HP Envy 15? i7 meets 4830+15" screen!

Great! Ok, I paid through my CC instead of PayPal and it worked. I'm just waiting for the confirmation on the Bing now. It'll come! Then all I have to do is call HP and cancel my first order. Should work fine, right?

 

I don't know the specifics about your order, but you can't you cancel your order online too? Either way, once Bing is notified that your first order is canceled, they'll remove your first cashback.

Otherwise, congrats on your order! I hope to be getting the same laptop in the future : )

 

Thx! I just got the confirmation on the second order! I guess I could email to try and cancel online, but I think you have to call.

My new order is everything stock, I mean, I don't really need 8GB RAM and I never use Blu-Ray and hardly even CD/DVD. This things already got 6GB RAM and the CPU is plenty powerful. I just have a little problem where I always want to MAX things out LOL.

 

Haha yeah I was tempted to do the same. But I figured even at stock this laptop was already going to be meeting my needs. If I need more I'll step up as and when I need to (or so I had to keep telling myself).

 

Nothing will negate the consumption and heat via the 720 and 820. They are hot and they are hungry. Of course TDP isn't exacting, but it gives you an idea.

I'm just concerned about cramming that all in a 1" chassis.

But hey!

So as long as you're not:

A> Gaming
B> Doing anything demanding

You're good to go......

Got it, check.

Power consumption: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/mobile-core-i7,2443-12.html

And yes, that is the 55w 920 not the 45w QX9300, but take a look at those numbers even compared against the QX9300 which is
known to be hot and hungry when doing anything meaningful.

Early heat indications and chassis heat: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Hands-On-HP-Envy-13-Envy-15-in-Review.20675.0.html

I'm not knocking the chip. Just the tight, small confinement in which it is being placed.

Do you know a source of the 4830 mobility consumption wise @ idle but more importantly under load?

 

Review here, on a preproduction sample it seems (in German):

http://www.pcwelt.de/start/mobility_handy_pda/notebook/tests/2104330/hp_envy_15_im_test/

Translated (thanks, Purlpo):
http://translate.googleusercontent....le.com&usg=ALkJrhiBO-3nQpsLZfWOoHZ0Wi6Obc2icw

Interesting to note in the conclusion (translated by google, not me):

"In its lightweight body, the HP Envy packs 15, an enormous computing power - but with drawbacks, such as a very loud fan and an extremely short battery life. Possibly a BIOS fine tuning the production models here can help to better results."

Some interesting test results (page 2 of the test):
(Note that the test sample has an 820 CPU)

Sysmark 2007 189 points
3D Mark 06 7231 3D Marks
Battery life 74 minutes
Avg. Brightness 228 cd / m²

Max Contrast 398:1

Fan Noise
Peace 24.6 dB (A) / 0.5 Sone
Last 39.0 dB (A) / 2.8 Sone
Weight
Notebook 2.42 kilograms
PSU 0.760 kilograms

 

I just checked again (to confirm that the bing 25% is still in effect and it is as of 10/19/09 @ 4:48AM), and they just went ahead and removed pretty much any customizations which I guess is better than those outlandish prices. Hopefully they will add back in the plethora of customizations they usually have along with realistic pricing.

 

I'm quite intrigued by this notebook... it seems to fit my needs almost perfectly. But, as electrosoft says, I'm also very concerned about heat development... I wonder if using a notebook cooler will help that thing at all with surface temperatures.

Translated review: http://translate.googleusercontent....le.com&usg=ALkJrhhLrE6aFUE3JyIkmlV2mgjrqVX9Eg

I was reading the Envy 13 service manual and found out you need to unscrew 45(zomg) screws to remove the keyboard... just to access the ram memory slow :l . If the envy 15 is anything like that, I'll be passing... with it's crammed design I bet it will need a lot of maintenance, specially for removing dust.

 

It is an interesting laptop. Unfortunately it doesn't have an inbuilt DVD which is a shame. Still, kudos to HP, gorgeous looking machine. I'll probably be going with the M15x, but will keep an eye on this one.

 

Hi guys, does that bing 25% still exist??
I can only see the 5% frm their website!! Please share hw to get 25% if possible.Am looking to buy them if bing 25% wrks. regards

 

go to shopping
then do a bing search for "hp"
then look on the right side in the sponsored links for official HP store
dont know if its still up but it will tell you when you click on it what the discount is

 

7200 3DMark06 is pretty dissapointing. And that was done with a 820QM which will have boosted the score significantly.

