*HP Envy 15 Owners Lounge! PART 1*

of coarse! as soon as I hear something i'll let you guys know!

 

Sounds alot like my reasons for not choosing the Alienware as soon as it was reviewed!

 

Its heavy yeah, but the quality seems ok to me...

 

my eyes are not that good, but at 1.30 its says

"- standard one 2.5"hdd (up to 500gb)
- hybrid 1.8" plus the capacity of a 1.8"hdd
- Performance two 1.8" SSD's in a RAID 0 configaration"

so now yes the reviewed Envy 15's have had one hdd, but these were 2.5" right? so with the less space 1.8" takes fitting two in there is very possible, maybe there is a optional 1.8" hdd holder that allows the chipset to implement the raid features as well?

btw 1.8" hdds are about $1 per GB so 120gb is $120 (USD)

[edit] at 7.33 it mentions again single 2.5" or dual 1.8"

lol and they make a direct comparison to the MBA!

 

I should have checked the Voodoo sub-forum. According to this post, the single bay HP Envy 15 features dual connectors on the motherboard.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=429073

 

Dual connectors for 1.8 or 2.5?

 

There are 2 Sata ports on the motherboard, and room for (2) 1.8 drives or (1) 2.5 drive.

The Envy 15 should be able to hold 2 Intel G2 Solid State drives, since they are only 7mm thick. These Intel drives are the fastest consumer ssd's out right now.

 

Since micro-SATA (the connector usually featured on 1.8" SATA drives) is both physically different from the "standard" 2.5" SATA connector and also is specified for 3.3V (compared to 5V), you have to use different cables depending on what type of drive you are connecting.

Accordingly, the service manual lists two different cables (one for 1.8" drives and one for 2.5" drives).

I am now very very close to pulling the trigger on this notebook!

I am hoping that by removing the plastic spacers on my two 2.5" Intel 160GB SSDs (which reduces their height from 9.5mm to 7mm each) I would be able to jury-rig them on top of each other inside the chassis of the HP Envy 15 and run my own custom dual-hard drive HP Enyv 15

 

Woah 2 X25s!

Personally I will stick to one. 2 is going to be really steep ang 160 Gb is probably sufficient. Took a look at the 1.8" model, but the performance isn't as good.

Btw, since the envy uses HDD cages, are you going to custom make one? Or is it going to be a Duct tape affair =p

 

When i attached the slice, i did slide the lock button at the front and the back. The problem lies with the lock. Both locks slide towards the same direction (the right)to hook onto the laptop base. But once the slice is accidentally slided to the left, it will disconnect from the laptop.

 

I am not sure they have enough space for 2 X25s. For these drives you'd need about 14.5mm of clearance, which is too big to hold standard 2.5" drives without spacers.

 

If ssd drives are possible to be installed, why hp isn't offer it?

 

Not sure what the graphics memory is clocked at, but Notebookcheck said the 4830 would have memory at 700mhz.

HP has equipped the Envy 15 here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=429073 with SAMSUNG K4W1G1646E-HC12.
The chip: http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...o.do?fmly_id=761&partnum=K4W1G1646E&xFmly_id=

Drumroll...



The speed:
GDDR3 K4W1G1646E-HC12 800MHz 1600Mbps/pin

So should be a free 100MHz overclock on the memory (if HP under clocked it to 700Mhz).GDD

 

I am sure they'll in due course. Right now there is a limited supply of everything from E15 cases to Core i7 processors. Things should be alright at around Thanksgiving I'd say.

 

Ok, I understand the m15x being heavy, but terrible quality? Do you mean build quality? I had the m15x and returned it for some battery issues, but in all I believe the build quality was quite good, with
magnesium chasis ( we are talking about the new on right, the old one was terrible). Hehehe Besides weight what did you not like? Typing this from my iPhone I apologize if spelling and grammar is wrong.

 

Considering the small physical margins a custom cage would defeat its own purpose. Duct tape all the way .... besides SSDs are not shock or movement sensitive so they should not mind the duct tape treatment.

I am not sure myself. In the other thread I have asked the poster to give me an estimate of the maximum internally available height. There is of course the alternative to remove the outer casing on one or both SSDs since the circuit boards with the NAND chips probably are only a few millimeters thick.

 

The weight and the garish body turned me off of the m15x. My needs include something with decent power, but still portable and the m15x definitely isnt portable.

 

Ugh it sounds like they are supposed to be in opposite directions... I hope it is fixable.

 

Hmm keep us posted =)

btw, what do you hope to achieve by doing this? Do you really need so much speed?

