*HP Envy 15 Owners Lounge! PART 1*

wow this is pretty disappointing news, way to go hp. now im actually thinking about reordering with the i7 instead or do you think it'd be better just to wait for the i5's to actually start coming in and seeing whether they still might have usb 3.0 or not?

 

This review mentions the color space is somewhat smaller than sRGB and a long way to go compared to the XPS16's RGBLED.

 

There is only ONE USB 3.0 port.

Source: http://www.thenextbench.com/t5/HP-Envy-Notebooks/USB-3-0-support/td-p/51999/page/2

 

I'd wait until someone gets one if I were you. This person could be full of it. It seems she really took her time to write that very detailed email response.

 

The panel they were using was the 1366x768 one. The 1080p one is definitely different.

 

I do not see where the confirmation is on that. It is just an HP forum. Everywhere else states USB ports as plural indicating that all of them. This seems to be one HP forum moderator with no support behind his claim. We all know HP employees are just filled with oodles of knowledge about their products...

 

I had several Dell SXPS 16 RGBLED models before I finally gave up. In the beginning the RGBLED screens were WAAAYYY over saturated. It was TERRIBLE. They finally tweaked it down a bit and it was a little better. Still IMHO the Envy 15 screen is BETTER than the RGBLED. I know you will probably find it hard to believe, but when you're doing web design and print work, you'll notice very quickly how over saturated the RGBLED really is. I'll take the Envy 15 thank you.

 

The person that posted the message is:
"Tony "Frosty" Welch is the lead Social Media Strategist for HP PSG and the Community Manager for The Next Bench. He's @frostola on Twitter."

The Envy 15 has 3 USB ports in total. My speculations are that one will be shared with eSata, one 2.0, and one 3.0.

 

That sounds fine to me. I mean, I would have preferred all ports being USB 3, but one is better than none. lol

 

I totally agree with you.. no matter how many people on the XPS1645 forum appraise the RGBLED quality, my eyes end up bleeding when looking at non photo graphics. and that is why I returned mine too and ordered Envy

 

So I switched my i5 to i7 just because a Sales rep convinced me that it had USB 3. How much battery life am I going to get with just a 6 cell if I'm just going to surf the internet and have micosoft office open? I really liked the i5s but the rep told me if I wanted to use my laptop for 4~5 years, I should get the i7. I know it's all sales tactic and I was pretty sure the i5 would have been fine in 4 years but since I'm a CS student, I was presuming I might do something needing i7 in the future...do you think I should go back to the i5? I should like the 4DIMM on the i7.

 

you took the salespersons bait to be honest. i7 is nice, i liked my machine, but the battery life was less than stellar. for me the i5 should be a nice blend and sounds promising since it has graphics on board which should allow the computer to run cooler and longer without being plugged in. i7 no doubt is more powerful, but that doesn't make the i5 a bad choice at all.

 

Arrandale for me, FTW!

USB 3.0 be damned

 

I think it all depends on how you are going to use it. If you plan on being on battery for most of the time, I'd go with the I5. If you plan on being plugged in most of the time I'd go with the I7.

I see you are a CS student so you'll probably be writing a lot of code. I'm a professional developer and write code all day long. For me, power and speed are by far the most important things. Battery life really isn't an issue since I'm never very far from an outlet. I went with the i7 for the extra power and more threads.

BTW, my build times have been insanely good with the I7 + Dual SSD. A solution that takes about 2.5 mins to build on my q6600 machine takes about 20 seconds to build on this beast.

 

The 35nm quad-cores just aren't released yet from Intel. It's definitely not heat issues... a process shrink reduces the amount of power they need to sink... a 45nm CPU and a 35nm CPU running at the same speeds should show the 35nm CPU using a lot less power. Or the same, if the 35nm has an on-package GPU

 

so who plans on getting Mass Effect 2?

 

*Raises hand*

Will I see a big difference when running games on on i7 vs. the i5? I'd think the mobile GPU would bottleneck the comp before I could see any big gains.

 

Depending on the game, you'll probably see better performance on the i5's than on the i7. Single and double-threaded loads will benefit more from the i5's having a faster clock speed than most of the i7's. It's only when you start getting to 5 or more threads (or more than 2 non-integer threads) that the i7 starts to take back the lead.

 

I'm getting it for the Xbox 360 for the moment. I played through the first game on the 360 and I missed the whole christmas steam sale If I had known I was getting this laptop I would have gotten more games.

 

My UL80VT could play CODMW2 at native res around 30FPS~ at 2xAA, textures high, and all special effects off.

Funny thing though, with Mass Effect I had 2xAA on and everything on low...I was getting around 20~FPS. When I ran the game in the window, task manager said the CPU was at %99-100 the whole time.

Too bad I never checked to see how the CPU would fare in MW2.

