*HP Envy 15 Owners Lounge! PART 1*

That thought crossed my mind also..

 

I ordered mine yesterday, today it says order dropped to factory. Hopefully, that means its queued up for production...It mentions a finish date of the 19th.

 

It may have been answered already but I can bring myself to read through over 400 pages, sorry if that upsets anybody

I'm going to order a Envy 15 before Saturday because of the $500 off

Im trying to decide between the 2.53ghz (boost up to 3.06ghz) i5, or the 1.6 ghz (boost up to 2.8ghz) i7

I will mostly be using the laptop for the Adobe Creative Suite since I am a graphic design student, but will also be using it to watch movies, listen to music, obviously surf the internet, and maybe play a bit of s.t.a.l.k.e.r. from time to time

I've gathered up enough to know the i7 runs real hot, and has low battery life, but would I really benefit from getting the i7 over the i5 for the stuff Ill use it for in the next few years?

Thank you to anybody who can help me out, sorry if I'm asking a noob question

 

Congrats on the new purchase!

The fact that your build date is the same as mine and I got confirmation on the 7th makes me wonder if they might be waiting on parts or something. Generally build dates move out with order dates.... Does anyone have a build date earlier than 1/18 ?

 

Do you mean $300 off? If there's a $500 off code floating around, share!

 

Thanks

oh wow, i would probably grind my eyeballs out if I ordered a laptop on the 7th and had to wait til the 19th just to have it finished and not shipped for another few days possibly!!

Did you order an i7 quad core?

 

Well, the order I placed on 1/7 has a ESD of 1/18 and the one placed on 1/8 has a 1/19 ESD.

 

What are the details on the $300 off? I tried it out and it didn't work online, the base price on the E15 was still 1200, heck if I had to call it in I'd return my laptop and reorder it for $300 off.

 

The email I got from HP said $500 price drop on Envy 15, starting at $1,299, then I'll get a tiny bit more off due to Education discount

I was just wondering if it was worth the extra 75$ for what I would be doing

I have found a few codes that said up to $500 off but they are all invalid when you put them in

 

I ordered with the $300 off base model with i5 540QM and Antiglare screen. But I'm thinking of canceling / sending it back and instead ordering the 820QM, Dual SSD, and install 12GB RAM.

Do you guys think I should? I don't really need all of that power atm, but I do want this to last around 2 yrs and still be powerful. It will be a desktop replacement.

 

Even if it didn't, it wouldn't be a smart thing to do. Far from it. The only thing the G2 drives have over the G1 drives performance-wise is TRIM support and you can't use TRIM in a dual drive system (TRIM doesn't work in RAID, it only works in single drive setups). The TRIM spec doesn't support it.

You could replace the 2.5" spinning platter with a single X25-M G2 (X18-Ms are in 1.8" format only) if you really wanted to get the TRIM, but performance would decrease compared to a dual drive system in RAID 0.

 

With all the talk of USB 3.0 I thought I'd put in my 2 Cents worth. The CNET article also mentioned some top-end HP Elitebooks which are business oriented machines which also happen to have Workstation-class discrete graphics. I suppose if HP were to reuse the same mobos in the Envys than one could assume that all the NEW allotments for the Envy would be equipped with USB 3.0.

I wonder if HP is moving to a different chipset with the NEW allotments such as the HM57 or QM57 Chipsets.

 

A few things:

We're currently unsure if the i5 configs will receive the same USB 3.0 implementation as the i7 configs will seem to have. If that's important to you, you may want to hold off until all bra information comes in.

The new, smaller, cooler i5 + switchable integrated graphics will likely provide you with substantially increased battery life when compared to the older i7 still offered, if that's something you imagine you'll require.

Most importantly, if you bring the config cost up to $1399 or more and apply coupon code: NBTW34871, you'll get an additional $300 off your order--not in combination with your lesser student discount and only on orders over the phone (it's technically expired).​

 

For me, I needed something that would blaze when it came to autocad and google sketchup and matlab. Then on the side I needed something that could handle dreamweaver cs4 traktor dj studio ableton live and cubase sx then play some newer games so i can blow off some steam, in that order and hopefully last me at least 3 years. I determined, through my massive inbuilt cerebral logic processor, that a 7200 rpm HDD 4 GB of ram and quad core would be sufficient. The worst case scenario is cubase and ableton will want more RAM, or I might get a little tired of load times, and in that case I will either (or both) upgrade the ram or get SSDs and naturally, the longer I wait to do that, whether from being cheap, or not needing it, the cheaper those upgrades will become. So from my point of view, you don't need that and it will still be a desktop replacement.

