*HP Envy 15 Owners Lounge! PART 1*

Mine dosen't have fan clicking either, but it's constantly on , how's yours?

 

weird... so noone else sees the horizontal lines ? they are mostly visible across the top of the display.

Also - Is the keyboard supposed to be backlit ? of so - how do I turn it on ?

 

I did warn a while ago that the display in currently shipping models will not have edge to edge, but people who have committed their orders chose ignored this and discount my statement. There will be edge to edge, but not in the current production batch. Having first hand knowledge of HP's production lines, CTO models are being manufactured with identical parts with your preconfigured models at BB, so saying you are getting a CTO unit is irrelevant for consumer models.

 

The keyboard is not backlit (although I'd really love it if it were somehow)

But no horizontal lines, do you know how far down from the top you're seeing them approximately? Any background I can check for it on?

Also for anyone who put it on power saver profile it has passive cooling as the default for "plugged in" so that might heat things up a bit if you didn't notice that.

 

nope it does not have backlit keys

 

I beg to differ completely. It would be nice to see some evidence to back your statement up thought.

EDIT: Though**

 

Yeah, I guess the fan is always on but its not really noticable to me.

 

how do I know the specific model of the Envy 15 i have?

 

so far i love my envy. It does get hot and so does my dual xeon desktop. I installed 3DS max design on my envy and it renders at about the same speed as my dual quad core 2.4ghz machine at work. Thats what it seems like and I was hoping it would be faster but I need to run some scenes before I can come to a conclusion. The ATI card works good for 3d modeling, no lag as I rotate scenes around in shader mode. Photoshop and Illustrator launch like no other, they just pop up like that. So far this seems to be a good mobile workstation. 21 days to test it out

 

I dont see any lines either - does it show up under a certain color?

however, I do notice my google chrome icon looks fuzzy.

 

Anyone know if there would be any kind of burn in the thermal compound would need for these laptops?

I would hope they used a good thermal compound, but they could always use greese or a pad.

I ask becuase I just used Prime 95 to go 100% load on all CPU cores for about 5 minutes. Hit 87C... but the odd thing is when i went back to lite workload it dropped to 42-43C and the left side now feels much cooler than before.

 

It looks like the top part of the display is deinterlaced. almost as if the there's something wrong with the refresh rate. it's visible when you use a darker background. I am going to go to best buy tomorrow and check out the display model there.

 

So you know that HP will be having the E2E display later on for the 15?

 

What's the cpu and GPU temperature of this laptop without laptop cooler on idle and on full load after running 3d mark 06

 

Its about 21 C ambient.

Idle ~45 overall. A couple cores at ~40 and the other two 43-45.

I ran 3d mark 06 earlier in the day. Believe the temperature shots are in the first thread. Max value hit during 3dmark 06 was about 75C.

Prime 95 8 threads hit 87C on all cores. Temperature rise slowed down quite a bit at that point. Many areas of the left side of laptop top and bottom hurt to touch

 

Too hot to touch? So Does that means if I get this laptop I have to use an external keyboard if I'm using graphic intensive program or gaming?

 

Prime 95 isn't really a normal program. It was running 8 threads pushing all 4 cores to their max. It was a torture test designed to push the CPU to its limit.

Games should be fine and not really reach that load. The CPU is under the left palmrest, and the GPU is a little higher up on the right side maybe centered under the right shift key. It doesn't get near as hot as the CPU, but we don't have any GPU tools to check temps.

Lisa from the mobile tech review gave some temperature readings of the bottom ad palm rest using a IR thermometer. I think she read the top of the laptop at ~45C after a gaming session. If i recall idle was closer to 35C on the top of the laptop. The bottom was 5-10C higher.

 

Is it worth opening the laptop up, and putting in some decent thermal paste (MX2?)

 

My notebook has a very very quiet high-pitched whine. I think its my hard drive and it is driving me crazy. Anyone else hearing the same thing?

Edit: I think it may be this problem
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=85477

Edit 2: Yup, pretty sure it is the above issue, which seems to be a common problem with recent notebooks. I read this and noticed the line, "can increase in frequency if USB devices are attached." I'm using a wireless USB mouse and the whine goes away if I unplug it.