Have you thought about using the x18m instead? Or do you already have the x25's on hand

The envy 15 is 25mm thick. I estimate the screen thickness to be around 1/3 of the notebook thickness, so we have 17mm to work with. If the top and bottom casing is 1.5mm thick, we have 14mm left. The service manual seems to indicate that there are no chips below the HDD area, so i think you could fit it in if you remove the casings of the SSD.

There is also another thing to think about. The E15 may not have 2 2.5" HDD connectors. We know there are at least 2 1.8" connectors and 1 2.5" connector. You may have to somehow adapt the 1.8" ones to the 2.5" drives. This may be tricky since the voltages provided by the 1.8" connector is lower. If the BIOS doesn't support it you may run into problems too.

 

I definately will. Unfortunately, the HP Envy 15 is not yet available in Australia and no one seems to be even able to give a firm release date.

The HP Envy 15 will be my heavy duty virtualization machine with 16GB of RAM and hopefully my two Intel SSDs internally. My only other alternative was the Dell Precision M6400 (which also can take 16GB of RAM and has three internal HDD spindles) but it is a huge machine compared to the Envy 15. It also costs almost the double when outfitted with the Core QX9300 CPU and yet HP Envy CPUs are either on par or outperform it.

That is the problem. I am already running one G1 and one G2 X25-m in my custom T61p rig (featuring a 15" - 2048 x 1536 QXGA display, whose high resolution I will really miss when I switch to the Envy 15).

One 2.5" drive cable is already included with the notebook and I would order a second 2.5" drive cable (part no listed in the service manual) from HP. That cable will provide the correct voltage for 2.5" drives.

Since the second SATA port is featured on the motherboard of the single bay Envy 15, it is highely unlikely that they are releasing custom BIOS versions that would disable it. However, I have asked the poster in the other thread to connect his HDD or SSD to the secondary SATA port and test if it is detected by the BIOS/motherboard.

 

http://www.amazon.com/HDMI-VGA-HD15-Male-Cable/dp/B001OLCHJ6

It does, also to DVI too

 

monoprice is a great place to start for quality adapters at amazing prices.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10419

 

This is the part i don't get. How do we know that the second SATA port is featured?

Do 1.8" drives and 2.5" drives even use the same SATA ports? If they do, how is the power regulated between the two?

I figured that 1.8" and 2.5" drives use different kinds of SATA ports which have different voltages. Is this correct?

 

1.8" and 2.5" share the same SATA port (unless specified as uSATA or some other format). The power is different, however. I believe the 1.8" run off the 3.3V line while 2.5" use 5V (for completeness, 3.5" and some enterprise/enthusiast 2.5" use 12V). Google a picture to see the difference btw SATA data and power connections.

 

Thanks! In the manual http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01911053.pdf on page 33 I see: HDMI-to-VGA adapter 530607-001 but I can't figure out where this is on hp.com--can you provide a link? My searches only find this:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/product/computer/categories/cables/1/accessories/NP031AA%2523ABA?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN:
Voodoo HDMI-to-VGA Conversion Adapter $39.99
Convert the HDMI output port on your Envy to an analog VGA input with the Voodoo HDMI to VGA Conversion Adapter. It supports full-size high-definition resolutions of 720p and 1080p, and the design is coordinated with the Voodoo logo so it will match your Envy.
* Compatibility: Voodoo Envy 133, Voodoo by HP 131, HP Envy 13, HP Pavilion dv2

My questions: 1) It says "Convert the HDMI output port on your Envy to an analog VGA input" -- is that a typo or do the mean "...to an analog VGA *output*" and 2) It specifically mentions compatibility with the Envy 13 and not the Envy 15 (which I will have)???

To repeat my original request (and another who wanted to know the same thing): I'd like to reliably connect the Envy 15 to projectors which I think typically have only VGA inputs.

Finally, smilepak wrote: http://www.amazon.com/HDMI-VGA-HD15-Male-Cable/dp/B001OLCHJ6 It does, also to DVI too.

That appears to not be for this purpose. In the Technical Details it clearly says "NOTE: this cable don't support signal from VCR, COMPUTER or LAPTOP output" and the comments also indicate it can't be used for this purpose.

Thanks,

Larry

 

Are you sure?

The Maintenance and Service Guide on page 19 says:

Audio-out (headphone) jack/Audio-in (microphone) jack:

Produces sound when connected to optional powered stereo speakers,
headphones, earbuds, a headset, or television audio. Also connects an
optional headset microphone.

I think that pretty clearly means that a headset with mic would work through this connector.

