HP Envy 14: Availabilty, etc.

For me, if if it's a bust, it's DM4t from Costco all the way. Swipe my AMEX card for it and basically get 3 years of HP manufacturer warranty. If I plan to heavy game, I'll have to buy a desktop.

 

I'm trying to avoid getting a desktop.

been without one since times of yore when thunderbirds roamed the land and heated the room by 5 * F

 

What game would maximize ENVY 14's potential? Crysis is overboard, but what other games is everyone looking forward to playing on their ENVY?

 

you are lucky to see the envy before purchase. i tried to find a best buy with an envy 13/15 on display but with no luck.

i wish you took some pics though

 

Yeah thats what we are hoping. I went through 4 Envy 15's to get a good one. I personally know of over a dozen folks who went through 2 or more Envy 15's to get a good one. I chat with lots of folks who just settled with the problems... NEVER in my book will I settle.

I believe most honest owners will tend to agree that the over all quality of the Envy 17 seems to be lower than the Envy 15 so far. As stated above various times, maybe we can expect the second batch of Envy 17's to be more reliable.

Im grateful that HP stuck their neck out and made a Premium 15 PC thing... where Dell flopped with the small Adamo. Most expected the Envy 17 to be a home run considering all the learning issues HP had with the Envy 15. Not so fast my friend!

It seems that lowering the price of the Envy 17 mirrors the poor fit and finish of the Envy 17 as well. If HP had truly advanced monetarily with the Envy 15 generation, I see no reason at all why they would lower the price of their next generation model, which turned out to be the Envy 17. That tells you something. Just think about it.

If HP truly wanted to create and keep high margins, they would do what Apple does with most of its products. Build solid, and charge really high. People tend to look over purchasing 1 big time when they realize the security of owning a quality designed and built object. I absolutely do not believe that HP lacks the creativity of skill to rival MBP and easily surpass them. What I absolutely do not believe is why they have not yet chosen to do it.

The ball is in HP's quart... but Apple is advancing much faster.... can HP catch up? Will it be the Envy 14 that provides HP with unilateral support and praise for its beautiful design? Or will it flop with a different number... again.

13, 15, 17, ?

 

+ 1

I think we were all hoping HP would grow the Envy brand to significant value, instead they provide the Envy 17 with a deeper feature set at a cheaper price.

Makes me think HP realized they were in deeper than they could swim. They realize their strengths and roots are in low budget main stream PC's. They saw Apple profit in astounding ways, and attempted to follow.

Swing 1: HP Envy 13.... miss

Swing 2: HP Envy 15.... miss

Swing 3: HP Envy 17.... miss

Wait.... more than 2 strikes???

Swing 4: HP Envy 14....

 

The Envy 13 wasn't so bad. No heating issues, just bad touchpad. Gen2 Envy 15 was a significant improvement in that it got rid of creaky palmrest and hot temperatures.

 

Yeah my 4 swings are a joke. The 13 was ok, but just very underpowered.

15 was poop. Ive got a 2nd Gen 15, but it took 4 to get it right! My experience is 2nd Gen primarily cooled better due to the i5, and not any notable design changes. 2nd Gen 15 with i7's still scortch... but thats the nature of a quad core beast so thats quite ok by my terms.

How my boyfriends i5 MBP gets almost twice the battery life of my i5 Envy 15. No excuse there.

 

Yeah. Apple definitely gets brownie points in that regard.

 

I think I'm gonna buy an envy14 when its released, and worst case scenario ill just return it within 21 days. No harm done, right?

If I find that it is a fantastic machine, but just with a few sloppy mistakes on the case, i'll have no problem replacing it a few times until I get a good one. I can use my current lappy a bit longer.

When I got my XPS m1530, there were all those grainy screens going around. Well I got one, and sent it right back. It took me a while on the phone with Dell, but I managed to get a replacement with a nice LG screen =]

I don't know what I'll do if the e14 is a bust... NOTHING else appeals to me =[

 

Wait, 8 hrs WITH the battery slice???
This is no where near the 14 hours claimed.
If this is true, I will scratch the 14 off my list.

 

This is one of those striking remarks that keeps resonating in my head now that you've provided this view. HP appears to be back peddling...

 

If by "brownie points" you mean real human use beyond a power cord, yeah I love brownies! I'll give em "brownie points" all day when HP realizes that most people work 8 hours a day.

Next time I'll tell my boss that I have to go home 3 hours into the day because my laptop cant do better. lol :wink:

 

lol whats the big deal about plugging in your laptop? My ty Dell battery on my XPS only lasts me 10mins (its 2 years old), and it doesnt bother me that much. I just plug it in when I get to class.

