*HP Envy 15 Owners Lounge! PART 1*

About the i7 processor on this laptop, can it enter turbo mode?

 

I had that question for the HP rep at Best Buy about the power brick size. He said it wasn't big but its all relative I guess. Please take a lot of pics including the power brick for the review.

Any tear down pics of the innards would be great too. Looking forward to the review and benchmarks.

 

Great! Thanks Lisa!

Could you take a picture of the manufacturing label too? With all the various sightings of the mysterious Envy 15 going around I thought it could be interesting if it would be possible to see factory site ID, manufacturing date, etc.

(Like how you have to check the manufacturing plant id to figure out if the Xbox 360 is Falcon hardware or not...)

 

I imagine that it would depend on how efficient the Envy's cooling system is.

 

Hehe sorry about that. It's not something I normally look at.

As I understand it those scores are heavily dependent on the graphics driver and this is a new GPU so perhaps the score will come up a bit as new drivers are released.

 

The Intel SSDs are actually thinner than comparable HDDs but have plastic spacers mounted on them so that they are size compatible with drop in HDD replacements. The plastic spacers can be removed.

On a side note, in the PCWelt review reference earlier in this thread, the tested ENVY 15 featured two drives. One 160GB Intel SSD and one 250GB Toshiba HDD.

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

 

Intel came out with the 2nd generation of SSD drives recently. 1.8" G2 is 5 mm thick and made with 34 nm tech. 1.8" G1 is 8 mm (the old one), as you say.

The G1 series:
http://download.intel.com/design/flash/nand/mainstream/mainstream-sata-ssd-datasheet.pdf

The G2 series:
http://download.intel.com/design/flash/nand/mainstream/322296.pdf

 

It's definitely Dual HDD according to hp envy website :

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/s...odexp/hhoslp/psg/notebooks/ENVY/ENVY15_series

click on 'specs' and and the 'hard drive' link and this page will pop up :

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/popups/seriesMoreInfo.jsp?category=Hard drive

as you can see it's 2x250gb. there's no other option. Also - one of the main reasons that there's no optical drive bay is so they can use it for the 2nd hard drive.

 

I don't see where they can squeeze that in. In the manual, there is no mention of dual HDDs at all.

 

The brochure mentions SSD + HDD option, page 8 (exactly as described in that German review).

The service manual mentions "Secondary Hard Disk" .. "(select models only)", page 82 (section 5-4).

 

Or it's a typo. Or you're drawing your own conclusions. There's no mentioning of two separate drives, just "500GB (250GB x 2), 7200 RPM speed".

 

The pre-production unit in the PCWelt test clearly had two drives, one SSD and one HDD.

 

But how and where does this physically go into the laptop?

Is it one 2,5" and 1.8"? Two 2.5"? two 1.8" drives?

Also it seems that you need some kind of HDD bracket to put the HDD into the notebook. If you buy an envy 15 with a single HDD, does the bracket for the other come with?

 

If I would hazard a guess, they would be two 1.8" units stacked on top of each other.

 

We should probably wait on the final answers;

I just had a rather lengthy conversation with HP tech support on this machine. While the tech wasn't able to give me a final answer, I was informed that the possible range of specifications are different for two major types of base configurations, Envy15 103x or Envy15 105x; which have different ranges of possible configurations, so what we have seen in the previews and samples sent out by HP for reviews and BB display units might be different than the alternative models.

 

Yep but it could have been two 1.8" drives. or one 2.5" platter and one 1.8" SSD.

My guess is there's room for a 9.5mm 2.5" drive plus one thin 1.8" SSD. not two 9.5 mm thick drives on top of each other - the body just isn't thick enough for that.

Also, dual 2.5" drives is hardly a competitive requirement in the "thin and light" segment (as opposed to the bulkier workstation/gamer segment). Uncompromising performance is hardly the goal of this design.

 

HP australia's website states the Envy 15 has a single SSD (320gb), Dual SSD (250 x 2) or SSD 160gb + 250gb HDD 5400rpm models

so I assume there must be a model which has dual SSD support. if not, you can't call a whole wrong section a typo, thats would be blatant misinformation (again, unless Aus local sellers start stocking it I won't know for sure).

http://h20424.www2.hp.com/campaign/...:_N5840.GCN_42112217_219035272_33866585#/home

 

The two drives (SSD and HDD) in the PCWelt test were 1.8" units (they are listed on page two of the test).

