NOW AVAILABLE - Updated ENVY 15, ENVY 17 / ENVY 17 3D

I just looked up the specs on the 6300 on Intel's website and it shows to be an 802.11a/g/n 3x3 multistream device with max 450Mbps thruput. But it does not have Bluetooth integrated into it. If the new Envy does have the 6300 Ultimate-N WLAN adapter, does that mean it's probably got a separate BT adapter and antennas?

 

Just ordered my Envy 15 with the 33% coupon.

Stock specs + radiance display came out to $1088 including tax.

Says it should be shipping on the 23rd......It's going to be tough waiting that long.

 

check the notebookcheck page again and look at the benchmark listing again.. if you click on "show comparison" chart you'll see the 6750M which is 8-10% faster. the 6770M is similar to the 6750M in performance, and the 7690M should be slightly faster than the 6770M.. so thus it should be faster than the 5830M.

i feel like that was a stretch of a correlation there but base on the benchmarks alone, that should be the case.

of course benchmark doesnt spell everything. don't forget its basically twice the memory speed so 2x the memory bandwidth too. the core/shader speed isn't a whole lot faster though, to be sure.

 

Yeah I suppose maybe it will edge it out a bit. Wish we could just get some official word on the stats and some idea of benchmarks already.

 

I know everybody is disappointed that the 7000 series is pretty must just a re-badge, but keep in mind that the nearly 2-year-old 5830 still clobbers most games, even though it's a lower end (but higher-tier) part.

Yeah, I'd prefer Southern Islands too. But if they can give me something that will run for 5-8 hours without a slice battery, switchable graphics, and even a moderate boost over the 5830, I'll be happy.

 

So the screen is still not confirmed to be IPS? or is it radiance like envy 14?

 

Personally I would have rather just had the 6850m that was already in the Envy 17, they are trying to trick people into thinking it's an updrage by putting a 7 in front of it, when it is actually slower. I would be pretty pissed if I was interested in the 17 inch.

This is making the choice between an envy 15 and the samsung series 7 difficult to me (especially when we still don't even know if the 1080p panel is IPS or not).

 

to everyone complaining about lack of bluray, the envy 17 includes bluray.

anyone know the res. of the webcam?

 

Yeah, but the people here that want the 15 with 1080p screen got kinda screwed. How can the offer a 1080p screen with no blu-ray? If it's a size issue, I would say the same thing I tell my GF..."I know it's too big, but one way or another it's gettin in there"

 

According to this link:
HP Envy15 | HP Envy

The following official HP marketing of the ENVY 15:
"Slot-loading Blu-ray optical drive (optional)"

So people complaining have a legitimate complaint. Period. I want Blu-Ray not 2 more inches of computer.

Does anyone have information on HP providing a slot loaded Blu-Ray in the future?

 

Has there been any confirmation on type of gpu in 17?

 

Disappointing GPU. HP will probably refresh with the 28nm GPUs when Ivy Bridge comes out for the Envy 4xxx notebooks.

 

well i guess you guys have a point then. i'm guessing it'll be offered down the road.

 

One salesrep told me it is IPS, we'll see. If it is top notch TN, I guess I can still live with it (as there are no other alternatives anyway)

The blue-ray thing: I guess that some business person decided that it will have blue-ray, that's why the promo page has it, and that some tech-person told them that that is technically just not possible (as there is no 9.5mm slot-load blue-ray out there)

Again, it is what it is, and the alternatives are the same, have a fruit at the backside and cost 1000$ more

 

HP Envy 15-3000 Notebook PC series Home & Home Office

HP Australia seems to confirm the ATI Radeon HD 7670M for the Envy 15.

 

I guess you are the 4th that posts this page/info here

 

I realized that after I posted it.

My bad.

I've just been searching for information about the Envy 15, and came across it.

 

Not at work anymore, so I can (instead of typing this on my phone) make a more complete post. I only asked about Envy 15.

1. So I called a third time and also heard 7690 XT. I'm pretty convinced that's it.

2. First time I called, I asked about combo SSD + HDD, like Envy 14. She told me the Thailand flooding/HDD shortage is limiting that right now, but it should be down the road available. Not sure offhand if that flooding affected SSDs too or just HDDs, so I don't know if that's valid.

3. Asked about blu-ray drive option too since when I checked on website before leaving for work this morning it wasn't there. She said it should hopefully be available later, can't guarantee it but knows its not for sure to be a "will never be available" scenario like Envy 14.

If this is in fact the case (I glanced quickly on notebookcheck and couldn't find anything about 7690 but I'll look more in depth later), then why this:

If the 7690 XT is indeed at least the same level as the 6770M or maybe even slightly better, why are people complaining about it? I can't think of another $1100 15" laptop with a better video card. Not even the dv6 anymore. In fact, if the 7690 is slightly better than the 6770M, it's better than the 15" MBP which costs twice as much! Additionally, if the Envy 15 does indeed get the 7.5 hours off battery life I was quoted on the phone and weighs < 6 lbs, and starts at just $1100 (minus coupons/EPP/student discounts), it sounds to me like it's the 15" laptop to beat. Period.