Larry

 

I loved the thing at the beginning and I still love it, it seems like a monster of a notebook but... I was all for the dual hard drives in place of an odd, but now that we find out there is only one bay, and we can't have two 2.5 hdd's, that's a turn off, I'd be fine with it if they popped in an odd and just kept it as a one drive unit, that kind of kills it a bit for me. When the heard that you have to buy the battery slice and external drive separately that was another nail. And a minor one is the lack of a backlit keyboard. I guess I'll have to continue my search unless hp either drops the price a whole bunch or fixes what they did.

 

Do you all know if the BEATS addition is also aluminum coated? I did a quick search and didn't find anything on it.

 

I don't think any are going to be aluminium coated. Just the mag alloy.

 

Actually the only one I've seen advertised as aluminum coated is the 13. Does the 15 have it also?

 

Hi DD! My response was not directed towards you (it was directed to the person you responded to) , but thank you for letting me know why you weren't interested! I guess I bought a backpack that could carry the M17x originally, I guess the size does not bother me much. I totally understand what you mean though. That is one of the reasons I was/am looking at the Envy!

 

well i guess the rumors for an early shipment is a bust. i guess it will be 28th on the dot. i was hoping that was an exageration.

 

this better be built like tank

 

I wanted to do a comparison of a few laptops to the Envy 15 in case I decide not to keep it. So here are the 4 notebooks I an looking at:
HP Envy 15
Dell SXPS 16
Asus G51J
MSI 1727--- you will see why I have included this when I get to battery life, thickness and weight.

(in order of best specs)
Display:
Dell SXPS 16 Edge-to-edge Glossy 16.0 inch Full HD RGB-LED LCD display (1080p)
HP Envy 15 15.6" diagonal Full High Definition LED HP Ultra Brightview Widescreen Display (1920x1080)
Asus G51J 15.6" WUXGA FHD "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Glossy Screen (1920x1080)
MSI 1727 17" WSXGA+ "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright Glossy Screen (1680x1050)--- I am sure that a 1920x1200 screen will be avail for this model(which would put it at the top resolution wise) but for now I can't find it.

Video Card:
Asus G51J nVidia GeForce GTX 260M 1024MB PCI-Express GDDR3
MSI 1727 nVidia GeForce GTS 250M 1024MB PCI-Express GDDR3
Envy 15 ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 4830 1024MB
Dell SXPS 16 ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4670 1024MB

Processor:
MSI 1727 Intel® Core™ i7-920XM Extreme, 2.0-3.20GHz, (45nm, 8MB L3 cache)
Asus G51J Intel® Core™ i7-920XM Extreme, 2.0-3.20GHz, (45nm, 8MB L3 cache)
Dell SXPS 16 Intel® Core™ i7-820QM Mobile Processor (1.73GHz, turbo up to 3.06GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)
Envy 15 Intel® Core™ i7-820QM Mobile Processor (1.73GHz, turbo up to 3.06GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)

Ram:
Envy 15 16GB DDR3 1333 (4 Dimms)
MSI 1727 8GB DDR3 1333 (2 Dimms)
Asus G51J 8GB DDR3 1333 (2 Dimms)
Dell SXPS 16 8GB 1067MHz DDR3 (2 Dimms)

Hard Drive:
Asus G51J 2x 2.5" bay
The rest have 1x 2.5" bay (untill otherwise confirmed)

OD:
MSI 1727 Yes 4x Blue Ray Writer
Asus G51J Yes 4x Blue Ray Writer
Dell SXPS Yes 4x Blue Ray Reader
Envy 15 NOPE

Wireless:
MSI 1727 Intel 5300
Dell SXPS 16 Intel 5300
Asus G51J Intel 5300
Envy 15 Intel 5100

Battery Life:
Envy 15 6 cell + 9 cell 6-7hrs
Dell SXPS 16 6 cell + 9 cell ?hrs
MSI 1727 9 cell 2-3hrs
Asus G51J 9 cell 1-2hrs

Thickness
Envy 15 1.04"
Dell SXPS 0.95"-1.34" (2.25" with extended battery)
MSI 1727 1.32"-1.56"
Asus G51J 1.1"-1.6" --- Last because of max thickness

Width:
Asus G51J 14.6"
Envy 15 14.96"
Dell SXPS 16 15.15"
MSI 1727 15.55" --- surprisingly only ~1/2" wider than the Envy

Depth:
Envy 15 9.60"
Dell SXPS 16 10.02"
Asus G51J 10.3"
MSI 1727 10.94"

MIN Weight
Envy 15 5.19 lbs
Dell SXPS 16 6.4 lbs
Asus G51J 6.5lbs
MSI 1727 7.9 LBs --- is also the max weight

MAX Wieght
They are all 7+lbs with the extended batteries. The Dell may be over 8lbs with its extra 9cell battery. I need to find this info.
The batteries will also add quite a bit of thickness to the machines. The dell is 2.25" thick with its extended battery.

