HP Envy 17- Impression... Meh

So I purchased an HP Envy 17 on Newegg on Tuesday, paid overnight. Shipped wednesday arrived thursday (yesterday). I've had two days so far to use the machine for gaming/a few other tasks. Overall I wish I was happy with the laptop but I am disappointed with a few issues.

1. Overheating. 70c idle, it hit 91c max on load staying around 84c~ under a simple game of League of Legends? HP had me do some of the dumbest steps, including disabling all services, and start up programs. Yes it helped knock 6 celsions off but with absolutely no brightness control, volume, no wireless internet, and no real way to get online. Overall a pretty dumb request.
This is completely HP's dumb cooling system, I mean one fan and 3 heat pipes for a quad core i7 processor AND a high end HD 5850 GPU?
I mean my M6500 had 3x heatpipes for the CPU, and 4 heat pipes for the GPU, as well as each having their independent fan and heatsink. Thickness is virtually the same on both systems.

2. The Mobility HD 5850 is considerably downclocked version of the Mobility HD 5850. An MSI laptop had 625 mhz core clock, and 1000 memory (more in line to the specified 650 mhz core/1000 mhz memory ATI specified). This one is a 500 core/900 [email protected] vs the specs 650/1000.
This saves HP money because they can always buy the HD 5850 Mobility that simply did not meet the 600+ core standard.

3. The keyboard's backlighting is probably the worst I have ever seen. It is not bright, nor is it well applied like my Dell M6500 that appears to have nearly a light for each key.

4. Overall build quality is okay except for a few kinks. For example on the left palm rest the body is not completely flush, in fact there is almost a .5mm-1mm gap. As well as a few other parts where it simply is not flush.

5. This is rather pathetic and at the same time a bit maddening but the hard drive cover is straight up jammed. Now I work as a computer technician, and I have disassembled plenty of laptops (and I mean plenty), I have never ever witness this hard of a bay cover to remove. It is so hard I am 100% sure it will break if I try to take it off using more force.

6. The customer service is beyond ridiculous, suggesting things that made little sense. (Default the BIOS on a 1 day old laptop? Disable all services/start up programs? What is wrong with them, compared to Dell I know regret selling my M6500).

Now I am at Newegg's mercy, I just hope they can refund me or at least let me pick another laptop from them so I can take my business to another company.

RECAP:
1. Laptop overheats, peaking 90c+ in a basic game like league of legends. Not only does it overheat but it throttles in games, and the ripoff underclocked HD 5850 does not help either.
2. Laptop's hard drive cover was jammed, I had to partially ply it, thankfully nothing broke but if it had it's not like it would of mattered.
3. Newegg.com is the last vendor I would recommend for laptops, their return policies are a joke and are designed so in the end the customer looses money. First they offer a replacement then when pressed finally tell me that I am to receive a refund BUT loose my $74 of shipping fees over a defective product and I need to ship the package at my own cost *insured* and with *tracking*, anyone know the cost to ship such a package is around $20. Last I checked by law a refund includes cost/taxes/fees associated with product like shipping.
4. HP's support is beyond offensive, they expect their customers to turn off all features on their laptop: Brightness (dim screen), volume controls, have limited usability, no internet (wireless off), no USB 3.0 among many other issues. This is what THEY consider to be a resolution to over heating.
5. HP further wants to nickel and dime you by charging $75 for two hard drive adapter *you cannot buy just one). How could they not include it in the already expensive premium line of their laptops?
6. Newegg further insults by ignoring my email. Almost as if "we did the RMA, let's call it a day".

THE ONLY good thing I can say about this notebook is that it has good bluray playback, and sound quality. Other then that HP failed badly with the Hp Envy, and I will see to it my business and clients do NOT buy HP.

 

70c idle? Are you smothering it in a pillow or something? Currently idling at 56c here while running Visual Studio.

How can you say the keyboard lighting is bad? It's nice, and not annoyingly in your face.

I'm not quite sure why, but your post sounds VERY, very biased.

 

You know Crimsoned, I don't know why you went with an Envy. I went FROM an Envy TO a Elitebook and never looked back. That is a huge downgrade to the service and reliability of a Precision.

In fact, many people on the Envy forums has addressed the problems you listed in your review. The Envy 17 in its current iteration is not that great and in fact it is worse than its predecessor, the Envy 15, which I had for a while too. The Envy 15 had two separate heatsinks, with one consisting of two fans to cool the CPU and another one fan cooling the GPU. Turns out the Envy 15's cooled better than the Envy 17's on the market.

Also, the 5850M underclocked was also a big issue. HP must of done it to prevent overheating from their craptastic cooling setup mentioned already. You have to no choice to improve the clock speed unless you know how to crack the BIOS and change the Voltage settings in the vBIOS buried with the BIOS proper.

Also, HP's consumer customer support is crap and as I said before to people, nothing consumer in support can beat corporate. Even HP's own corporate service is far superior to their consumer service.

The key is avoid HP's consumer lineup, but their corporate lineup is solid.

 

No, I don't use it anywhere but desks. I know far too well the dangerous of putting them on laps, couches, beds, covers, etc.