 

I thought, the smaller the size the more heat produced given the cross sectional area of the wire has been reduce and thus resistance increases and therefore heat goes up so the energy input needed to be lowered to compensate for this but since the core is smaller more things can happen per unit of time sicne it has less distance to travel so it balances out....so really what im trying to say is if all is equal, except for the size, 15W of energy pushed through a 35nm processor will produce more heat than its equivalent 45nm counterpart. But then again I have been wrong before...

Edit: but on a 35nm core you may only need 5W to do the same thing you would need 15W to do on a 45nm core.

Edit2: so i guess we're saying the same thing except from different ends of the spectrum, and what you're saying is the 35nm quads are manufacturable for consumer use, Intel just hasn't done that yet.

 

Smaller manufacturing process = less heat

 

Seems unlikely that ME2 would bottleneck a 2.5+ Ghz dual core Arrandale with a mobile 5830. If you lower the resolution enough, it might happen. I will be getting the 1920x1080 version, I'm not sure if it will be able to play ME2 smoothly at full res, even with the i7, because I expect the GPU will be the bottleneck.

 

I must be missing something. All aftermarket intel SSD drives available now are generally G2 (not like they are more expensive even if both were available), so if I want to upgrade to SSD, why wouldn't I buy a pair of G2 drives? Is it impossible to enable RAID if it wasn't done at the factory?

I understand about the TRIM / RAID issue, I know how to perform the same garbage collection manually that TRIM does, even without OS support, without having to format / delete partitions.

 

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but after re-reading both the CNet article and her email response, the possibility of the i5 having USB3 still has not been completely ruled out. At best she is simply positively confirming USB3 on the i7, and her specific wording does not positively exclude it being on the i5.

Granted it would have to be an intentional "twisting" of words, but I still believe it is possible this is marketing-hype to upsell the i7 models, similar to the very implausible limiting of 4GB in the i5 models. It seems more plausible to me that all models would generally have the same features, otherwise they will have to either create two SUB-model spec pages, or put a glaring "Only available on some models" footnote in the specs list. Plus it complicates support and after-sale upgrades. If the i5 models don't have USB3 now, I can't imagine another internals-refresh immediately following this one just to add USB3, and it seems unlikely they would let any of their "consumer flagship" models go without that one top-end feature when it has everything else.

To me USB3 is irrelevant anyway -- I purchased the i5 model and would do so again even if lack of USB3 was confirmed 100%. Though with that being said, it would sure be nice.

With all that said above, it could still be possible the i5 models don't have USB3. All I'm saying is that nothing posted yet 100% confirms for me that it doesn't.

Thanks for reaching out and taking the time to email her, the more info and communication the better!

 

I still haven't seen any official indication on whether or not the Envy 15 i5 configuration will support switchable graphics. I sure hope so, but I decided to order one without knowing for sure. If anyone can shed light on this, please let me know!

 

Very true..although when I called, a rep confirmed that it was only the i7s.. no twist of words. He clearly said "the USB 3.0 will only be on the i7s and not the i5s" And he gave me his words for it.

 

The thing is that it's not all equal. With a smaller process comes a lower voltage, and since V=IR, the overall wattage drops for the same jobs.

 

and P=I^2R so current requirements drop inverse squared with size drop as im sure resistance can assume to be constant with the same material (copper) awesome!

 

I opened up a ticket with HP technical support to get answers to:

1. Does the i5 configuration support USB 3.0?
2. Does the i5 configuration support switching to integrated graphics?
3. Is the i5 configuration expandable to more than 4MB?
4. Is the horizontal line problem fixed?

The tech support guy is researching this info and will email me back. He understood that I was looking for absolute confirmation - not speculation. He sounded excited to actually find out real information - most of his other calls are boring apparently. He said that there aren't many calls about the Envy line - he implied that it isn't selling very well.

My i5 envy is estimated to be shipped on Jan 19th...
I guess we're still about 2 weeks from knowing these answers first-hand.

 

I will fry you a bucket of chicken if the i5 doesn't allow switching to integrated graphics... it's a built-in feature. The Intel HD graphics is built into the bloody CPU.

 

Removed post.

 

Over on thenextbench we have word from Frosty... "Currently USB 3 will only be on the i7 configuration." take that info as you will.

I hope the one I ordered on 1/9/10 will come with USB3... it has the same product number as an Envy15 with identical specs customized today...

http://www.thenextbench.com/t5/HP-Envy-Notebooks/USB-3-0-support/td-p/51999/page/2

 

Bad news on the i5 - I'm going to try to cancel mine:

There were three things I was hoping for - USB 3.0, switchable graphics, Intel G2 SSD's (I know about RAID/TRIM, but I wanted G2's for future resale value). Apparently, this is a strike out on all three counts, so I will wait a bit longer.

