Let's talk more about the Envy 14 beats edition

Hello guys. First, a late Merry Chrismas for everyone!

Recently, I am planning to buy a Envy 14 beats edition. I suddenly am bored with Ultra High Performance gaming laptop, and wonder if I really need the full power to run some of my favorite games like Street Fighter 4 and Left 4 dead 2.
Moreover I am a big music geek and I want to become sound designer one day. That's why I am attracted by the ad of Envy 14 beats edition.

I have watched a lot of review of this laptop on different web, notebookcheck, CNET...But I don't find anything on Notebookreview.com. What's happened, is there no one who has bought this laptop?

So I wish some members who have this laptop could share their experience and give me some advice. Does this laptop deliver excellent quality sound? And compared to Asus G73Jw THX Surround Sound and EAX 5.0?I know I could buy a headset, and everything will change. But I also need a decent sound from the speakers because I cannot put my headset all the time.

Then, I see that it provides a downclocked ATI 5650. And the gaming performance is not top from what I see in reviews. Is there a solution that we could overclocking that? But I think we can run Street fighter 4 or Left 4 dead 2 on that without lags.

I also see that the screen doesn't have any Radiance Display option. Is this will be a true handicap for the display? Or it is just a question of resolution?



Thank you for all your participation. I really hope someone could give me some advice and their opinion toward this laptop. Thanks again.

 

The Beats edition isn't really needed - AFAIK it's only actually a different colour scheme. You can just get the regular Envy 14 (and it's cheaper, too).

It's true that the GPU is underclocked, but you can easily clock it up to 550 (from 450), without any side effects. I'd recommend using a tool like MSI Afterburner.

About the screen, it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be - Hexus.net did a pretty decent review of the non-Radiance Envy:
HEXUS.net - Review :: HP Envy 14 notebook review : Page - 1/4

There's also a comment on the Amazon page:

 

Oh Thank you for your reply. I choose the beats edition because it looks much better than the regular version. Its dark style and red backlit look really nice. Also is there a difference between the regular version speakers and the beats edition speakers? It seems that notebookcheck emphasizes on the sound quality of the beats edition, it is not the case for the regular.

Cool with the overclocking. But does it present any danger of overheating? If they downclock the graphic card i think there is a reason. So are we allowed to downclock that? Has somebody already done that? Is it ok for the laptop?

Thank you.

 

I can't say anything about the sound, because I honestly don't know, but I'd guess not.

Overclocking has been done before on the Envy 14 and it's perfectly safe; usually the GPU only reaches a peak of 60°C, even when overclocked. From reports something like 550/850 works just fine, though it depends on the build quality of the GPU (which varies between batches).

 

the integrated speakers suck - just about avg for a laptop.

the audio jack on the other hand, absolutely amazing. plug any earphones or speakers in, and you'll hear the difference. $20 earphone on the envy sounds like a $200 earphone on your average computer.

 

The headphone jacks are the same on both the Envy 14 and 14 beats, there is no internal difference at all, only a different outer appearance for $100 more. Which is still worth it to me, because I don't like the lid pattern of the regular Envy. Also, there is a review of it on notebookreview.com, they just posted it up 2-3 days ago

 

I went the other way with the headphone jack. I did a smaller review the other day and decided to give a high end headphone a shot. I bought the Bowers and Wilkins P5 headphones to go with the beats laptop and I can say without a doubt that you would be hard pressed to find another laptop putting out that kind of sound quality out of the headphone jacks. As far as the laptop speakers they are not of a great quality. My wife has the Toshiba A665-3DV1 with the Harmon Kardon speakers and those are tremendously better than the ones on this laptop. That does not bother me as much because I always use headphones, but the laptop speakers are not that good at all.

 

ok...You guys' advices cool me down. Well. I will look for other reviews. Can someone link me the review of this laptop on notebookreview.com? I don't find it. Thank you

 

All quoted for truth above, I love my Envy 14 dearly but as others have mentioned...the built-in speakers really disappointed me; for a 'Beats Audio' notebook I expected much more from them out the box. External speakers etc. though are decent.

As for gaming; I personally am not an avid PC gamer at all but since getting this notebook i've decided to cop a couple to test out the ATI graphics...so far i've only played NFSHP 2010 and it has handled that with ease. I have Battlefield BC2, Just Cause 2 and James Bond Blood Stone on download atm to try out as well. I'm optimistic that they will run well....have no idea about the GPU overclocking though...