While traveling I have found that thickness is the dimension that makes all the difference. The weight becomes almost a non issue between these notebooks because I will most likely bring the extended battery and the power brick whenever I get on a plane. So that means that I will always be lugging a 7+lb notebook and its power brick. I have been using a Kensington slim 120w retractable power brick which is a huge improvement over the oem ones. I hope that I have a tip that will work with the Envy.
I would love to keep the Envy but the main concern I have is how far the screen opens. I am 6'3" and mainly use my laptop on the coffee table while I sit on the couch. I can overlook the rest of the false information BS that HP has produced. Reading the SXSP 16 threads I am deeply concerned about the amount of heat this laptop produces. I guess I would have to use one for a while to know whether this would be acceptable. I am guessing that it is just too hot especially since these reports are from the C2D models. The i7 models should be even hotter! The Asus' battery life if horrendous. One may as well get an Alienware. So, the Asus is not an option IMO due to the battery life and thickness. I currently have a GT725 C2D 512MB ATi 4850 1920x1200 which I have sold. It has been a fantastic laptop. The new model unfortunately has a lower end gfx card but better ram and processor. This is a tie for second place with the SXPS 16 for me at the moment. Unless the new Dell's have solved the heat problems, and as long as MSI puts the 1920x1200 screen in, I believe that if I send the Envy back I will end up with a new MSI 1727. The MSI is by far the least expensive notebook of the lot. I should have added pri$e in the list.

 

Edge-to-Edge screen is now gone. :/ HP has removed the statement from the Envy 15 web page:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/series/c...mpid=in_r329_personalization/browse1/home_SDP

 

Well at least now other buyers won't go into their purchase expecting it anymore. I have to admit that was a feature I liked when I pulled the trigger on day one to get mine, guess I'll find out in a few days whether everything else is good enough for me to keep it.

 

Damn. Someone has a screen shot of its previous iteration if we need it for making our case on returns, I hope?

 

The screen isn't really that bad. It isn't as bright as the UMBP but it's still quite decent.

The images are crisp and clear.

But really with the E2E, back lit keyboard and Dual HDD's this thing would have one hell of killer notebook.

Now if the next version of the Envy has that covered I will be all in for sure. And for those that have this BEAST I am confident most of you will enjoy teh hell out of it.

Hey anyone want a slightly used UMBP. LMAO..

 

With all the ports on the right side, I'm wondering... Has anybody ever heard of a USB mouse whose input is bent at a 90 degree angle, the way stereo jacks are sometimes angled so that they don't project straight out from the device? I'd like to avoid my hand bumping against the USB cord and input as I'm using the mouse.

 

You could always get a wireless mouse that has a nano receiver.

 

logitec makes a usb wireless mouse and it only sticks out of the usb port a few millimeters. i have one and its the best mouse i have ever owned

 

Found a cheap 90 degree usb adapter, but reports say it elbows down. Not good for a laptop. Probably designed for corners or something.

This one appears to have two pivot points, so could face it any direction you please:
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10361988&listingid=1276367

Would also be ok on the right side:
http://www.angledcables.com/usb-20-extension-cable-right-angled-a-side-4-inc.html

Cheaper:
http://www.usb-cable.com/html/right-angle-usb-extension.html

 

Just checking by.

REMINDER: Any reviews/thoughts/comments/vids/pics/etc you want me to add to the first posts reserved for that, shoot me a PM and I will update.
Thanks for helping people with this great laptop.

 

BTW, the single HDD was a let-down, but 500GB 7200RPM is enough for me, although I would have loved the ability to upgrade to a SSD later on...well, no complaints...I liked the Envy 15 after playing with it

 

Ah, good idea. Thanks for the replies, all.

 

I took a PNG screenshot and emailed it to myself so I wouldn't lose it.

Last section:

 

I have a screenshot of the site promising E2E as well... And I will be calling HP on it when I receive my laptop. I don't think I will return it, but I won't let them get away with false advertising either.

 

Use a BT mouse. No wires or receivers.

The Razor Orrochi looks like a nice mouse.

 

the Beats version still states "An elegant metal-etched surface design" lmao

 

Most likely it was a Copy+Paste work