N

http://www.thenextbench.com/t5/HP-E...ECS-FOR-MY-NEW-ENVY-15-i5-540M/m-p/52117#M758

 

From thenextbench.com:
http://www.thenextbench.com/t5/HP-E...ECS-FOR-MY-NEW-ENVY-15-i5-540M/m-p/52203#M782


jjb wrote:

Hello-- Just ordered i5 540M w/ dual SSD, to be built 1/19/10.



WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE TO GET SOME ACTUAL SPECS FOR THE $2200 I JUST SPENT!



USB 3.0 ?

SSD - BRAND/ P/N / RAID ??

CAN I UPGRADE IT TO 8GB DDR3 ? SPEED ?

SWITCHABLE GRAPHICS ??

WILL HDMI SUPPORT 2560 X 1600 RES WITH DUAL LINK DVI ADAPTER ?



USB 3.0 ony on the Quad core i7 config

Intel SSDs in RAID 0 (see thread on SSDs in the forum)

i5 configuration supportsup 2 dimms/8gb max, 1 user accessible DDR3 - 1333

No switchable graphics, but ATI driver is set to drop performance/power when system is unplugged - user settable in control panel

HDMI-> DDVI I think this should work, but I haven't tried - I don't have a monitor available at this resolution.



Hope this helps.....note Envy team is working with HP online store to clean up somethings on the website.

 

Agreed that was the nail in the coffin. I am returning mine as well. I'm not sure I really see the point in getting an i5 if HP won't support switchable graphics.
I'm guessing the i5 Envy 15 must still be using the PM55 chipset. I would imagine the newer chipsets would support switchable graphics.

 

it appears that I will be cancelling my order. it's incomprehensible for them to build a computer with an i5 processor and NOT make use of the integrated graphics.

 

I call BS on the lack of switchable graphics. Again, the i5 chips have the bloody GPU on the CPU die...lol. HP isn't going to be removing them. He's probably referring to the i7.

I'd also bet a bucket of chicken the i5 have USB 3.0 also...but this one is just a gut feeling, not sure.

But about switchable graphics....it does. You can bank on that.

 

No offense, but this is straight from an HP / Envy staff member - he ought to know; even more than the PR person in the cnet article. He was specifically asked about the i5. Although the integrated graphics are on the CPU, the mobo, chipset, and the other video device (5830) all have to work in concert to allow the switching to occur. Apparently, these are not all in place yet on the Envy 15. So, although the GPU may be on the CPU, it appears it will be lying dormant. (What a waste though).

 

Just because the CPU has a GPU on die doesn't mean the motherboard can use it. The chipset used thus far in the Envy 15, the PM55, doesn't support an IGP on die. The PM55 cannot physically route video from the IGP; there is no bios update that will make it work.

 

hp really dropped the ball here, i'm done with the envy, i'll move on and find something else. they should really do a better job at being transparent and telling us what we're getting before we order.

 

No IGP? Oh, wow. I decided to check this thread right before ordering my i5 machine.

I'm still on the fence, though, since a few people have told me the i5 will actually play most games better, due to the higher clock speed.

Will i5's still see a significant gain over the i7's in battery power? This is going to be my machine for college, so I want to be able to game well, and move it around and get somewhat decent battery life.

I'm just hesitant to pick up an i7 because of the x7 multiplier issue, and my need for longer battery life. That being said, USB 3.0 would be awesome, and if the battery difference is negligible, then I see no reason not to spend the extra cash for the i7.

 

for those of you re-ordering, please let me know your success/failure in re-applying the $300 coupon over the phone. Thanks!

 

The biggest issue with the Envy 15 is battery life. Intel provided them with a great solution - the Core i5. Unfortunately due to HP failing to use the Core i5 as intended I will be most probably giving my hard earned money elsewhere.

 

Oh wow I lol'd at everyone saying they were cancelling their order in that HP thread. I also lol'd when the guy replied saying "The Envy 13 has it".

I'll still keep with the i5 since it should still lead to less heat and better battery life, regardless if the integrated graphics are usable. USB 3.0 not being available is a disappoint, but when I ordered I wasn't sure if it was available. Plus I own no devices that would benefit from it yet......

 

what a joke.

no usb 3 and no switchable gfx means this is just an overpriced mediocre laptop with terrible battery life.

 

I don't know of any other product that fills the same niche as the Envy. Any recommendations?

 

This means that much less people are going to participate in this forum. This saddens me... Why can't you guys give the i7 Envy a chance? I knew that USB 3.0 wasn't going to come out for the i5, but I would not imagine that they would cut out the switch-ability behind the IGP. That is disappointing. Heart goes out to all those affected.

 

mac book pro is pretty powerful and gets 6-7 hours with moderate use.

 

At least to me, an i5 processor, an ATI 5830, and a nice build quality that is both thin and light is definitely not a mediocre laptop. With the price I got after the coupon, I wouldn't say in the least that this is overpriced. The only other laptops similar to this come with none of those features and are some of the tackiest things I've seen (Asus gaming laptops).