Of course, that begs another question: since we don't actually know the specific details about the 7690 or any benchmarks for sure yet, isn't it too early to call it disappointing or amazing? I've read so many inconclusive things about it in these forums and over the internet that I just won't pretend to know for sure yet.

 

Um... the GTX 560M is available in a few $1,100 machines (Asus, MSI, Clevo).

But those are dedicated gaming notebooks, where the Envy isn't specifically targeting that market.

The 7690M is, at best, a slightly higher clocked 6770M. This is already a given fact. Either way you split the hairs, it is a 6770M.

 

Actually, the Clevo P151HM, 15" laptop, comes with GTX 485M, the best mobile graphics card currently, so Envy's 7690M card is nothing...

 

Some Envy 15's from the past only had a single drive bay. Maybe this new one is the same way, and that's why there's no dual drive or combo drive options for it on the HP shopping website

 

how frequently do these 30%+ coupons come around?

 

I just called into HP's dedicated concierge service for HDXs and Envy's. The technical support agent and their Team Lead said they could only give me preliminary info that they got in their training for the new Envy yesterday since they had not yet received one down there at technical support center.

According to them the 15 and 17 both have the 7690m gpu and both contains glossy screens. They said they were not given the information yet regarding the panel type of either Envy.

Hope this provides some clarity.

 

I hope this is sarcasm

 

Ehhh I've decided that all around this update is just "meh" at best. While I really like the new design I'm just gonna get a dv6t for the next 5-6 months and return for the Ivy Bridge Envy 17 3D w/ hopefully a truly worthwhile GPU as well.....

Good luck to everyone though who's ordering their Envys!

 

Not very often, and this one expires at midnight tonight.

 

A couple more interesting URLs mentioning the 7690M gpu...

HP Announces Notebook with Radeon HD 7000M Series Graphics Cards - Legit Reviews

And HP driver download webpage mentioning it (auf Deutsche):
?AMD-High-Definition-Grafiktreiber - HP Kundendienst (Deutschland - Deutsch)

 

That legit reviews article describes the chips as 28 nm, which according to most other sources is incorrect and they are still 40 nm.

 

bah...with shipping on the 23rd it won't land until the 26th+, a lot of people will be away and won't be able to sign for it.

 

real tough call there since the cut off time is 22nd for holiday deliver. but hard to not jump on since coupon is fickle. i bet it'll come around after a month though --- but thats even longer waiting

 

This'll all we have for now in terms of benchmarks, submitted apparently by HP themselves

HP Communities - Hands On: New Envy 15, 17 ? And A New Look - HP Communities

*Correction: Not submitted, but a demo unit handed to someone who RAN some Very simple benchmarks to give you guys an idea on how good these laptops are.

Not bad considering My Current Envy17 3D - 2000 Has the same benchmarks scores on WEI, but my GPU gets a 7.1 on both. And note i have the Intel i7-2820qm

 

17" 3D bought.

$1267 after tax. will add an M4 to it on my own.

whats up with the 6 cell battery being the only one offered? is that supposed to get us 9.5 hours of battery?

 

You're right, there are other 15" laptops with better video cards. I failed with what I wrote, because I what I really wanted to say was:

The Envy 15 is portable (size/thinness, weight, battery life), high quality (materials, construction, design is classy), and only $1100. For that price, I don't know of another that can match that combination, and it includes the 7690M/6770M.

Also, I saw the benchmarks before from HP's site HP Communities - Hands On: New Envy 15, 17 ? And A New Look - HP Communities and I thought in this forum we decided to take them with a grain of salt since some of the levels on one of the games weren't the right name?

 

Well 485M and 580M is roughly equal with difference of a few percent so let me know why you'd think that it's sarcasm

Ok, I guess I forgot about the 6990M, fastest GPU, but since they're all roughly near each other's level, my statement (kind of) stands

 

Sure, but can you get it in a $1100 laptop? That's what they were talking about.

 

Those numbers for the Envy 15 worry(anger?) me a bit. My Envy 14 which I recently gave to my sister used to score 6.7 on BOTH graphics categories in the Windows Index (I'm aware WEI is not the best "bench" to rely on, but it gives one a general idea of where different components fall). My results were in line with the averages on Notebookcheck.net, which lists 5650m at ~6.7 for both, and the 6770 at ~6.8 for both.

Given that the HP Communities Hands-On was written by an HP employee, I highly doubt an HP-affiliated writer would be stupid enough to UNDERplay the performance numbers... so WHAT GIVES HERE??? What is this mystery gpu in the new Envy 15 responsible for such lackluster numbers?? I'm not so sure that driver-optimization (or lack thereof) claims alone would be reason enough to explain such a DROP in performance, especially if whatever is in there (7670/90) is a mere rebadge of a the previous 6770.