 

Yes. I am drawing my own conclusion that it's 2 hard drives of 250GB each when hp web site says 2 x 250GB
What would be your conclusion ?

 

Why do you think the optical drive is external ? So they can use the bay for the 2nd 2.5" drive..... I am willing to bet anyone that the machine has 2 x 2.5" drives.

 

It may have the two drives, but the "Help me decide" text you're looking at is not reliable. Those are cut from general templates and have all sorts of inaccuracies.

 

If I remember correctly, the one I played with in Best Buy went about 45 degrees past perpendicular.

 

BTW, did any of you guys notice, that the "help me decide" on the graphics card page says this:

1GB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 4830

ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 4650 with 1GB dedicated video memory let's you tear through the latest games with seamless frame rates and incredible speed. Go beyond HD1 with tantalizing processing power and experience unprecedented levels of graphics realism. Do it all with break-through energy efficiency with ATI PowerPlay(TM) technology.

So I guess, the 250x2 must have been a similar typo.

 

Any more details on what are the different ranges of possible configurations for each?

This is getting more and more complicated. Why is it so hard to know exactly what we are getting when we buy this laptop

 

Well we have one here at the office today from best buy. I am going to play with it for a while and write a review with some pics. Will also try and get to the HDD issue and see if there is a second 2.5 HDD slot.

 

This is because of the way HP operates. Unless you are speaking directly to the GBU unit that deals with the ODM team in Taiwan, you won't have proper information because a miscommunication from that end will trickle down to the masses. You can tell there's some serious miscommunication even internally as during the launch events, reps were either giving out errorneous information or simply do not know enough to comment. As none have actually spoken to the engineering team, the information is simply worthless and better read out of a brochure.

Right now, the first shipping production batch have the following, as I have mentioned before:
1) No edge to edge, but glossy standard 300-nit screen. Both WUXGA and WXGA configurations are being shipped.
2) Single hard drive configurations. I don't know what's going on in this area, but I'd presume there is an additional systemboard that supports dual hard drives. I'll verify this with my contacts.
3) No USB 3.0. This is a typo for "3 USB 2.0 ports (3rd shared with eSATA port)"

 

I look forward to these reviews. But they won't give us final answers because the Best Buy models are different from those we're getting from direct HP orders...

 

Sweet! Please run 3DMark06. If it really gets 7300 like that German site says, even with twice the pipelines, I'm cancelling and buying a Studio XPS 16

 

Since there's no room for two 2.5" drives I don't even consider that a possibility. the body just isn't 19 mm thick inside.

My best guess is that a 9.5mm 2.5" drive and a 1.8" 5mm SSD will fit stacked. I also believe that this has led to multiple misunderstandings, inside HP as well as with external reviewers.

If I designed the Envy (about a year ago) I would design it for SSDs. double 2.5" drives is a setup only needed where massive storage and decent performance is key. Envy 15 seems to be targeted more towards premium thin and light segment, rather than gamer or workstation segment. Note that dual SSDs will quite possibly fit, so you can still have the best performance. You just have to pay to get there.

 

It would be nice of HP to give actual specs and stop jerking people around. There is absolutely no reason there should be hundreds of pages of speculation on screens, dual hard drives, screen angles, paisley patterns, and touchpads. I'm really getting sick of this. That alone seems like reason enough to not give them our business.

 

21 day return policy gives me enough peace of mind to keep my order.

 

I hope they get a lot of returns. They need to be taught a lesson.

 

I might go for the XPS too, except that the last Dell notebook I had had so many hardware problems -- whereas the HP notebook I'm using right now is almost 4 years old and still running perfectly.

Plus I am sick of carrying around 7+ pound machines. So even if the benchmarks are lower than expected on this one, I'll stick with it...

 

On second thought, I just configured an SXPS, and with the i7 and similar specs, it comes out to $2000. So even without the Bing deal, the Envy is the same price. The one benefit of the SXPS 16 is the 16.0" (vs 15.6") RGBLCD. But with the Bing deal, I won't be cancelling or returning.

 

Dell worries me because of heat issues and past bad build quality in their machines. The one area that the XPS wins is display... But I think in just about every other aspect, the Envy wins. We'll see though....