On to the infamous screen; the Radiance does obviously seem the better option of the two. It appears to be brighter than the BrightView display. (I know, go figure) But it seems to be the sad truth. Apart from that the resolution thing is just a matter of preference IMHO. I have no issue with my 1366 x 768 screen. After all it's a 14.5" screen, I don't need the 1080p, and i'm sure alot of others would agree. But yea, the Radiance seems brighter and more vibrant with the color output. So for HP to drop that, leaves one to scratch their heads.

 

I heard that the company making the radiance screens went out of business. I'm sure hp has their reasons. They wouldn't just drop it because they felt like it.

 

Yea i've read that too...but who knows for sure that was the case! Does this mean we would never see a Radiance display offered by HP again. An official report from HP or one of their Reps on here would be nice.

 

who knows. I don't understand why they remove this option. envy 14 beats with 1600x900 will just be perfect.
Personally I would buy the Beats Studio headphone, but on ebay there are too much fake offers with cheap price.

 

The company that made the Radiance screen went bankrupt so HP would need to find a new supplier for their 1600*900 screens; however they don't seem interested in doing so.

 

For the love of god, do not purchase the beats headphones without looking at some other options. I am not saying go and buy the Bowers and Wilkins that I said, but there are many options out on the market that can do what those Beats headphones can do without blinking. Just do yourself a favor and please listen to other options on the market.

 

Do you guys think I would better wait CES to expect some refresh or improvement from HP before ordering? Or you think that they won't do anything about the Envy 14 beats edition?

Thank you in advance.

 

Im sure they will do some kind of update, since theyre clearing out their inventory by offering $300 off all Envy's and 35% off all Envy's in outlets...but who knows, they might even discontinue the Envy line and come up with something new..

 

Yeah, that was really shame that I couldn't benefit from the 300$ coupon, I tried to pay with my french VISA credit card, and HP US just refused my paiement.

I really love this laptop, even it has a low resolution screen. I will wait until the end of CES to make my order. I can't wait anymore.

Right now I cannot decide which processor should I take, icore5 580M or icore7 740QM. On notebookcheck the icore5 580M seemed to be performming better than icore7 740QM. But when we do multi task, the icore7 will certainly perform better than i5one. Hard to make the decision.

 

If battery life isnt much of a concern, go for the i7, seems like you are going to be doing a good amount of gaming on it. The i7 is gonna kill your off power plug time since it cant use the switchable graphics. If you are going to be using it away from power for extended periods, go for the i5. I ordered the i7, do some light gaming, djing and music production with my current laptop, and we'll see how my envy 14 beats fares.

 

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Hi, yeah I played a lot Street fighter 4 and Left 4 dead 2. I also do music production and some 3D modeling.

After what I see, I think i5 580M should be the best choice. More battery, better performance, cheaper than i7 740QM, the possibility of switching graphic card.

 

i got an envy 14 beats pretty recently and the speakers are incredibly average. the ones on my 6 year old vaio are just as good. the whole point of the beats logoing i think is that the sound comes into play when you hook up speakers or headphones.

as for the monitor, i wasn't wowed by the nonradiance display but i like it. i think its one of those things where after you see the radiance its hard to go back, but if you've never been spoiled by a really nice laptop display before you won't be displeased.

some concerns though: for a good two weeks my boot times were averaging 3 minutes. for some reason its settled down since them and i'm hitting around 1 minute 15 each time. i haven't clean installed yet so i expect that to go down once i do.

also, this appears to be fairly hit or miss but i have an envy where the fan is either always on at an audible level or cycling on and off every few seconds which is more annoying. unfortunately i'm out of the 21 day rma period so i won't be able to return it and see how a second one turns out.

a few smaller issues. the keyboard backlighting isn't even, there are some places where it's noticably fainter. it does its job though and it is red. the trackpad also isnt completely even, but it's not very noticable or a big deal. the trackpad itself though is subpar. multitouch is very hit or miss. i've also noticed that although the whole trackpad is clickable, clicks only register when you hit the bottom part of the pad.

those issues aside it's a beautiful notebook. the top is sleek and i'm always running my hand over it. it gathers dust fairly easily though. the top lid that encases the monitor is sturdier than i've ever seen before. overall, very well built. i love it but the many quality control issues can be frustrating. if you do get one good luck.