I was curious as to just how much the 128-bit interface would hold the 4830 back, and I guess the answer is, a lot.

Its a real shame the 4860 isn't ready to release yet. That would have been a great card for this laptop.

 

7200 does seem pretty low, considering that a 4670 gets around the same.

Dell updated the Precision M6400 configuration page with a new ATI firepro card... which according to notebookcheck.net is about the same as a 4860.

 

Wait, 7000 in 3d mark??... Ok, this poses a big problem for me since I was going to do some gaming on it. Worried about what electrosoft stated about heat.

Edit: Does it mention anywhere what resolution they were running at? I did not see that info.

 

To all of you considering to replace one or both HDD with another HDD. Is that even possible ?
If you look at the images then there doesnt seem to be a opening at the back for HDDs, only for the battery ?

And how do you access the 2 easy access RAM modules ?

 

would the low score not be due to a driver issue? Especially as this is the first laptop to use the 4830 card. If it is, easy fix! (well for ati anway)

 

Well, as usual, I would wait for some more results before jumping to conclusions. Especially gaming benchmarks.

But 7000 does look quite a bit low, especially considering it was done with a 820QM.

Now that is very interesting. I have been hoping for a 4860 ever since they were announced, but I still have not heard a peep about any laptop with it (apart from some Asus that never materialised). If it looks like they are gone into production now, that could be cool, maybe some other notebooks will start to use them. Refresh of the XPS 16?

 

I am starting to wonder if because of those low scores, that is confirmation that the ATI card is actually DDR3 instead of GDDR3.

 

I remember seeing somewhere in HP marketing that user upgradability is claimed as one of the strenghts of the product. Likely it won't be that hard to access the hardware slots.

 

So I just pulled the trigger on the Envy 15 with the slim battery extra. I heard someone say that the 3dmark06 was 7200? Where the crap did you get that? I tried doing a search on this thread, but I've never been successfuly with that sucky feature on this forum. lol I was expecting closer to 9000+. Any links with benchmarks?

 

How about looking at the previous pages?

 

The screen brightness is average @ 228. Well below the RGBLED screens and right in line with the consumer level LED panels offered by Dell.

~7200 3Dmark06 is a tad disappointing, especially considering the 820 pumps that score up. I would like to know the SM20/SM30 scores or a Vantage GPU run.

Another review/preview that notes the heat generation and fan noise. Seriously, 45w CPU and a 23w or greater GPU that heat has to go somewhere in that chassis even with the cooling system. The Macbooks use the 9600M GT @ 23w and they get downright toasty.

The 15.6" Clevo 860 even with a beast of a cooling system and much thicker chassis still has the CPU get pretty toasty under load.

No internal drive is a bummer.

Batter life of 74min is about par for the course for this hungry of a CPU.

Lack of customizable options right now is a bummer too.

 

Dude, the links are literally 2-3 posts before your posts to the review.

 

Back a few pages are the links.

The thing is, 3DMark is still slightly biased toward Nvidia GPUs anyway. What I'm looking for is some benchies on real games, and it doesn't mention what resolution they ran those benchmarks at - that would have a large impact.

The GPU will be lower than 23W I believe I read earlier; and although the CPU is 45W - that is maximum. Most of the time it will not be doing that. Heck, my desktop i7, even when playing some CPU intensive games, typically stays at half speed for all four cores, with the occaisional blip upto standard speed for a couple of them.

 

I think the heat maybe similar to the macbooks, or at least I hope so. I will wait for more complete reviews before buying it. Does anyone knows if its available in UK or anywhere else in Europe?

 

does anyone know if we could upgrade to the 4860 DIY?

 

In one word, nope. I'm from the UK and last time i checked only the ENVY 13 is listed on the HP site...and then it lists it as "coming soon". Joy.

I'm tempted to get a macbook pro again, Meh. I'm gradually losing hope on this laptop.

 

I just found this about the new i7 processors. They supposedly idle at 37 degrees, which would be really cool, cooler than a C2D.

http://laptop-updates.blogspot.com/2009/09/intel-core-i7-mobile-processor-review.html

 

The laptop hasn't even been released yet...How would anyone possibly know something like that? If I'm wrong then I will whole-heartedly apologise. Also, wouldn't it void your warranty? I won't bother making a longer list.