 

Some people don't want to be plugged in next to a wall socket.
The battery life of this thing depends on if I buy it or not.

 

That's also been my fear for the past few weeks since I first heard the quoted $999 pricing. As the old saying goes, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!"

I tried to rationalize that the coupons were simply temporary and part of HP's long-term goal of furnishing an improved image as a premium PC maker. I made the guess that sooner or later, HP wouldn't be as generous with the coupons on their premium line. I thought it wouldn't be much different from the way Hyundai until April 2010 used to offer generous cashback incentives. Now that their Sonata and Sante have been selling out as soon as they leave the factory and hit the dealerships, Hyundai's been cutting down on incentives as Toyota and GM keep offering them and still keeping sales figures high. They've settled the question about their quality once and for all. Now they're offering their premium car, the Equus, for roughly $48,000 in contrast to comparable German luxury cars that go for $20,000 more. Just as Hyundai has gradually raised the prices on their cars and cut cashback incentives on the Sonata and Santa Fe, we'll see the same happen with the Equus


Now I'm having my doubts.


The Envy 17 quality issues leave me ambivalent and in the dark about what to expect from the Envy 14. If HP offers 25% BCB and/or a $250+ off coupon the week the Envy 14 is released, I'll only become more suspicious. If I can solve the seams/gaps issue with some screw driver work, no problemo. But if I see lots of knicks and scratches at opening box time, that'll kill it for me.

9 more days until the midnight of June 27th.

 

Exceptionally well said. This is the perfect antithesis for the whole "but the Envy XX is half the cost of the MBP" baloney thats slung around here mindlessly. Hyundai did what Honda and Toyota already did. Make a better product than GM at a better price. Now Hyundai is doing it to not only GM, but also to Asian and European brands as well.

We can easily see why the Envy is half the cost. Eyes can be fooled easily, but wallets close up much faster.

Bing Cash Back, Student Discount, Military Discount, AARP Discount, Blind Buyer Discount... none of them matter. I only pay for quality, no gimmicky trickory!

Move that turtle along buddy!

 

He'll be there before you know it. Hopefully we can order right on Sunday.

 

I almost spit my drink!!! Thats how its done! :laugh:

EDIT: I wonder if you can do that Photoshop work on an Envy touch pad? Rotate and Scale probably wouldn't work! lol.

 

The absolute only reason I haven't bought an Envy 15 is the switchable graphics/battery life from the Envy 14. I think switchable graphics have created a whole new niche of laptops in that they are powerful when you need them to be and portable when you don't. I plan on using a slice with the integrated on and getting 14 hours battery life for day to day use.

 

There's also the battery-saving software to consider. OSX from what I hear handles that part differently from the way Windows does.

 

Thats what Im trying to understand better. The same could be said of Ubuntu until the last build came out. It seems as if that mysterious battery life idea is volatile! Ive even tried to cut off any service or program running in msconfig... I just cant help Windows out! lol.

Sweet! Hook us up with a nice youtube unboxing with photos of the seams where multiple materials or parts are joined. Thanks!

 

So, now I also officially am a Member of the Envy 14 club, my order is being processed.
Until now everything is neatly counting down to the 28th, no delays yet.

That means my personal turtle (counting shipping) has 13 days to go!

I hope this purchase was worth it!

 

Cool, what country are you in?

 

IIRC he is a fellow countryman of mine! Unbelievably that Germany seems to be ahead in this case. Normally, we have to wait weeks (if not months) for US hardware to be available in Germany. If it is available at all, e.g. Microsoft's Zune never made it to Europe.

 

When exactly are you germans (or other europeans) suppose to be receiving your envys (envies?) in the mail?

 

The envy 15 has no switchable graphics, the 14 will, that makes all the difference in the world. And the slice add on should net similar battery life to a mbp.


We know osx is better with battery life than windows, and we know the stock non removable battery in the mbps is a higher capacity one.

But I would be surprised if the new 14 could not get around the 4.5-5.5 hour mark with the normal battery.


If you need 8 get the slice, and you'll get it. Don't want to carry the extra weight? Well then get a mbp.

Out of curiosity, exactly what about the envy 14 makes you want to get it over a mbp? In spite of the laundry list of complaints you've listed where the mbp bests it?

 

As the HP Germany Division expect to recieve their first Shipment of (according to them) only a few Envy 14 on the 28th, I expect a delivery of the 1st of July, according to normal shipment times.

 

grrr im so envious of you germans! XD

but really, you get the envy14 first, AND Rammstein!

