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

If the order went through I should be ok though right?

 

You just made me feel a lot better. I hope it goes through if not I am calling HP and ing for hours until I get the deal. I finally got the confirmation email.

Thanks so much and cross your fingers for me!

 

I think your good, I think I got the order mixed up anyway. I think it goes accepted, confirmed, dropped to factory, production, transit, shipped. Thus, after you get confirmed they won't cancel it, after it is dropped to factory you can't cancel it.

 

Hard to say but probably you are ok.
I tried the codes every day to see if they would work after they ended and they did not.
You lucked out! Good for you.

Now stop biting your nails and relax. Life is good.

 

Out of curiosity I just checked the codes and the 33% off still works on the Envy 17 3D if you customize from the higher priced model.

 

Thanks guys. I am praying I got this I have been eyeballing this laptop since the original showing and I actually just got laid off from my web design job so money is getting tight. This order clearing would be an amazing Christmas present.

I just am hoping I get really lucky. thanks for all the great information board! If I don't get it I am coming back and begging somebody to sell me theirs


Edit: and I realize that money being tight I shouldn't be ordering a new laptop but my mac book pro just fail booked on me and I need a laptop for work. I don't want to sound like an a hole lol.

 

Yes that is what I said in my earlier post #841.

 

I just now reordered with the 2760QM and the 33% coupon worked again for me. I'll be returning the one with the 2670QM without even opening the box.

 

If you need a new laptop you can't pass up a 33% off coupon, heck, isn't that what you do when money gets tight? Clip coupons?

 

Then good luck to both of us!

 

You should check eBay after you get it, with these kind of savings you might be able to resell it for a profit.

 

Lol exactly that's why I am stressing out like a mad man. When I get that factory confirmation email I might melt.

 

Good point. I will definitely check ebay prices at that time.

 

Did you get the 15 inch or the 17 inch?

 

When I ordered the ENVY 15 for my wife earlier this week I was going through the same thing.

I could not pass up the 33% but which one 15 or 17 and how many options versus cost.

I ended up with a stock unit and just upgraded to the i7-2670QM and IPS display.

It was the happy medium without breaking the bank.

 

I take it you don't want the 17 inch? Any particular reason? It is less than $100 more than the 15 inch with the 33% off coupon and comes with a larger 3D screen, blu-ray, and an upclocked GPU.

I am wondering why you wanted the 2760 so much, I have seen people mention VT-d, but I can't find any information on exactly what it is required for or even what makes it so useful.

 

So you guys got the 15 or 17 3D coupon to work after expiration? I'm spamming those codes right now, not working.

Edit: I guess 17 3D works but I don't want 17".

 

17 3D is all that works. Really the size difference isn't much and the 3D comes with a lot more features for only a small increase in cost. You won't find $800+ off this laptop again for a long time, if ever.

 

The NBH7589 works for the 15" with i7-2670QM and IPS 1080. -$528 and 1071.99 before taxes. Woot! This was cheaper than the 33% off code. ( NM this is 33% off)

Just placed my order.

 

Are you shure that it is cheaper? I got the same price like the 33% code. Anyhow, great deal!

 

We went to see a MPB 15 and she said that was as large as she wanted to lug around.

I also wanted an IPS screen as that is what I have for my other PC in my office and she liked that alot.

Everything is networked in our house so she will be streaming most HD material we use.

Everyone has different needs so we are lucky to have both choices.

 

Hey you guys are copying my configuration and price. How could you.

 

I posted this before but here is the link on the construction of the new ENVY 15.

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/globalciti...Country/disassembly_notebo_20111116213653.pdf

 

It shows one sad thing about current notebooks: The HD and the DVD-drive take up ~30% of the space. If you got them out (insert a mSata SSD instead), you could shrink the casing a lot OR get the battery life to 15h OR put in basically any graphic card you want (I guess you could even cool a 6990 then, my Clevo's cooling system with a 5870 is not much bigger then the Envy 15's)

 

Mhm. Ditto and well said. The old Envy 15 because of the fact that it had no optical disk drive (ODD) allowed for 3 cooling fans instead of just 2, which also consequently allowed for one of the better mobile GPUs of its time, the ATI 5830.

Seriously. Even dismissing whatever inconveniences a cheap USB DVD drive might bring, ODDs just aren't used very much anymore. If anything, they're deadweight and soon to be gone from mainstream notebooks. Especially with the rise of the ultrabooks in 2011 and beyond, I predict they'll disappear from most notebooks sometime before 2015. Good riddance, ODD. You were useful back in the days of Windows XP. Those were good times, but I haven't had any use for you on my Envy 14.

My friend's 2nd Gen Envy 15 even to this day is running nice and strong. I don't think he's ever had to use his external USB DVD since he first created his factory restoration DVDs, which brings me to think HP included the USB DVD drive just as for customer assurance purposes.

 

I heard they got a lot of complaints about the first Envys not having ODDs, that's why they put them in from series 2 onwards. Most customers are not the ordinary geek, they are more like:
Where is the DVD drive? - You don't need it! - But where is it? - YOU DON'T NEED IT! - It does not even have a DVD drive... What other laptops do you offer? - Sigh...

I agree with the decision in the Envy 17, since it is blue-ray. The Envy 15 does not make sense, DVDs on full-HD are mediocre (watchable, but nothing special) and we are shifting more and more towards downloadable/streamable content. AND I carry my notebook around a lot of the time/play a couple of times on it, but I use the ODD a couple of times a year at best. And external ODDs are perfect for this job, they don't even add weight/size if you get rid of the internal one first.

But hey, given the options we have right now, the Envy is awsome.

 

Hey so I'm pretty interested in buying this machine and I have a question regarding the processor.
Do you think it is necessary / worth it to upgrade from the i5 base model to the i7?
As far as i can tell not all that many programs really utilize the additional cores and would staying with the i5 reduce heat/ increase battery life?

