*HP Envy 15 (11XX / 12XX series) Owners Lounge!*

How much do your temps decrease when on the pad?

My issue with the Zalmans is that they take power from USB and I don't have any ports to spare...I think the coolermasters are DC power (but please correct me if I'm wrong).

Thanks for all the feedback!

 

What's a good freeware app to measure your temps?

 

HWMonitor CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting

 

Hello!
I have a chance to buy this eenvy 15 laptop from hp renew with 1 year warranty. It comes with i7-720QM, 8 GB DDR3, ati 5830, 500GB... Do I have to be careful with hp renew, or is it as good as new? The price is tempting -949€

It would be used for college and i would carry it around (it isnt to heavy is it?), so I'm worried about its battery duration because of powerfull processor. If it would be only for taking notes in the class, how long would it last?

Are there any other things I should know about, like heat problems or anything like that? This thread is too big to read it...

Thank you for your answers!

 

With the i7 processor the battery life will be poor, maximum of approximately 2 hours. With the i5 processor you would be able to get 3.5+ hours if just using for taking notes (no wifi) and ~ 3 hours with light surfing (wifi on). The i7 idles at 15 Watts while the i5 idles at ~ 5 Watts (just the CPU).

There is an add on 'slim fit' battery available that attaches to the bottom which adds an extra 93Wh (1.5 x extra) and while it is a nice design which only adds 3/8" of thickness it also adds 2.7 pounds (~1.2 kilos) which makes the computer much less portbable.

 

JJB,

do you have any suggestions on the color profile thing?

Thanks!

 

thank you JJB, so I'll probably have to pass on that one...

One more a little bit off topic question: Can we expect a renewed version of an envy 13 too? Any news on that? I dont like the 14 one because of the optical drive, i never use that, so it just adds on weight.

 

we're on page 666, quick, someone post something useful about the envy 15!. Loving my 320GB 1.8" second drive by the way. also upgrading to an 840qm.

 

Does anyone know how long it usually takes to get your Envy 15 after you order it? I'm disappointed in how long this is taking. I ordered my Envy 15 last Thursday and it still says "Order in production" and so hasn't shipped yet. When I ordered my dv6tse back in August, I ordered it on a Friday and it shipped the following Wednesday (and I received it the Monday after that). Does it usually take so long to build the Envy 15?

 

have patience. It takes about 2 weeks to make, and 1 week to ship.

 

There should be a spot where it tells you the estimated build date on your order review page, or in the email you received. It can vary a lot depending on parts and demand. I received an Envy 15 earlier than the estimated build date in one case, but usually it is shipped out on the build date and then you receive it a week later.

 

@moviemarketing

Check the drivers page. You actually had the Tap Zones with the new touchpad driver, you just needed to load a different version via device manager. I left instructions on the drivers thread....

 

Yeah, it says the build date, but I my dv6tse arrived one day before the build date (and so did a few other people's). I though the Envy 15 would get here in a similar amount of time, probably a day or so later since that was really fast, and that HP was just overestimating how long it took so people wouldn't complain that it took longer than their estimate. Oh well, hopefully it comes soon.

 

Thanks so much, JJB!

Glad to hear it's still available in the latest driver.

 

Between my wife and I, we have ordered four of them from HP. One arrived a week before the build date, another arrived on the same day and two shipped from Shanghai on the build date and arrived about one week later. The build date was usually about three weeks after the order date.

 

The Zalman model I have has an extra pass through USB 2.0 port, so there isn't a net loss of ports if I use it for my wireless mouse. Also it works with other sources of power, like the USB plug on my iPhone charger, as well as the extra USB port on my laptop power brick.

 

Question: Would downclocking the 5830 in this laptop help save battery life? Thanks in advance!

 

JJB downclocks his slightly, but it's really not going to do a whole lot. You can "lock" the clocks with the GPUTool though, so that it won't automatically clock higher when you're not wanting it to. But my machine has a tendency to lock up when playing video or something if I turn down the clocks of my card below default.

 

Wow, that's weird. The build date was 7 business days from the date I purchased it in both cases.

 

Wow not to be nosiey or anything but that is alot of laptops and money... Im guessing you need 4 four for your job, but im very jealous can barely afford one. If you ever find you dont need on just send one my way>

 

Does anyone know which desktop graphics card(s) is/are equivalent to the Mobility 5830? Brand doesn't matter.

