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    HP Envy 15 SSD+HDD Performance

    Discussion in 'HP' started by Pindanootje, Oct 23, 2010.

  1. Pindanootje

    Pindanootje Notebook Guru

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    Okay, recently my other laptop died out on me, so I am in the market for a new one. I am particularily interested in a HP Envy 15. Now I was looking on eBay (the only place I can buy a HP Envy 15 from, HP doesn't sell them in my country) and they had some interesting refurbished deals going on.

    Mainly the two most interesting were, The Envy 15, i7 quad, 6GB of RAM, 500GB 7k2 HDD, FullHD screen, 5830 Ati for 1200 euro.

    OR

    i7 quad, 8GB of RAM, 160 SSD + 250 HDD, FullHD, Ati 5830, slice battery for 1350 euro (just see it as dollars if you are from America)

    Basically, the second one seems like a no brainer, extra 2gb of ram, SSD and the slice battery.

    However, my knowledge of SSD's isn't that great, while on paper they seem awesome, I read that there were some problems in the Envy with 4k read speeds. Now I have absolutely no idea how often I would encounter situations where these 4k read speeds really matter. Most of my time spent, will be spent doing Photoshopping and other Adobe Creative Suit stuff, so having a fast SSD would be really nice.

    And while I am asking this anyway, how is the heat in the second gen Envy? I don't mind the chassis getting hot, I'll live, my other laptop easily got to 80 degrees celsius on load, so that chassis got a bit hot too. I'm fine as long as the laptop is fine, really.
     
    Pindanootje, Oct 23, 2010
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  2. Les

    Les Not associated with NotebookReview in any way

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    An SSD is the ideal solution as it will take care of that heat issue to a certain extent and then you also have the speed which is amazing on those programs.

    If it was me, I would get an SSD afterthefact, install and then swap the DVD for the hard drive giving you both performance and space.
     
    Les, Oct 23, 2010
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  3. Pindanootje

    Pindanootje Notebook Guru

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    Well the nice thing about the Envy 15 is that it already has a SSD+HDD setup (it doesn't have a DVD drive anyway) but apparently there are some controller issues that slow down the 4k read/write speeds nearly fivefold. However, I have no clue as to how this translates to real life use.
     
    Pindanootje, Oct 23, 2010
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  4. Vanko

    Vanko Notebook Consultant

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    You will be amazed what the ssd will do for any pc, 2nd option is much better. Im guessing that both cpus are i7 720qm?
     
    Vanko, Oct 24, 2010
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