 

I spent 2 weeks with my Envy i7-720 version before I returned it for an i5 540 replacement. Being a photographer I did a lot of testing with CS4 and was completely blown away with the performance. I forget the exact numbers but batch processing a ~1GB file with 300 RAW images and tons of filters took ~13min, my core 2 dell took over an hour and my sisters new Mac book pro 15 took 30 some min. As far as heat goes I had no issues, I would say it ran warm at worst.

My biggest issue was with battery life which was about 1:15 using CS4 with the 6 cell and maybe 3.5hrs with slice. I need the computer for travel and mobile use and the added weight of the slice (8+lbs.) does not make it very portable. I chose the i5 as a replacement when I was offerd an exchaange the i7(for several minor issues). On paper the battery life should be much better and although the performance of the i7 was hard to give up I'm sure the i5 will be more than ample for my needs. I went with the extra 6 cell and no slice this time.

Hope this helps you make a decision.

 

Guys, as promised, here are the answers to some of your questions regarding my new Envy.

Windows Experience
-------------------------------
Processor: 7.0
Memory: 7.4
Graphics: 6.7 (both categories)
Hard Disk: 7.9

SSD RAID 0
-------------------------------
I posted my initial "out of the box" performance in a previous thread. Here is the performance with Office 2007, Visual Studio 2008 and a bunch of other stuff installed.

Transfer Rate:
Min: 383.8 MB/S
Max: 512.9 MB/S
AVG: 450.0 MB/S
Access Time: 0.3ms

Both drives in the RAID 0 array have this model number: INTEL SSDSA1MH160G1HP.

The benchmark above is down a bit from my initial one i posted yesterday. This is due to the fact that i now have all my applications installed.

3d Studio Mark
-------------------------
6973 3DMarks

This is with the i7-720/8GB Ram/4830 config.

 

So I need to order it over the phone to get the $300 off? Thanks

That actually takes off more then my student discount ever would so that helps

I'm leaning more towards the i5 with boost up to 3.06ghz due to the heat problems and battery life at the moment but I have a few more days to decide.

Anybody have any suggestions?

 

Nevermind, I read wrong

So you would reccomend the i7 JJB? Performance wise that is with CS4

 

I wish I could asnwer that but no one has got the i5 model yet, first builds will be next week. With the i7 I would rarley see even 4 of the CPU threads using more than 50% capacity, so again it's great performance but not worth the tradeoff to me for more battery life. The only real world test / review I've found of the i5-540m is in the link below, they compare it to a core 2 P8700 machine and it beats it in all ctatagories.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/mobile-core-i5-arrandale,2522-6.html

I decidied the i7 was more than I needed for CS4

 

How about when you did your RAW image processing? were each of the processors running at 50% then?

 

Good question, it only used all cores when I opened the file and selected all images, then started the process -- all 8 threads were active. When I would just select the file without opening it only 4 threads were active. Must be the way the OS or CS4 dumps the processes to the CPU. Can't remember the time difference other than it wasn't nearly twice as long for the 4 threads vs 8 threads. The 4 threads were definately running faster than all 8 which is how it was designed.

This was great but again I would rarely need to use that much processing power while traveling etc..

 

Right, right. My last two laptops I bought specifically for portability in mind and it turns out I don't travel nearly as much as I want, I had a vaio ultraportable that got close to 7 hours of battery life, but it turned out I was never hard pressed to find an outlet to charge my machine so I thought the best thing to do was get a powerful machine that had around 2 hours of battery life when needed and when I'm doing heavy processing the battery life wont be an issue. Though with my luck my entire lifestyle will change in the next few months and I'll find it necessary to pick up one of those slimfit batteries lol.

One thing I'm curious about is the dynamic power modes on the processor. It seems like the i7 always likes to stay around the same power consumption, so it overclocks itself when its running a single core or runs normal when on all 4 cores.

What about settings for running on one core underclocked, say at 700mhz to 1ghz? I find I don't need much more processing power than that if I'm just going to surf the web and chat online and I bet that could more than double battery life if one were to just do these kind of tasks all day.