The keyboard lighting is quite dim considering I use the laptop with the lights off so the actual screen provides nearly as good as a keyboard light as the actual backlighting. Actually that is exactly how my M6500's backlighting is, considerably bright so you can see it but not so bright that it distracts anyone. It is subtle yet surprisingly effective.

Well I am a bit biased considering this laptop cost me $1,345 (I could of gone with an MSI or another laptop manufacturer@ saved $400~ for a similar speced machine minus bluray of course).
Perhaps being unhappy about paying a considerable premium for an underclocked HD 5850/i7 720QM processor, 6gb of DDR3 ram, and no way to open the hard drive cover is being biased but it surely is within my legal rights to be upset and not happy with the transaction.

 

I know exactly what you mean now. Personally I wouldn't have sold my M6500 but to be quite honest, it is sorely lacking in the gaming department when using the 2800M. But this Envy is even worse. I just hope Newegg and I can come to an agreement of a refund or an exchange for another laptop or better yet let me use the money for credit towards computer components to build me a beast of a system.

 

You could of just spent around $300-$400 getting the FirePro M7820. It is literally a Mobility Radeon 5870 re-flashed to a FirePro and upgraded your Precision.

 

Can't do my M6500 has been sold already, and I don't go back on deals even if it costs me money.

Anyways something tells me I can work with Newegg on an exchange for computer components. It is far more profitable for them, then selling a laptop. Edit: And I have had an urge to use my power tools again to mod a case .

 

As much as it sound biased, many people who has an Envy 17 has complained the same problems as Crimsoned. Then again, you might have gotten a unit that was perfect but the thing is the Envy 14 and 17 are plagued with bad lighting woes and the heat has been always a big flaw in all Envy model HP has ever made.

 

Alright Newegg is allowing me to RMA the laptop for a store credit refund. \o/

However now i am worried they will not refund the $74 I paid for overnight shipping, in which case there will be a problem since they sent a defective laptop I should not have to eat up shipping fees.

 

The new Envy HP notebooks are just around the corner and, if rumors are to be believed, HP has cleared up many of the issues seen in the HP Envy 17. Even the DV5 and DV7 notebooks are getting an Envy-like makeover with the gray coloring, beats audio even in the 15" version, 1080p displays on all, subwoofer on the 17" DV7, etc.

I am on the market for a notebook (likely purchasing in a month or so baring the possible U.S. government shutdown) and will be waiting to see what HP does with Sandy Bridge processors and the new designs.

 

I'm also waiting for the new Envy 17 to be released which shouldn't be too far off as the Macbook Pros have recently been updated. I almost bought a Dell in December but had a major issue with their (alleged) customer service and ended up returning it. Customer service in general certainly isn't what it used to be but I'm hoping HP will at least acknowledge emails when I send them; something Dell failed miserably at.

From what I've read these are some of the features:

CoolSense Technology
AMD switchable graphics technology
AMD Radeon HD 6850M discrete graphics
Beats Audio and an HP Triple Bass Reflex Subwoofer
17.3-inch diagonal, HD BrightView display 1920x1080
Up to 2 TB's of storage capacity with an SSD option
3D for movies and gaming at no additional cost
Blu-ray, HDMI, USB 3.0, Bluetooth

If you can hold out for a few weeks and can afford the increased cost I think you'll be much happier with the updated version.

 

Unfortunately,the 6850m is basically the same as 5850m except having a little bit higher clock rate.HP is probably gonna underclock it back to 500/900 so yeah,don't expect miracle from the 6850m

And if you are bothered by the underclocked 5850m,you can always overclock it back to it's original clock speed.

 

That is not possible with the Envy 17. HP undervolted it as well to 0.9 instead of 1.05. ATI's reference clocks requires 1.05v to make it work.

 

Personally I don't perceive that problem as I'm currently using a desktop rig I built 7 years ago with a Radeon 9700 Pro GPU. It was a powerhouse in its time but struggles with the newer apps I use.

I've never overclocked before. How's it done?

 

You can use MSI Afterburner but I can assure you that you won't achieve the clocks ATI set for the 5850M. HP crippled it from the voltage point of view and you can't the voltage unless you know how to alter the vBIOS (which in this case is stuck within the main BIOS, which is hard to mod).

 

Id recommend sending it back in and waiting till the new Elitebook notebooks come out (supposedly in March).

They've got some really cool features, I like the Magnesium casing they use:

HP changes up EliteBook and ProBook laptops - Notebookcheck.net News

 

Except an Elitebook is going to cost a whole lost more even compared to an Evny 17 3D for the same processor, hard drive configuration, Blu-ray drive, etc as it is going after the business crowd. If people want an end-consumer notebook, they are going to go with just that. The Elitebooks might be really nice but I could just not see myself paying $1900 for something that I could get for $1200-$1400 by going with an end-consumer HP notebook. Sure, I wouldn't be getting the workstation graphics but that isn't important unless someone is using AutoCAD and similar programs.

 

An elitebook would cost considerably more, and I mean considerably.