 

Check out the 2 links below. Note that on the comparison chart the '*' next to the GPU number means the placement is estimated because there is not enough benchmark data. These guys are good and a GPU with '*' rarely moves up or down the rankings more that 1 or 2 places when enough data is gathered.

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5830 - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Mobile Graphics Cards - Benchmark List - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Edit: I just reread your question and realized you asked about 'desktop' equivalents. The 5830 IIRC is a gimped desktop 5770 die and the biggest bottleneck is the GDDR3 memory and bus width. You can read the descriptions of each GPU in the 2nd link by just clicking it, they all have info like the first link for the 5830, including which desktop equivalent is the base die for the mobile versions.

 

Hello everyone,

I'm fairly new with posting on this forum. But I got a question. Mainly about this HP Envy 15. I am living in Holland and the only type of the Envy serie that we have available in our country is the Envy 14. Now there is a nice new version coming up with an I7, 6 GB RAM, 750 GB HDD but neither HP or the Shop that is going to sell the product (its not in stock yet) knows anything about the Screen resolution or if its the Radiance version.

So I looked further and saw the Envy 15. If i read the Sig of JJB that just makes me drool I am quiet the gamer and the Envy serie just has a nice look. I would prefer to have the 5830 GPU instead of the 5650 since I heard the 5650 is standard downclocked.

To get back on my question: Is there a possibility to get an Envy 15 here to holland without risking warrenty problems and keyboard layout problems.

Best Regards,

Gkomega

 

I had to import mine to Italy, and was told that in case of problems I would have to ship it back to the US which is kinda crappy but better than nothing. as for the keyboard layout...well you get the english one. when I need accents, I press alt+shift to switch to italian layout and remember where the accented letters are

 

It looks like HP is discontinuing the Envy's I7 processor option on their website, but is this because their is a refresh rate on the ENVY 15?

Any idea of an internal cdrom and brilliant display will be making it's way into the 15.6 lineup anytime soon?

 

It's a slower clocked 5850 with gddr3 instead of gddr5 (information available in your link, I'm mostly responding because I was pretty sure that it was fairly equivalent to desktop cards, and then I was confused when you said 5770).

 

And where/who did you contact to buy the laptop. I am currently on the Italian HP site, and when I want to click to see which Envy models they have. Then I just get a reload of the current site. I also guess once you got your laptop you did a clean install of windows. Or did you actually change the settings to your own language?

Thanks for the reply.

 

If you read the 5830 (& 5850) notebookcheck info you will see that both the 5850 and 5830 are using the same die (GPU chip) as the desktop 5770 GPU but obviously both are much lower performance as a mobile version...

 

Ack... I did misread that... So how much lower performance than the 5770 should I expect?

 

There is no way of quantifying that because the performance would be vastly different depending on which 5770 desktop version / cooling system / display resolution / CPU / computer system / memory type etc. etc.....

 

get confused about which Envy 15 to buy.
I5 or I7, can anybody tell me I5 with 5830 can swift the video card or not??

 

I think you are asking which CPU allows you to switch graphic cards ??

Unfortunately the Envy 15 does not have switchable graphics. The 5830 GPU is the only option, the intel IGP is disabled since the PM55 chipset will not allow switchable graphics.

 

Thanks. JJB

Since Envy 15 with I5 Cpu and 5830 Gpu, and can't swift grahics. I think the battery won't keep too much longer than I7 Cpu and 5830 Gpu, right?

How long the battery life can keep of Envy 15 with I7??

 

There is a large difference, the i7 CPU's idle at 15.04 Watts while the i5 CPU's idle at 5.25 Watts. With a 53 Wh internal battery that equals about 1 hour 40 min for the i7 and 2 hours 45 min for the i5's (wifi on). Also the i5 run much cooler than the i7's at idle and under load.

 

envy 15 with Full HD Anti-glare vs Full Hd Ultra Brightview ?
which one better?

 

It's really a personal preference. You may want to visit an Apple store to look at anti-glare(matte) displays next to glossy displays in person to decide which is best for you. If you will be working outdoors frequently or in front of very sunny windows you may experience too much glare with the glossy display.

Personally I prefer the glossy displays.

