with other reductions at all.

Yingis says that HP gives them a 5% discount and that YOU would get 60% of this discount.
Meaning you will get 3% cashback and not 5%.

If it stacks:
If you get a HP price with 5% discount and 3% cashback from Yingis on your HP price, you would have to pay:
1197 Euro and not 1169 Euro (=10% discount).

The correct stacking of this discounts is not additive but multiplicative:
1299 x 0,95 x 0,97 = 1197 Euro (~7,85% discount)

 

The slice is not yet available for order with HP Germany.. I would have opted for it if I had had the chance.

 

27th better get here soon ... it will be sonnets or Haiku next.

Patiently waiting has its own rewards.

Bronsky

 

CPU overclocking on a notebook is more difficult. You have to know some precise informatino about teh CPU and then can possibly use SetFSB to OC. Overclocking the GPU is not difficult however.

Bronsky

 

1ku Bulk Budgetary Price $332.00 <== 620m
1ku Bulk Budgetary Price $225.00 <== 520m

So expect HP to be at least +200$ on the upgrade from 520 to 620 imo.