 

mine is 1/18 i wonder if thats the ship date/build complete date like at dell... mines been like that since sunday night

 

Although Im very excited for the HD audio bitstreaming from the new ATI card, and the USB 3.0 for my external drives (new enclosures: here i come!), the MAIN thing im hoping for is a proper BIOS! Mainly:

1. Options for AHCI when i have my dual SSDs not in raid
2. Proper cpu idle states and boost states (fix the locked at x7 crap please!)

You guys think they were waiting on this refresh to fix it possibly?

My fingers are crossed, waiting on my i7 replacement like everyone else here.

 

The BIOS doesn't support AHCI?

 

There were ZERO options for it... usually you have IDE, RAID, AHCI.

It is locked on RAID, which is better than IDE i suppose... but c'mon HP. a proper setting would be comforting. My Esata still supported Hotplug, but im sure raid-vs-ahci is lacking something... or why would there be an option on most chipsets in the first place?

Was hard enuff to get the ctrl-i pressed at the right time to get into the raid menu!

 

I'm not the one to ask about that. All I know is that the i7 CPU I returned never would drop below 15.34W even at idle. This seems to be an unacknowledged issue for HP and or intel. I still have an open tech support 'trouble ticket' for this issue from the 2nd day I had the machine (one of the reasons they offered an exchange). I had followed up several times with no response other than "we are looking into it".

Not sure if this is a problem with the most recent i7's builds or not, maybe someone else with a more recent build can chime in here....

 

I just remembered that Starcraft II is coming out osmetime in the somewhat near future. I was thinking about how I don't play PC games anymore, but now I have a good reason for that 5830 .

 

It's fixed, if mine is any indication. You can't move or shift the slice once it's locked now.

But going for the extra 6-cell instead is an option to think about. It's less bulky as a separate item and doesn't bloat your slim machine when it's attached.

 

Same boat.

Mass Effect 2, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, Modern Warfare 3.

 

im really glad i got my order in that included the blu-ray drive before they pulled the option this morning.

I used the thing alot over the last 3 weeks before i returned my envy for exchange, and it was amazing. Fast BD rips, Slot load worked perfectly, single port powered with a hub to boot! I really hope they dont delay my order for some reason because of it.

I tried to keep my slab battery and the BD drive when i returned the unit(since they were both perfect) but HP said EVERYTHING had to go back exactly as it was shipped to me.

My friend is trying to order an envy now also, but he is very mad that he cant get that great, matching, single cable, slot loading drive. I couldnt get him to even consider the lesser options available on newegg and such.

Anyone else order theirs with the BD drive and waiting on it?

 

I really think that a USB 3 or burning model drive is going to replace it soon.

 

I hope so too, but it sucks that the HP drive can ONLY be ordered at the time the laptop is ordered according to customer service, We want our ENVYs as soon as possible, which means ordering now! I guess there will be another early adopter tax... haha

I cant wait for the first full review and benchmarks, including VGA overclocking, of the new refresh. The VGA card on paper looks to have about 15% raw power added... and maybe some more headroom for the OC.

The bitstreaming however was my main reason for the exchange, everything else is just gravy...

Another late night in california, goodnight to all!

 

Yes, bitstream is nice. I really feel that now that this thing has Arrandale, USB 3.0, proper HDMI and so on, it is probably the most future-proof laptop on the market. The support for DX11, OpenCL, OpenGL 3.x in the video card help as well, because I think we are going to see anh explosion in the number of apps taking advantage of these technologies. Maybe not in the immediate future, but a couple years down the line I think we will have things like mature hardware accelerated video encoding, and this card is perfectly built for that application.

 

Buying and paying from overseas

Hi all, I have sorted out the shipping, with a US forwarding address, however now I tried to order and they won't accept my European credit card. They say they also don't accept non-US payal.

I haven't tried yet to pretend they are US ones and see if either actually works. Overseas buyers, how did you pay?

 

Don't know if its really called a "wait" but i ordered the BD last thurs, and its been in production for the last 4 days

 

Guy I dont mean to hijack the thread, but im new to Hp and i have heard not so good stories about their customer service/tech. support Vs Dell's. I owned dell since years and have no complains with their tech support(responsive/friendly) but their laptop offerings especially with the throttle issue is horrible.
Any insights on HP customer service?

 

I am actually very content with HP customer service. I work for Information Tech at MIT as a computer technician, and I am on customer support lines a lot, to say the least. When on with HP about warranted replacement parts, they usually don't make a fuss. So my conversations are short and concise without requiring elevation. Dell, on the other hand, has given me trouble by making calls very long. Being on the phone with dell for hours at a time is not a rare occurrence for people in my departure. If you're thinking about the benefits of HP over Dell, and especially with the ENVY 15, think about how this product offers USB 3.0 and Directx11 while Dell has no laptop which offers the same. Also, I do believe there is a dedicated customer service line for Envy owners.