 

As a photographer I would only choose the Glossy screen. I had both versions side by side and the glossy is much brighter (220 nits vs 170 nits), much sharper and higher contrast ( ~550:1 vs ~400:1 ). I also thought the glossy was better with direct light reflections, the anti glare caused the reflections to 'diffuse' over a larger area of the screen so it made more area unreadable and you still had to adjust he screen angle etc...

 

Hello guys. First of all thaks for all the help you guys gave me. I managed to solve almost all the problems I was having. Thanks so much.

Now I'd like to ask you guys about suggestion with the SSD. I have a SSD+HDD version and would like to know what suggestions would you give me to minimize the wear level of the SSD.

I have disabled hibernation since I don't use it, I've moved the page file to the HDD. What else do you guys suggest?

Thanks in advance

 

I am wishing to order a Envy 15 with the 1080 screen for photography and have waited 3 weeks now. I guess HP gave up on the i7 option. Any one contact or hear any updates on availiablity? Frustrating.

I can't seem to find any other option on the PC world that is as nice (powerful and thin) as the Envy line.

 

It seems to come and go - maybe something to do with supply and demand. About 2 months ago the i7 option disappeared for a couple of weeks and then suddenly returned one day when my wife ordered hers. You might look into getting a refurb from a reputable seller.

 

Do you know of any reputable dealers?

 

Here's what I've done. I'm interested to know what other people have done, also.

1. Install the Intel SSD Toolbox and run the SSD Management Tools. Intel® Solid State Drive Toolbox

2. Relocate the special folders in C:\Users\<username> (e.g. My Documents, Desktop, Downloads, My Pictures etc) of your choice to the HDD. To do this, right-click any of the special folders, click Properties, then Location tab. Make an effort to always save your data/documents/photos/etc to these folders; less writing to the SSD the better, plus it makes things so much easier in the future, esp when you need to do an OS reinstall.

3. For each browser that you use, change the folder the location of the cache/temporary internet files to somewhere on the HDD. I use Firefox, Chrome, and IE. IE is the easiest to configure coz it's in the Internet Options. For Firefox, search how to change the location of cache; or even better, change the location of the entire profile. For Chrome, there are some command-line hacks to add to a shortcut. But I found this method much better: Change Cache Location In Google Chrome.

 

this guide by NBR user Les was very helpful to me for optimizing my SSDs.

http://thessdreview.com/optimization-guides/the-ssd-optimization-guide/

With his help I reduced my boot time to about 12-14 sec and shutdown to 3-4 sec.

 

Oh temptation. How I loathe thee. I just found this on ebay: HP 15 ENVY i7-720QM QUAD 1.6GHz (2.8) 16GB 15.6" LAPTOP - eBay (item 350395409906 end time Sep-28-10 11:10:27 PDT)
Its factory refurbished, and my only two gripes with it is the screen (the crappy 1366x768) and I can't figure out if it has a usb 3.0 port (which is a huge reason I would cancel my order-in-production and buy this). Regarding the screen, I've seen on websites selling laptop screens that you shouldn't get a different resolution screen from the one you already have. Why is this? Are there any problems with getting a different res screen?

EDIT: Also, if I got this, I would sell half of the RAM. Theres no way I would even use 8gb. Can anyone recommend a place to sell it to?

 

Screen Country has some replacement screens

HP-Compaq ENVY 15t-1200 CTO LAPTOP LCD SCREEN FROM $44.

 

Yeah... Sell it to me. I'm looking to up my RAM. If you're serious about it PM me and we'll talk.

 

WAIT. I if I were to buy this from ebay, I wouldn't get the 21 day return-for-any-reason-or-no-reason-at-all thing right? So If I tried to upgrade the screen and the lemon-ified the laptop, I'm screwed, right? Ugh. Well this makes it even harder to decide.

@Bubzers I'm undecided right now. The model on ebay is currently out of my price range, and it would take a little while to be able to afford it. I'll tell you when I make my decision. Btw, roflmao at your profile picture.

 

What's the best/fastest way to efficiently fresh install?

 

um..... put a windows 7 disk in a external dvd drive and follow the onscreen instructions?

 

Some of the eBay resellers of refurb laptops have a return policy. Colorado Computer has a 7-day return policy and about 2 months ago my wife bought a refurb Envy 15 from them that was in perfect condition (actually better condition than the laptop she received from HP direct, which we returned for refund).In addition to the return policy, it came with a 90-day warranty that you can extend up to 3 years.