 

The 4670 in the dell isn't beating that score and is a 55nm part in the 16 is putting out 35 watts of heat.

We don't have the heat specs on the 4830, but it is 40nm, and is the same core as the 4860. If the system really does run reasonably cool overclocking the 4830 up to 4860 numbers might be possible. We don't have 4860 number either, but notebookcheck put it just above the mobile 4850. The 4830 should have a 3dmark 06 range from 7000-10000 depending on how its clocked.

The GPU core on 4860 vs 4830 is clocked 100mhz lower. Memory between the two might be the limiting factor as 4860 is supposed to be GDDR5 at 1000, while the 4830 could be DDR3/GDDR3 at 700mhz. I don't know about the memory chips used, but do know some memory speeds don't have chips near that level. So it may be using faster memory clocked down to 700 mhz, which gives instant room to overclock.

@winkosmosis
I have heard it both ways on the Dell RGBLCD. Some say the panel needs to be 8 bit to actually be worth it. The one on the 16 is 6 bit. Dell (6400 workstation) and HP (Dreamcolor) have a full 8 bit true RGB screens.

 

Ok, so I went to Best Buy in Westbury, NY and took a look at the Envy 15 and the 13 was right next to it. Here are my impressions:

The Envy 13's screen is better - brighter, better colors, better contrast. That being said, the screen on the 15 is NOT BAD. The lack of E2E on the BB model is annoying, but in no way is the screen dim or bad. The screen does not tilt back far, but if I were sitting in front of it the angles available would be excellent. The screen does have a "sweet spot," but is pretty good from most angles.

The 15 is snappy, quiet and cool. It's much cooler than my T43p, quieter, and man that i7 is fast - I browsed the web a bit, watched a few trailers and some youtube (all I could do at BB).

The palm rests are warm to the touch, but not at all uncomfortable. Air coming out of the vents was warm, but not hot.

The keyboard was pretty good - odd layout as mentioned before, and the Fn situation is weird (default setup uses the function keys to adjust brightness, volume, etc instead of allowing for function key usage).

Trackpad is a mixed bag - large, responsive and well textured, but glitchy (pointer snapped around to random parts of the screen, multitouch was mediocre at best - scrolling with the 2 finger gesture wouldn't work in IE 8 for some reason). All that said - it seems to be software based problems, so a firmware/driver update should easily fix it.

Weight - its light, people! No, the 9 cell slice was not attached, but the 6 cell was and it was chained to the display and it was very light for the screen size and internals. Even with the slice attached I'd easily be able to transport it around.

Sound - the speakers are clear and crisp, but in BB sounded quiet.

The design and texture of the computer are both nice. Its very sturdy (compared to my T43p) and close to the MBP (not as sturdy, but close). The flex of the screen in minimal, the metal feels like just the right thinness to strength ratio. The design is NOT FLOWERY.

All in all I will be ordering the customizable HP.com version with the i7 820, 8 gigs of ram, external Blu-ray, 6 and 9 cell batteries, and 16" Espresso laptop case. After seeing it and using it in person I am confident about ordering it. And for those interested in the 13 I say GO GET IT! it seems great (light, sturdy, responsive, beautiful screen).

Hope this quick op-ed helps hehe.

 

Ok guys I just put down the laptop for a min. So far I am very impressed with the Envy 15. Impressed enough to maybe even get one for my wife for christmas. We are in the process of installing some games at the moment and will report those as I can. So far here is what I do like about the envy.

It does get warm but no where near that of the UMBP. How do I know that? I am writing this on my Mac right now. I believe the cooling of the Envy 15 might actually allow for OC'ing. During start up the Fans come on at a higher speed, and the volume of air they move is considerable.
Wether or not that is full RPM of the fans I do not know, but the volume they move is way more then my uMBP at 6000 rpm.

The keyboard is comparable to my uMBP sans back lit. And that does kinda suck a little bit but by no means a deal breaker. The only key I found a bit mushy was the backspace. The track pad isn't that bad, no where as bad as many have reported. And the few small issues I'm willing to bet will be corrected in driver updates. People need to stop trying to use it as a 2 button bottom mouse and use it as a mouse pad and function it like the uMBP. If you guys think that the track pad is bad, trying using a uMBP track pad in Windows. It's a non issue to me.