 

HP said 7 hours, so Im hopeful it will get 5.

Its obvious people are very interested in the Envy 14 for many reasons. There are no complaints (only if one is not limited to negativity), only parameters in which we expect a successful corporation like HP to grow its Envy brand with successful design growth through the different Envy generations. Thats why we're all here (if its not blatantly obvious already), and I believe the 14 has added pressure in response to the Envy 17's early issues. The Envy, man its sharp. If you weren't able to read the previous post about the MBP looking kind of bland next to the Envy in the Apple store then click a few back, its obvious beautiful and has superior CPU choices (both dual and quads), Envy's graphics over MBP... it goes on and on.

People on this forum who mention a "competitor" generally do so in a manner that questions why another company doesnt do the same. Very simple. I dont think we all want to buy a MBP, but its very obvious that many here are able to see the ways in which its superior to some of the Envy's. Like battery, vent placement, construction methodology, fit and finish, pre installed bloat, poor customer support, Ill equipped technical support, and on and on. But in the end, we still have a desire for the Envy, so we patiently wait for all those issues to be resolved by HP so that we can also have the advantages of the small features that provide the end user great usability.

EDIT: Why is every new sports car compared to some generation of the Porsche 911? Its a design icon that changed its segment and created new opportunities. Apple did the same, so until someone knocks them off their block, expect more comparisons to MBP. Simple.

 

Ive been looking at the envy 14 for a while now but the dv6t:se seems quite intriguing. any thoughts on the dv6t:se over the envy 14 right now?
For $970 + tax you get (this is a config i made just now, theres a $200 coupon right now)

core i5-540
4gb ddr3 ram
500gb 7200 rpm HDD
1gb 5650
blu ray drive
bluetooth
backlit keyboard

Despite the bigger screen size it only weighs about .1 lbs more. Although the resolution is potentially worse, you get a better processor and blu ray compared to the base envy 14. And the build quality for the new non-envy line of HP laptops are supposed to be quite nice, no? Ive seen that one review of the dv6, are there more out there? what do you guys think

 

The lower res screen for me is a deal breaker. I cant stand looking at the screens of all the laptops with low res displays in bestbuy. Plus the envy14 is slimmer and sleaker.

 

So how long after I place an order for an envy14 will it arrive at my doorstep? I've never ordered from HP, so I don't know if they have a build time or what not.

My XPS m1530 took over two weeks to get to me. I hope thats not the case with HP!

 

Probably at least that long. One Envy 17 owner waited nearly a month.


Which reminds me. I'm definitely waiting until I have my apartment nailed down in early July. I'll be scouring the forums while working on a discount negotiation phone call with HP over any delays.

 

Just wondering but was there a significant gap in build quality between the HP Envy 13 and 15?

Im not sure if i recall correctly but supposedly the 13 had excellent build quality, while it build quality was worse with the 15, and now the 17 has quite a few problems itself.

Does size have anything to do with it?

 

If I had a scale of your listed advantages vs disadvantages, the negatives would fall through the earth compared to what's so much better on the mbp side (very genius bar type spiel btw, just saying)

I've made this point before, but I'll do it again. A busted envy is not going to be competitive or favorable against anything. Not even the lowest of the low netbook. In a similar way a poorly constructed model is not going to compare to another machine of flawless build.

Some people though want to know how each machine compares at its best, not at its worst. Not with a base assumption that it won't open or the hinges are busted or whatever else.

The envy 14, as it is conceived on paper, is a better machine than the mbp to many people. Even with lower battery life, and a lesser trackpad. Is the battery life still solid? check Is the trackpad functional? pending - Are the graphics decent? Yes, a nice boost over similar mbp models that cost more money. Does it come with a good screen? Likely as an upgrade, yes, probably better than the mbp. Backlit keyboard/optical drive? yes and yes. Does it have apple aesthetics? check. Does it have apple bs? (no hdmi, gimp gpu) No, no it does not in that area.

Now all of that goes by the waist side if the machine is broken or is uneven or whatever else, but comparisons to broken products are not what many people are interested in. Now if broken products are a common thing, then that is definitely an issue, one that would need to be fixed. And when it is, what is the argument then? A better package is a better package, even if the initial builds are less than stellar. So the question becomes, which machine is closer to a persons ideal, with the flaws? My argument to you is that there are plenty of people who would prefer to break towards the envy 14 package compared to the mbp 13/15 as it is closer to their ideal notebook for a given price range.

 

+1,000,000,000

It's a package of many of the good things to be found in a PC. Beautiful screen, acceptable gaming GPU, good CPU, ok thickness/weight for a 14," and solid build construction when it's built well. As I've said earlier, a working two-finger scroll is all I'm hoping for.