 

At this point they have been friendly but useless. It seems for whatever reason HP managment is not giving info on the new refresh of the envy 15 with the i5/i7 and 5830 ati card and maybe USB 3.0. Also very poor communication in general with follow up on tech issues...

The good news is they have a very good return policy, order one and you basically can test drive it for 21 days and return it -- they even pay return shipping. I hope tech support will get better once full documentation is released on the new refresh.

 

I appreciate your swift answer. since you mentioned the USB3.0 isn't that option only available for i7 CPU and not the i5 or has it been confirmed that all ENVY lineup will get the USB3.0? Plus, how is the envy doing on the throttling issue, is it as severe as the 1645 xps?
Thanks again.

 

The only 'throttling' type issue I am aware of is that the i7 cpu is locked at a 7x clock speed while on battery. several people have tried to get this issue resolved with no success that I am aware of.

 

no throttling on the AC adapter? Any heating issues?

 

if they put a cd drive in it and mine, which ships the 19th doesn't have it, ill be disappointed. I think its more USB3 refresh with probably a bru ray that has usb 3 support. I can imagine ripping 60gb from a laser disc could benefit from usb3.

 

Well, I just came from Dell XPS1645 to the Envy as well, and had to call HP support line the other night on the supposedly "dedicated" Envy line and I was on hold for 1 hour and 48 minutes before I hung up with nobody answering the call. Seems like calls to Dell were answered very quickly.

Hopefully this is not a regular thing when calling support. I gave up and used the online chat. I used chat with Dell as well and that seems to work pretty good, but sometimes it's just easier to talk with someone on the phone about issues.

 

None on AC that I know of. The i7 I returned had no heat issues even under load, I would say it ran warm under load. The cooling system is really good on this model - 2 fans/heat pipes on cpu and 1ea for gpu. Mine idled in the upper 30's and rarely went above 70C under load (cpu) / gpu ~60C max.

 

Wow 1hr + ? i have never waited more than 5 min. to get through. you sure your calling the Envy support line? 866-408-5408

 

Re: Whoever was asking about changing the shortcut buttons on the keyboard...

There are registry keys that control what app is opened with those shortcut keys:

HKLM/software/microsoft/windows/currentversion/explorer/appkey/

You should be able to figure out which key is which by looking at the app that is executed (look for calc.exe), and then change that to whatever you actually want it to be. I haven't tried this myself but it seems like it should work.

 

JJB mentions the issue with the multiplier defaulting at 7 while on battery. I too have noticed it, but it does not make a huge difference whatsoever because *most likely* when you are on battery, you aren't doing cpu intensive tasks. Otherwise, I would have to say that the laptop does not throttle needlessly. If I throw in a game, or am compiling/encoding something I notice the fans throttling along with the CPU going into Turbo, but I never notice this trend while doing basic web browsing and the like.

@JJB I don't mean to be pushy, but what is happening with those questions? And elevation is key in customer support. Usually, when you are awaiting to be connected with a CSR, the message plays for you to ask the CSR to complete an evaluative survey at the end of the call. I always do this by stating to the CSR that I know he/she will do a great job, and I would love to take the survey at the end of the call. As working in IT, this is a habit for me because the person eases up. Then I can ask questions, and usually there are things that the CSR does not know. This is where I kindly thank the CSR for his input (I am sure to mention that he/she is doing a great job) and I ask to speak to a supervisor or whoever can answer my questions. Now with the supervisor, I first applaud the competence of the first CSR, and then I ask the questions. If the supervisor does not know, I ask with whom can I speak with. Now, if the supervisor does not know, I ask to be transferred to the press release/news room office. Granted you can always contact them right away, it is interesting to see how much the CSR's actually know about their products. With work, I am usually demanded answers from clients, and I demand answers from the company. This is how I do things. I don't know your methods, but this is what works for me. I am sure that you're polite on the phone and everything, but here you go.

 

Thats fine as I dont expect calls to be answered within 5 But what I meant is are there any major issues with customer service about fixing the computer or replacements parts / in home service ? are they responsive and willing to help?

 

Actually this IS a huge issue. The CPU is locked down at less than 1/3 of its potential single-core performance, which really affects response time even in a web browser or email program.