 

Oh....
Only one hour DVD playback on battery is no a very good result. Was this test with both (internal an external) battery ore only with the 6 cell internal?

The internal battery has 53 wh, this means the power consume on DVD playback is nearly 40W – 45W…really much for a notebook

Im looking forward to see some other battery test…

Best regards from Germany

Matthias

 

Sorry if my question is a little bit off topic...
But does the warranty that HP has on the Envy 15 have worldwide coverage?

Because I'm thinking of shipping one from the US since my country does not have it yet and I need a notebook this year

I'm worried if it has some defects or when it gets broken.

Regards

 

Thank you both!

 

Thay just called me from the store where I bought my envy and told me that HP "found" out that it wasn't a full HD screen and wondered what I would like to have as compensation (sp?) from HP?

I also told him that ther wasn't just one RAM with 4 gb as promised but 2x2 gb and that bothers me lot too.

Now I'm not sure what to as for compensation...... maybe a good price on the batteryslice (that have dissapered from the HP store)

 

6 Cell. Default HP power settings, which do adjust for being on battery. You might be able to get a movie done if you start at 100% (took me a while to go find another HDMI cable and get everything setup to play a DVD through my reciever, why I started at 89%).

 

yvonnesnet, I think the battery was $120 as an optional add-on, so I would probably ask for it. I'm sure they would charge that much or more to upgrade to the 1080p version.

 

Wow, that's really bad battery performance for just a movie. But at the same time you can't expect a lot more out of a gaming notebook.

 

I have already got my return number and am returning my Envy for a refund. I could not get over the touchpad. I instinctively rest my finger on the left button when I use the touchpad. This causes the mouse to go psycho. I wanted to make sure it was not just me, so I had my wife use it and her words were “oh no.” You have to use the touchpad without your thumb on the pad and then move your thumb on only when you want to click. Or you have to use taps. This annoyed me to no end. I’m sure I could get accustomed to it with time, but there are too many other options out there for me to have to adapt to a $2000 product. For that much money, I was expecting perfection and I didn’t feel I got it—at least for me personally.

I also noticed the hand rest area was rather warm on just normal usage. It was not unusable but it was noticeable. I did not hear any loud fan noise. The only aesthetic thing I noticed was the left Ctrl key was installed at a slight angle. I apologize that I can’t offer a more technical assessment—I will leave that to the others on the forum that are more technologically savvy than I.

 

Just got off the phone with a presale rep at HP in Sweden and he said that they where misinformed about the screen resolution (he sounded a bit bitter) and that we now probably have to live with this screen for a couple of months before next planned model refresh. He also mentioned that as far as he knew at this point, all European countries got the same screen. I only hope HP realizes the mistake of only sending low res screens to Europe and corrects this mess by swiftly adding a new model with a high res screen.

I really like this machine, but have to have at least 1600x900 for my work, so I may have to go back to my backup plan and get the heavier and bulkier SXPS 16 with a expensive upgrade to 8 Gb RAM.

 

I have a feeling that HP's default settings downclock the gpu too much and let the cpu handle the grunt work of video playback. I'm trying to figure out a way to get the gpu up and running for video playback to let the cpu clock down since it'd probably be working a lot harder and sapping more battery life to do the same thing.

 

HP's media player and DVD player probably only support slight GPU acceleration of files and DVDs - you'd be better off getting a program either from ati or another make that supports ati's Stream acceleration of MPEG and H.264.

 

wow....not good at all. This cant be right...can it?

 

It seems to be right...i found a pre-test wich say that the idle consume of the book is around 40W

 

Well, this kind of notebook isnt meant for such batterytime, but to give a good performance in a small package. Which is the prime reason I've chosen to wait for Arrandale, as I consider Clarksfield to be an overkill for my requirements (basicly my 3 year old A7jc is fast enough, its just too old and about to fall apart), and I think the switchable graphics might be just it in order to get good idle watt usage.

 

Found core temp (used in notebook check reviews):
http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ shows load % by core and temp. Guess i could use taskmanager, but this has it load and temp in one place.

Anyway the HP media player did not seem to use hardware acceleration much if at all. CPU load for a DVD was 5-15%.

Switched to windows media player and load on the CPU is 0-1%. I will let the battery get back to 100% and run a more closely timed playback on the 6 cell battery (all i have). Will do this test with the screen on (last time was testing playback through HDMI). Default HP power profile unless someone suggests better.