The screen on this model is no where near the brightness of the uMBP and then again this isn't the E2E screen either. This is the BB model. Although the screen is crisp and clear. With great colour representation. The screen is limited to the amount of opening angle it has. I would say about 110 degrees. Again considerably less then the uMBP, but no means a deal breaker.

The slice does add significant amount of weight, and it really pushes it past the uMBP with Slice and power supply. Although I was surprised by the smaller size of the power supply. By no means is this laptop a pain to lug around, but with all the essentials I would assume your backpack would hit the 15-20 lbs range. For those lugging around a 17" this will be a blessing for you. Again I wasn't disappointed by the over all size. It is pretty much the same size and weight weight of my uMBP without the slice. But considering what this baby packs in inside it pulls way ahead of the uMBP in the power to weight ratio lol..

The build quality is good not spectacular, but still much higher then other plastic laptops out there. There is some flex to the cover with the laptop closed and pushing down it, but nothing worry about. The screen feels solid when opened and stay in place when you move the laptop, even into a vertical position. Kudus to HP for that one. Apply should pay attention on that one, because my uMBP won't lol. The entire casing is firm, i didn't feel any flex around the palm rest or on the bottom of the case. The etching on the case is actually quite tasteful in my opinion, HP have done a good job there too. The battery when inserted is firm and doesn't move, even with the battery removed the case still feels quite solid.

Sound wise I was a bit disappointed it doesn't quite sound as loud as my uMBP but still decent for it's size.

Some things I don't like are the port configurations. All being on the right side. As a right handed person they get in the way, nothing to drive you crazy but it can be PIA at times.

The GPU vent blows directly unto your mouse hand (righties only here) for long periods of gaming this might prove to be a problem but only time will tell on this one.

The screen angle is limiting and for taller people this will prove troublesome. Shorter people your like and will have problems.

The battery slice is kinda iffy to get on properly and stay on. For us here it has fallen off twice. But has not come off since, so who knows maybe we never had it seated properly the first time.

Over all the envy is quite nice even with the E2E screen. I think HP have a real gem in their hands, provided the laptop gives the performance we all hope it does. And that is our next section. So I will get back to you soon with some benchmarks.

 

Thanks for the previews so far.
If you can, PM me with them, so I can upload them in the front page of this thread (if you want)

 

New video of Gameplay on the Envy 15 provided by MobileTechReview on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SPyMxCWdRU


They say that they will have a review up later today.

 

I noticed VT is disabled by default in bios. Anyone using virtual machines might want to enable that.

 

Thanks for the heads up! That's very important to know.

 

Here is what i get from 3dmark06:

 

Well, not bad, but remember it is a rather new GPU, with not many driver updates so far, and ATI uses driver updates quite a bit...I imagine that score will only go up with time

 

The youtube video says it has GDDR3! HOORRAY!!!!!!

 

Is it possible to get drivers from ATI for their mobility radeons? I thought you had to get them from the manufacturer. HP does not do a good job of updating drivers.

 

ati.amd.com > right side select type of product > win 7 64bit > mobility radeon > 4000 series

Just make sure in the release notes that the 4830 is supported, otherwise wait until Catalyst 9.10 for mobility

Edit: I just checked, the 4830 is not listed, but you can download and try to install at your own risk. Also, could you post the driver version number and date?

 

Here is what they say about the 4000 series driver:

Note: The Mobility Radeon ATI Catalyst drivers for Windows 7 are beta and are only available for Windows 7 beta releases. For up to date Mobility Radeon graphics drivers for Windows 7, please contact your laptop manufacturer

I installed version 8.632.0.0 A from HP. ATI lists theirs as version 9.9, but they both have the same release date.

 

My guess is that ati will be releasing updated, working mobility drivers as time goes on, but for now the included drivers are probably new enough. HP might also try to release updated drivers more frequently for this laptop since they might have a few skilled tech from Voodoo working on this team.

 

Hello!

Following this thread with great interest, as I would like to replace my (admittedly perfectly good) Acer 5920G with one of these as it looks a lot easier to carry around.

But my big question...

...does it run Ubuntu?

Anyone tried this yet? No... didn't think so

Charlie