*HP Envy 15 Owners Lounge! PART 2*

HP changes the options day to day so check it every so often and the beats is discontinued

 

I feel your pain. My laptop arrived at the nearby Fedex location on Friday afternoon. I called HP Sat morning to see if they could notify Fedex to let me pick it up directly on Sat (since Delivery was still scheduled for Tues). The response was that the hold notification to fedex would take 24-48 hours to process, which wouldn't help me get it any sooner.

Oh well, it's out for delivery today so I should have it soon.

 

So I just chatted with a HP csr. I placed my order for i5 520 on Friday the 29th and was given a ship date of Feb 26. On Sat I saw that others placing orders on the 1st were given a ship date of the 9th.

So today the csr informed me that my ship date was still the 26th. I am so mad. Do you think she would actually know if the dates have been moved up or did she just check my orginal order?

 

The CSR's are basically random response generators. They will lie to you (knowingly or not) and there isnt much you can really do about it. HP's customer service is horrible (return policy is great though)

 

heh. RRGs.

 

HP! Hark! This pertaineth to thee! The people hath spoken! Thou art to refereth to the formerly known CSRs as RRGs henceforth and it shall remaineth thus until further notice!

(old timey language makes it official FYI)

 

How the gaming on these things? I'm interested in a laptop with a mobility 5*** series graphics chip but the bandwidth of the DDR3 is putting me off.

I take it enabling goodies such as AA is a no no?

 

GDDR3 would be fine if the bus was 256 bit

 

From my brief experience, it ran Mass Effect 2 with everything maxed out like budder.

 

Received my Envy 15 finally. Having read all that people have posted about their's, I've decided not to even open it. I thought HP had something here but they managed to blow it.

 

?? not sure if you mean how long to do install (~2hours with drivers updates etc) or do you mean how long to boot up after clean install?

For me a cold start takes 19sec to windows music and ~35sec to have ie8 open to my home page (remember I have SSD's).

 

Yeah, that makes sense

 

That seems pretty silly to me. Why take other people's word over first hand experience. Go open your new Envy 15, play with it and form your own conclusion. If you don't like it, then return it.

Besides, I think the feedback on the Envy 15 is generally positive.

 

You may as well open it up and play with it for a while, you have 21 days to return it no questions asked. Even if you don't open it they will have to sell it as 'refurbished' (according to CS).

 

Are all the drivers out on the website so that we can do a full reformat/reinstall?

 

@sleey0

I found and loaded that intel TB driver from whoever posted the drivers and seperated them out with descriptions. Anyway two questions; If my turbo boost appeared to be working before I loaded that, what does it do? And do you know where it installs to? I cant find it.

 

So what's the verdict on the i7 vs i5? Personally, I'm interested in performance rather than battery life. I noticed a benchmark earlier in this thread suggesting that the i5 was better. Does anyone have any real world performance comparisons (like in games for example)?

From what I've gathered so far about this, i5 will not have switchable graphics on the envy 15, and usb 3.0 is present only with the i7. The core i5 is dual core but has higher ghz while the i7 is quad core and has lower ghz.

 

In terms of performance, the i7 is the winner in all but a few specific circumstances.

 

Apologies if this has been answered before, but why is it that half of the RAM is accessible nearby the battery bay and the other half requires a near 30 minute unscrewing procedure?

 

The unacceptable performance on battery make it pretty much useless to me. I wanted a notebook, not what is essentially a very expensive mid-range desktop in the shape of a notebook. Then the lack of switchable graphics, HP's poor communication in establishing that fact (and to a lesser extent, the USB 3.0 issue). The matte screen seems to not be that great from what I've read. HP's insistence that opening the thing voids the warranty is also annoying (I know they couldn't tell if it's been opened, but still...) I might cave and open it to play with (I'm not home atm), but I'm thinking I'll sell it and try to make a few dollars. Already ordered a ThinkPad T410 (not as nice as the Envy could've been, but it apparently gives you the performance you pay for)

 

Good question.

I haven't found any documentation on Intel's website what that driver is for. Turbo Boost itself is built into the chip and BIOS controlled.

It is curious though, becaue when you run it it states that it is the Intel HD Graphics setup. Did you notice that?

 

I agree in multi tasking situations and with multi threaded apps, but in anything that only tasks 2 cores the i5 can hold it'd own.

 

Yeah, I can't wait until I get that i7-620 from shirley

 

i5's are no slouch... not to mention they run cooler and give you better battery life. i7's are no doubt the better performer, but only if you are using it on tasks that make use of the 4 cores + hyperthreading...

 

who is shirley? what are you talking about?

 

No, it was the last thing I loaded very late last night. Actually thought it would ask if I wanted to 'reinstall' or repair.....was surprised when it actually loaded, but was to tired to remember what it said......

Now that i think about it, the IGP has it's own TB (sort of ) capability if it sees High demand it can OC and steal power from the CPU if available, so maybe that's what its for?

 

At this point, your guess is as good as mine lol

We will find out in time, once these drivers get posted by HP and Intel.

 

LOL, I was just going to ask the same thing. And how is she getting you an 17-620m? How much?

 

Shirleyfu on ebay? Sells TONS of processors? No?

Anyway, shirley rocks and always sells rock solid cpu's.

I bought a final version ES i7-620M for $250 shipped. I believe he (yes it is a he) has 6 left.

 

http://myworld.ebay.com/shirleyfu1117/

 

Do u guys think the ssd worth it in performance?
I´m not sure if pay the extra $ for the ssd if it is not gonna make the system go faster. They will install Windows in the ssd, right?

 

I meant the actual install procedure after the wiped HD booting from the cd installing and being at the desktop ready to install drivers.

 

i ended up going to dual ssds because the price was really really good. now that it's been confirmed that the the revision machines are coming with G2's it makes the decision THAT much easier. Buy.com sells each one of these drives for 500 each... +550 for two is a really good deal

 

Finding X18-m's is near-impossible.

So, yeah, the price HP charges is great. You could get duall SSD's and sell one from your system for MORE than you paid for both.

 

http://www.buy.com/prod/x18-m-mlc-s...-serial-ata-internal/q/loc/101/211504527.html

 

and I +repped you for that

Finally seems that Intel is releasin these now in retail channels!

 

I'm amazed at how much faster this computer is with SSD's ! Here is a screen shot of R/W speeds I just ran;

 

I hate you

 

Actually I think you have SSD Envy. :tongue: :laugh: :smile: :wink:

 

Ok, thanks for the help!!! =)
I´m gonna wait until tomorrow, maybe there is a macbook pro update, and make the order.

 

Looks the SSDs are a really great deal. 550 dollar upgrade for over 1000 dollars worth of equipment ^^;;

 

Either that, or retail prices for SSDs is a complete ripoff.

 

FINALLY!!!!!!

First impressions:
1) Gorgeous! Absolutely gorgeous. Sturdy and sexy. Love the design and feel
2) The screen bezel scratches to the touch . How do you guys clean the screen bezel? I just touched it with my finger and there was a scratch already.
3) The display looks beautiful. Absolutely loving it

More to come as I will be doing a clean install

 

i noticed that when i got my first one. i need to come up with a way to protect the bezel. i was thinking of invisible shield type material...

 

Congrats!! Finally!!

 

I just used the bag the laptop came in. Works good for me.

 

Hmm thats what I used as well, but when looked under certain light conditions I can see that I am leaving marks

 

Awww shi*. Gonna find out when I get home.

 

Probably easier just to use canned air? Wet the area before wiping it with a wet cloth?

 

I don't have any scratches.

Not sure what is causing it to scratch so easily with your system....