 

I think HP is making a huge mistake if they don't release envy 15 in Europe at least until the end of this month. They might loose quite a few customers, at least me for sure. I will not sit around and wait for their stupid marketing tricks, I will order something like Sager instead. I don't care about the fancy looks of the laptop, all I need is 1080p, i7 and 2 HDD bays.

 

Unfortunately...I'm a sucker for looks

 

i just mean is it the same socket? would it be compatible?

 

I haven't a clue, I'll let someone more qualified to answer your question.

 

Another thing to think about for the 3d mark score is that they may have run it under battery power. They did not make any mention of that, especially since the I7's and ATI's clock lower on battery power. Just trying to be optimistic.


Edit: I also noticed the recommendation on the German site was to get a macbook pro. Seems a bit odd. Also note, it was a pre-production model. There may still be good news. I am really trying to quell fears here folks. (especially my own)..hehe

 

How about we all just CALM DOWN and wait till an english website gets a production unit and runs the speed tests that you all are hammering for. I am more than willing to wait till NBR, Engadget, Gizmodo, etc get this laptop and review it for speed and heat. No reason to get your panties in a bunch.

 

I highly doubt something the size of the Envy would be able to house an MXM slot.

 

Without a doubt even with score of 7200, it is still better than a macbook pro's score. But like some have said, 3dmark scores don't tell the whole story anyway. The margin of improvement over the macbook pro is probably even greater in real world performance.

 

The only two real reviews of the Envy 15 I've seen so far is both from German sites (notebookcheck and pcwelt), the notebookcheck one is surely a pre-production model, but how about the other one?

That might be the situation for you (comparing this to MBP like the site), but several people in here are comparing it to the Studio XPS 16, which gets 6800 in the same 3dmark with C2D P9700 and MR 4670, and it would suck to pay quite a lot more for those 400 points.

I really really want to see some reviews of the final product.

 

I called HP info line in my country (distant corner of EU) and asked about release of envy 15. The guy said that he knows pretty much nothing about it, and it's also possible that it will not be released here at all (can you believe it?). That's pretty much the latest HP news from Europe - the cradle of civilization...

 

It will be released in Denmark, however, there is no date yet.

I just think the rep there was playing it safe, he did not want to promise you anything when he doesnt know anything.

 

Ouch. Reminds me of the time I rang dell UK to ask when the site would be updated to show the studio xps 16 having i7. He replied saying it won't be for a while. Next day it was updated. ? Fingers crossed the support people know nothing, eh?

 

Check it out! The Asus G51J review was just recently posted. It has a very similar config to the Envy 15, except it is a heck of a lot thicker/heavier. But the benchmarks should be relatively similar, at least it's got the same i7 processor in it as the Envy 15 I ordered.

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=5315&p=2

 

The GTX260m is considerably better than the 4830...

 

I don't understand one thing. In HP US site there was at least pre-order date stated since almost a month before? In HP UK site there is absolutely nothing, a big bubkis. Does that mean that when they eventually declare the release date it will be one month more waiting? I mean there is no point to declare the release date if it's like after 3 days? This is getting really frustrating.

 

The performance should be like 2x the 4670, judging by the specs!

 

Who says I was getting excited... I was just trying to throw out some theories out there. I am not concerned until more info come out... I am just trying to help others. My underpants are quite organized... thanks.

 

Hence my thoughts of those test running on battery power. I guess we will see soon enough.

 

LOL! Sorry, wasnt meant just to you. Seems like everyone is freaking out about the speed test and heat findings from that German site and not waiting to see those findings verified by another reputable website. Also freaking out about their Bing cash back verification email. I understand 25% off is quite a bit, but give it more than 30 seconds for you to get your email!!! If you haven't got it after a day, THEN start panicking!

 

Do you guys think the 8GB RAM (4 dims) is worth it, or needed?

 

All this talk of overheating is really unnerving. I am so tempted to try and cancel my order now because of it. Hahh. Though I think I'll sit tight and try it out at least before I consider returning in, since it's already ordered.

Just curious though, if I return it within the 21 day period, I also get refunded my HP Total Care Warranty cost too right? And taxes? I get refunded everything except the (~$29) shipping cost right?