 

Janitor walks along the thread with broom and mop while whistling...

 

Uhhh... derrrr... thats why were here. I think most people know the price of a MBP, and most people here also assume the Envy 14 will reasonably float around the provided spec. Obviously there is allot of interest in what HP does with the Envy 14. A grand, no problem. The bigger problem is knowing if it will be right the first time. Thats where the HP gitters come into play. 21, 30 days to flog it... no problem. If its DOA, it'll go back that day.

I hope it looks as perfect as the Hi Res images you can easily find on the net. If so, it will sell like hot cakes. Brand new form factor could for sure take some MBP users back, and gain allot of existing PC users from other brands as well. 4th times a charm.

 

Ha. Advertising pays the bills. Cant disappoint HP too much...

Edit: Do you smoke in the hallways? lol

 

There's also people like me that at some point don't really mind spending whatever the MBP costs, but having to put up with OSX is a total deal breaker.

The MBP simply loses 90% of its advantages when using Windows, and if you add the fact that its hardware is worse when compared to an half-priced PC, well, the choice isn't very hard to make.

Also, I've seen more kernel panics in OSX than in Windows 7, so there goes the "stability" point.

I'm not really waiting on a Envy 14 neither am that fond of HP, so I'm not biased in that way .

I just hope that those Envy 17 early problems were from a bad batch that slipped QC (because really, I've owned around 5 laptops over the last 6 years [and half of them somewhat cheap] and none had any of those blatant construction problems), and that the Envy 14 being smaller comes more solid.

Time will tell =)

 

For sure. People will spend good money for good products.

I have no clue what that is. What do you mean?

We are all with you on this. I hope the Envy 17 delay will tighten things up a bit, which should help the roll of of the Envy 14.

 

Umm-mmm. It's not like that. See, when a thread gets too far off topic or when posters get insulted or upset with resulting fights, I gotta come in and clean it up.

Sometimes threads get so filthy, I gotta close 'em down and levy infractions or warnings.

I know. It's a dirty job (takes puff and taps ash) but someone's gotta do it.

 

Cool. We appreciate your work! Nice mental imagery with the the photo, jargon, and dialogue.

 

Kernel panic = Unix version of the dreaded Blue Screen of Death

It's prettier than the BSOD, but does exactly the same thing x)

 

Ahhh gotcha, thanks for the explanation. Macs always try to look pretty... even when they are chocking and coughing up in the toilet, they still hold their own hair back to look good when they feel bad. Lol.

Looks like ya gotta mac daddy sandwich there. :laugh:

 

One last question about AMEX. Does AMEX's 1-year extension cover laptops bought on eBay? This discussion seems to indicate yes.

 

So bolt.pt, are you a linux/unix guy? A couple of us are wondering about the Envy on a Linux distro and what that would do for battery life.

Also, why does OSX get better battery life than Win on a mac... or period? Any correlation with the OS and battery life, or does Apple just cripple Win on MBP's?

 

I believe the premise of AMEX's service is based on card usage for purchases. Not sure on a used item.... Ive only used the extended warranty once, so sorry I cant be more precise. I can say AMEX is great with its members, so give em a call and fire the questions away. Either way, I advise purchasing electronics with them because of their consistent support. They've helped me while over sea's on the drop of a dime... they do good business.

 

Uhm, I'd say that I'm a Unix kind of guy when I need to, that is, essentially when I need to develop apps that'll run on Unix environments, compiled with GNU GCC tools. Frankly, I like Windows 7 a lot, and when I want to play a game it's the best suited environment I got for it.

I usually run Windows 7 as main, booting up some Linux VMs when needs be.

Battery life on Linux would depend a lot on the ability to use the switchable graphics cards. I can't say I've researched much about it because I don't own any laptop at the moment, and never had one with switchable graphics capability.

As for the last question, yes there is a correlation between OS and battery life. First of all, OSX is design to run only on specific hardware, so they develop and optimize it having only a very small fraction of configurations that you'd see on a normal PC.
By controlling the hardware it's much easier to optimize the software, because you don't have to be worried about supporting every weird config that you could have on a PC. Just check how many different mac configs there are, and compare to the almost endless configs windows has to recognize and work with.

Also, MB battery life on Windows isn't crippled on purpose, it's mostly the consequence of lack of support for switchable graphics (though I'm sure there's more to it [related to OS optimization]).
Also, don't forget that the MBPs come with a larger capacity battery than most Laptops, which helps a lot.