Above was on AC power.

Assume the 0-1% CPU load is a sign windows media player is offloading all or nearly all the DVD tasks to the GPU instead of the CPU?

 

That's a safe assumption, but VLC player or the like may be even better optimized.

 

Last I checked VLC player did not have any support for hardware accelerated decoding and uses software decoders running on the CPU to do all the work. Has this changed?

 

You may be right. The only program that I found with complete ati Stream compatible acceleration is Arcsoft's TotalMedia Theater 3 Platinum with the Slim-HD plugin.

http://www.arcsoft.com/en-us/software_title.asp?ProductCode=TMT3P

 

TO ALL SUFFERERS OF THE BING CB:

Consumerist.com has an article up about the problem. The OP bought a HP Mini 311 Netbook with the 25% Bing CB offer and is getting the same run around the rest of you are as well. HP has been trying to give him $40 instead of the original $100 he was supposed to receive. He was told that he used a coupon code, additional discount or tried to use the Bing CB after it ended (not true according to the OP). I suggest anyone who has had this problem head over to the Consumerist.com website and voice their opinions in the comments and contact the author of the article, Chris Walters, with your problem as well. Might help.

http://consumerist.com/5395580/hp-refuses-to-make-good-on-100-cash-back-promise-wont-explain-why

 

Thanks for the post ddmeightball. I am supposedly getting a call from an HP rep today regarding this issue. After the normal path through customer server failed I started chatting up HP's community forum administrator and he organized this call. It could the company line the normal reps give, but hoping for something different.

 

Downloaded VLC. Seems to run on the CPU single threaded. One core was solid 10-15% load for DVD playback.

Started the test with wmplayer. Load is mostly 0% and one or two cores will usually pop up to 2-3%. The cores being used seems to be rotating.


Edit:
Batt: 99 - 76 = down 23% in 20 minutes. Will let it run the full hour, but seems to be going down slower much slower than my HDMI output test with the screen off using HP's media player. Should be able to finish a movie with a full charge at least

 

im placing my bet early that you wont see a 40percent off black friday this year..lol...just a hunch.

 

Peppe, HP Sweden listed the slice as accessory for 2990 SEK incl tax, which is over USD 400.

A 4GB DDR3 SO-DIMM retails for around 2800 SEK here ($400).

So a battery slice would seem to be a good compensation.

 

Movie status:
99-50 = 49% drop at about 42-43 minutes. Sorry, missed a 40 minute exact check.

Hour test completed:
99-27 = 72% drop in 60 minutes.

Display brightness 50%. Standard HP power policy, but with light sensor disabled.

All the cores ran at about 50C for the hour. Idle dropped down to ~45C range.

 

I took a look at the computer this past weekend. The bestbuy in Toronto had it on display in a lonely corner of the notebook section. Very good build quality. Not hot at all while running idle... in fact i wouldn't even say it was warm (subjective i know... but I really wouldnt). There was no internet on the notebook so i tried to stress test it by repeatedly running the only video on the laptop in full screen for like 5 minutes while checking the palm rests and touch pad for noticable heat increase. Not the best test... because it didn't even seem to phase the machine to have to play the video. It did get a little warm on a spot to the right of the touchpad though.

I liked the screen and the keyboard. The speakers weren't very large. For all the hype and marketing on the "Beats" audio system, i was pretty dissapointed by how low the speakers actually were at maxed volume settings.

Over all i was impressed. My short inspection of the machine at the store along with following this message board for the past month or so has led me to take the plunge. I ordered the Envy 15 1050-CA yesterday from HP Canada shopping (over the phone). It still says "Coming Soon" on teh HP Canada website, but that's probably because some underpaid webmaster couldn't be bothered to update the information. They had 7 in stock as of yesterday for any Canadians who are interested.

I took the 2 year warranty (including accidental damage), does anyone have any opinions on the HP warranties? Should I keep the accidental damage warranty? Is it worth it?