I can only return it for a In-Store credit, but now newegg says I have lost the $74 I paid in overnight shipping, apparently if you receive a defective product it is to your loss, not Newegg's.
I will not tolerate that, it is either I get a full refund for in store credit, or I will look to see it is possible to settle in court, or to reselling it outside and blacklisting newegg for their terrible return policies.

 

Perhaps the enhanced cooling feature in the new Envy will allow HP to open up the throttle on the 6850, assuming the heat issue is why they underclock. Then again, they could have kept the 5850 unchecked. Of course, 6850 sounds way more impressive and that's the name of the game, isn't it. At any rate, OCing is not something I'd mess with. I'm sure I'll be most impressed with whatever the Envy puts out. That's the benefit of not upgrading for several years. Thanks for the info.

 

Sorry to hear of your plight but if that's company policy, I think you're hooped. Yours is the reason I prefer to deal directly with the manufacturer or a local business, which in my case for computers is Staples. Twice recently I've returned laptops after a couple weeks use and was fully refunded without any hassle. It appears you're one in a long list of dissatisfied Newegg customers. Good luck! http://eggedbynewegg.com/

 

The loss will be theirs, we will be switching at our company sources for computer parts to Fry's given they now price match online. No matter, companies rise and fall as competition smartens up. Newegg has stopped being that customer service company it used to be.

I am now on chat with HP, apparently they want to Nickel and dime you every cent. This is really pathetic, they want one to purchase the 2nd hard drive caddy, also it appears they may be out of stock.

Okay so finally their parts store works, they want $75 for a sata to proprietary connector. I guess adding a 2nd hard drive is out of the question, at the moment as I am not paying $75 for a piece of hard ware that should have been included.

 

I imagine it will be the same situation with the new ENVY 17. I initially scoffed at the price of an SSD configuration ($630 for 160GB SSD+640GB HDD) until I checked out Staples. They want $440 just for a 128GB SSD upgrade kit. I could probably find it cheaper elsewhere or wait a few months till they drop in price, but depending on the pricing in Canada, I'll probably bite the bullet. No word from HP in the Great White North yet.

 

That's just absurdly sad. I just bought an used envy 17 and was hoping to put an extra HDD in there. So much for using it as my media center if I can't even put more than 1 hard drive in there.

 

Crimsoned, do you mind taking a picture of the sata connector? Does it look anything like this?
HP Pavilion DV9700 Hard Drive Caddy w/connector NR! 150 - eBay (item 260744959914 end time Mar-06-11 15:25:22 PST)

Just thought hp might be recycling parts from their previous models, one of those connectors must be the same.
Thanks!

 

Nah it's actually an sata to appropriately connector cable. I have plenty of the adapter you posted at work.

 

Is it like this then?
HP COMPAQ PAVILION DV5 HDD CONNECTOR 2 MOTHERBOARD SATA - eBay (item 120671029566 end time Mar-13-11 07:59:49 PDT)

 

I looked through the Envy 17 service manual,
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02589673.pdf

and the diagram of their HDD cable connector looks remarkably similar to all of these
hp hard drive connector cable items - Get great deals on Computers Networking items on eBay.com!

I seems like HP uses the same (or at least very similar) proprietary HDD to motherboard cable through out their product lines, so maybe we can get them for cheap?

 

Let me double check I think they are the same, I would also need the hard drive brackets (I will look for some myself), thank you so much.

 

Thank. If anything, I would be willing to buy the $75 one in the part store and split it with you, since i think i comes with both the primary drive connector as well as the secondary.

 

Hmm temping offer but the secondary hard drive bracket is different from the primary.

 

, what kind of crack head engineer would design two different connectors for hdd to motherboard on the same computer?!?

 

No no you mistake, the connector is indeed the same. The bracket, (caddy) os different.
The caddy is the metal adapter that screws into the hard drive to install the hard drive.

Right now I am checking to see if I can use one of the many hard drive caddies I currently have, and perhaps only need the adapter.

 

Okay that makes more sense. I don't really care that much about the bracket, I've been using double sided tapes and stuff for a while now on my G50

 

XD that's what I am going to do, I don't think you really need the bracket at all.

Well let's take this to PM!

 

Hate to kick an old thread like this, but it seems no-one in the Envy15 thread knows, and you guys basically looked into the same: I'm looking to add a second hard drive to my Envy (15), and all I need is that cable that connects to the motherboard and delivers power and sata to the drive. Now, nowhere I see any official cables for sale, but I do see very similar and reasonably priced cables on ebay, like these:
HP PAVILION DV5 DV6 HDD SATA Hard Drive Connector Cable | eBay

They're all for DV6/7/8/HDX laptops, but they look just like the one in my Envy 15. Has one of you guys found out if these are the same connectors on your Envys?

 

You're looking for the hard drive caddy it looks like. Go to newmodeUS (online retailer). Thats where I got mine for the Envy 17 3D....

What a random thread to bump up tho...why not start your own? Talk about flashback nightmares...

 

US retailers are not an option though, as I'm in Europe And I don't need the caddy, just the cable. Thanks though, newmodeUS was the only one I found too, but they dont deliver here and I dont need the caddy.

You think I should start a new thread though?

 

I have always thought the backlit keyboard could be better. It's really only a modest help to me.