EDIT: Envy 14 1st gen, which by the way, was configured w/ i5 480m + HD5650.

EDIT#2: It just occurred to me Envy 14 is only 900p--anyone: would the difference in resolution account for the WEI discrepancy? I hadn't thought about it that way before.

 

Humbug!

A late Christmas present is better than no Christmas present

You can always have UPS hold the delivery at their local pick-up office. (At least you can here)

 

About to bite the bullet on the 15, just two more questions:

1. Is the extra cash worth it to upgrade from the base i7 option? The most intensive programs I'll probably be running on this laptop is Photoshop and games (League of Legends, World of Warcraft, Diablo 3 when it comes out).

2. What is the difference between the 1333MHz and the 1600MHz option for the RAM?

 

#1 - For me, the return on the dollar is not worth it past the 2760QM - I also don't think you can get the 1600MHz RAM with anything less than the 2760QM, so that's the sweet spot for me.

#2 - The difference is exactly that -- a faster memory clock. WOW and LoL probably won't care but Diablo3 might.

In both cases it's a small increase you're looking at, but it was worth it to me with the 33% off.

 

As was mentioned earlier in this thread, you need to pick at least the 2760QM processor (2.4GHz) to make use of the 1600MHz memory. The entry-level 2670QM i7 processor (2.2GHz) only runs the memory at 1333MHz.

 

Well my claim precedes the price perspective, plus keep in mind, the $1100 price point is available for the most basic model, or for a decent-spec model with 33% coupon off, which is not the norm.

XoticPC sells a Sager NP8150 with 2670QM and 6990M for $1500, roughly the MSRP of the quad core model on HP Envy site.

 

This is false. Intel convinces people that they need 2760QM to run 1600MHz memory, but just ask anyone with 2670QM and 1600MHz RAM to pull up CPU-Z and you'll see that full 1600MHz speed is achieved.
Heck, even 1866MHz RAM runs full speed on 2670QM.

See link if you don't believe me:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/7663008-post668.html

More proof:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/att...pnp-m14x-performance-1600_mem_m14x_2630qm.png

 

good idea on the hold. thanks.

does anyone have any idea how many ram banks there are? The build out options says 16g is via 2x8g...would be nice if it was 4x4g.

 

Hmm, who am I going to trust more, a brilliant, world-class computer engineer who designs devices the inner workings of which I could not even begin to comprehend, or a couple of schmucks with a freeware hardware monitoring program installed on their laptops?

It's a toss-up.

If Intel says the architecture to support anything over 1333mhz speeds in the i7 2670QM, I'm gonna trust them on this one. If it makes that big a difference to you, upgrade for $20 anyway, but it's purely a vanity thing.

 

Hmm 2 years have passed and laptops have gained only 1 thing a few hours of battery life.
I know its a bit early to discuss pure performances for this laptop.
But we can expect it to be less performant for games/3D than the asus N55F but more performant than the Samsung chronos 7 right?

Im supposed to buy a laptop when I get back to france ( the good old M50vn didnt like Shanghai's weather) and it seems like the best move would be to wait 4 months

 

probably pretty similar to the samsung 7. that has a i7-2675QM and 6750m. Basically the same hardware as in the Envy, but with a somewhat lower clock.

 

I may have missed this but does the 15 have edge-to-edge glass?

 

The NP8150 may have some sweet components like the video card and stuff for a decent price, and I'm sure that will appeal to some people which is totally cool. I'm sure that if someone wants the fastest, most powerful for the money, that's a good laptop for that person.

The Envy 15:
Weighs 1.04 lbs less
Is .28-.59 in skinnier
Gets (according to each manufacturer) almost 3x the battery life
Undeniably looks far more sexy

Again, if you want a 15" laptop to sit on your desk and be super powerful, the NP8150 is probably better for your money. The Envy, at the sacrifice of video card capability, is more well rounded.

I specced out an Envy 15 earlier with the discount, cheapest Core i7, and 1080p display and it was about $1070. It also had a 2 year warranty at that price whereas the NP8150 on XoticPC had it with a 1 year warranty.

Not hating on the Sager, just saying that if you're willing to sacrifice a bit on the video card, the Envy is actually portable and cheaper. And cool looking (if you care about that sort of thing). Even if it is a shameless ripoff of the MBP .

 

I think for 1100 dollars (with a limited time huge discount) it should have something slightly faster than a 6770m. I mean, yeah it's not a gaming powerhouse, but they could at least have an OPTION for something a bit more powerful. I like premium notebooks with premium build quality, but I just want slightly more hardware capability to go with it. Not a 6990m by any means, but there's a whole lot of range between a 6990m and a 6770m where you could have decent battery life and really solid performance.

 

For size and thermal reasons, they might not be able/willing to put anything faster than the 7690m in the Envy 15 (though the 17 should handle better GPUs), but if they're committing to 7000m-series GPUs in the new Envys it's a bit moot because right now the 7600ms are the fastest 7000m's available as of right now.