 

I'm using the Envy 15 and I must say, I am pretty disappointed in my purchase.
1)The whole BCB drama.
2)The fedex lagginess, two day shipping, yeah right!
3)I miss the pacakage becuase the laptop comes earlier than stated on my tracking number and I have to go get it 20miles away.
4) I pick up the box from fedex and the outside of the box has dents and creases all over it. No fragile sticker anywhere on the box. Do they know that there is some expensive electronics in there?
5)I open up the the laptop and the first thing I notice is some scratches on the screen bezel right next to the camera.
6)I surf on the internet for about fifteen min. and the laptop gets considererably warm. I'm posting this message and both are my palms are hot, almost perspiring.
7)I, as well as a few others, dislike the trackpad. My trackpad is very finicky. Scrolling up and down is very cumbersome and the getures don't work very well on my machine. Others have had better luck.
8)The range of motion for the screen is not good for me either. I have to hunch over while i'm typing .T
9)There is also a rattling noise when I move the laptop from side to side, not hard, just a very gentle rocking motion. I actually noticed it when I was unboxing the laptop. It sounds like some loose wires or something.
10)The worst part, right where the tub or bottom of the laptop meets the palmrests, there is an annoying sqeaking noise under my right palm at the seam. Where the two pieces come together.

This is from my personal experience with the laptop. I am not in any way trying to give a negative review for the laptop, mieage will vary.

I am sure the latptop is a very powerful machine. However, the sweaty palms and hunching over and that sqeaky noise under my right palm just doesn't make this an enjoyable experience for me.

Sorry HP, but this laptop is getting sent back to you guys. Actually i'm not sorry, for a premium laptop, my expectations were so much higher.

 

I have returned

I am great! Thanks for asking! And thanks to you for helping me and all of us keep this thread up-to-date with real-life facts.

Things in Angouleme, France, are rainy. TONS of rain...grrrr.

The GPU is relatively new, so I would say give it some time for the softwares to fully recognise it.

Have you tried it? How did it go?

I suggest you wait then and see if what chrixx said a long time ago, and repeated now, is true, and get it there. If not, I am sorry, but the E2E is something people wont miss considering what you are trading it off for.
i7, 4830, FHD, 6GB RAM, and a light body.

How can THAT be? Does your T400s has a SSD? The i7 eats the SP on the T400s in theory...if you have a SSD report it, the SSD does a HUGE difference.

The FN thing was already responded, thanks.

No backlit keyboard confirmed. Sorry.

How can the CPU run now cooler? Have you double-checked?

On the first page there is that information posted. Thanks to peppe1

I do remind you that it was using HDMI hooked to an eDisplay...

The first ones are not to blame the Envy, sorry.





Now, back to topic. Can I ask you owners something strange to confirm?
Try the camera on low-light conditions, supposedly that is one selling point, the camera works even on darkness...

Try the audio, how good is it? Bass? Midrange? High?
Any distortion at max volume?

Try the headphone jack, is it dual? Can you use a headphone/mic on it?

And lastly, can you use RMClock to check the CPU?

THanks!

 

While I still ave the laptop in my possession, I will do what I can to help out this forum.

For the webcam, It works very good in low light conditions. Just like nightvision. It is in black and white. I am not in a black room but very low light.

Edit:
I decided to go into a closet to see how well the webcam works in the dark. Suprisingly it works well. You can see your face very clearly.

 

49% = 42.5 minutes (average), therefore 1% = 42.5/49 = 52.04 seconds
Just to double check this, let's test it against the second figure you gave us:
52.04 seconds /60 (to get minutes) *72 = 62 minutes 27 seconds. Pretty close to your 60 minutes quoted above.

We'll take the average of both calculations to figure out 1% on this battery plan:
((60/72)+(42.5/49))/2 = 1% = 51.02 seconds (2 dp)
Full charge = 5102.04 seconds = 85 minutes 2.04 seconds = 1 hour 25 minutes 2.04 seconds.

A little better; but it's clear this notebook is not intended to be used away from a power supply without the slice battery. Not terribly surprising.

 

Remember it is playing a video on the FHD using the USB eODB. Both consume a lot, and the GPU/CPU have to work too.

 

Is anyone else with the battery slice noticing in the system tray of Windows 7 the status of "Battery #2" changing from any charge status to "Not present"? It seems to disappear, and I've tried removing and reattaching the slice, but no change. I have yet to go on battery, I guess I need to try that to see if it holds up for more than 60-90 minutes.