I will be doing a fair amount of gaming on it (though no FPS or anything all that intensive)
Thanks!

 

Then again a BR drive might be available in the future that will slip right in.
That would make the day for me on our Envy 15.

 

sucks that there's only 2 ram banks ;(

just put an order through for the 15, got the 33% off. Will most likely sell this when the 14 gets a refresh, 15.6" is a little too big for my liking.

 

yes, quad cores get more and more support, and the upgrade is pretty cheap.

personal quote: I don't think that the BR is really planned, I think this was just the thing some PR guys wanted until the tech-guys told them that it is not possible as 9.5mm drives are just not beeing produced. And I doubt that they will get somebody to produce them for them just for the Envy 15... But that's just a personal remark without any source confirming it...

 

Personally I agree that removing the ODD and adding more (heat sink / whatever) would be great, but given that a lot of the people on this thread and kvetching that there's no blu-ray, and HP would know best from their surveys what their customers (rather than just people on this forum) want ... looks like we're stuck with ODDs for a while. Most people I know want the option to watch movies on their laptops and aren't yet totally comfortable with keeping their whole movie library on disk, though maybe now that cloud services are really taking off we'll see more people relying less on physical media.

 

Factoring in cost, engineering resources required, and actual demand, a BR drive on an Envy 15 wouldn't really be worth it. In just that in a year or two, it would probably be possible to pull off. If they can figure that out, kudos to them. But they'd be essentially doing the equivalent of installing a cappuccino machine in a Camry.

 

I agree with you for the most part, except that the "opinion of this forum" that the ODD is becoming less needed factors in practical reality and the inevitable, something typical consumer opinion doesn't really do as often as it should. I think everyone here is well aware HP's engineers aren't basing their decisions solely off the opinions of the NBR community and its lurkers. But at the same time, I am willing to go far as to bet they decided to include the ODD in the incoming Envies while still keeping in mind the same realities we here in NBR came to realize.

You see, there's a difference between NBR members screaming they want a machine that can play Crysis at max settings, something most Envy buyers don't want or need, and NBR members advocating a concept (no more ODDs) that is pretty much inevitable and likely to happen before 2015 by my own estimates. Let's face it. The ODD is good as dead. It's a relic that's becoming less and less relevant and needed with each passing year. All it does is give consumers a bit of assurance and add unnecessary weight.

 

Looks like they raised the price by $100 on 3d model, but that's because they removed i5 option.

 

Ultrabooks and especially the MBA showed that ODD-less noteboks are accepted, and I also agree that they are a relic. I know that many people think they want them, but as Stephen Jobs said: "people don't know what they want, until you show them"
If you don't want to remove the option you can still make a powerful version with an additional fan or at least an extendable battery option. But I can live with the ODD. It just is unfortunate that no one takes the risk yet ^^

 

It is not that important. That is one of the reasons we decided on the 15".

But you never know

If it ever was available at a reasonable price I would probably end up getting one. But we will see as time passes.

Overall we also might see a matte IPS display for the production model . I can only dream until they arrive

 

Yep. You can count on Ultrabooks having strong sales figures. All those engineering improvements and know-how gained from developing them will only wash over to and lead to thin and light notebooks in the $500 segment in the later years that don't have ODDs. If at all possible, I can see myself picking up a cheap Ultrabook and transferring all my gaming needs to my desktop, which brings me to my last point.


As contradictory as this sounds, the Envy 15 (2nd Gen) with its ATI 5830 when it first came out showed me the possibility that I would potentially no longer need to buy a desktop to keep my PC gaming costs affordable. It created this possibility of not having to spend $700 on a gaming machine when I could just spend roughly $1,000 on a powerful machine that could also double up as a work notebook. Case in point: Even in 2011 and going into 2012, that GPU on my friend's Envy 15 is still running quite strong and is far from being completely unusable for even some of the newest games to this day. The fact that the incoming Envy 15's GPU isn't really anything to brag relatively speaking in spite of being new tells me that having one less fan available prevented HP's engineers from installing an even more powerful GPU. What this means is that if I am ever to upgrade my Envy 14 to a similar thin/light machine in 2012 or 2013, I'll have to do so while keeping in mind that it'll become quickly obsolete for gaming.


tl;dr - No ODDs gives us numerous possibilities. It's already led to the creation of the low-power ultrabook, and it could also potentially lead to the appearance of thin and light gaming notebooks that give casual gamers such as myself the chance to ditch desktop gaming completely and still be able to upgrade to a new thin/light gaming machine for $800-1,000 every 3 years. I can't do the same with my Envy 14 right now as the ATI 5650 was already pretty obsolete and slow when it first came out. It's the difference between spending $1,000 on a notebook that's thin/light, has a nice radiance display, good battery life, and an aluminum chassis with insufficient GPU power plus $700 on a gaming desktop vs just spending $1,000 or even $1,200 on the same thin/light notebook with a powerful GPU.

 

The only thing I am worried about on this laptop is the battery life. I can't have it crapping out on me after not too long. It also should be able to last 4-5+ hours.

 

I got the 17.

 

Update, my status was just changed to "in-production". When customizing it says that it takes 5 - 7 days for build time, so hopefully it's shipped on the 17th - I can dream, right?

There's no way they'll take 16 days to build it like the estimate says..

 

Just got this from HP technical.

Dear Edvb,
In response to the questions you posed earlier about the new Envy 15:
The GPU is 28nm
The Radiance panel is glossy
and there is no blu-ray at the moment, and no information on plans to add it in the future is presently available.
I hope this information is of benefit. Should you need to speak with us further, you may reach our department at 866-408-5408
Sincerely,
Michael Griffith
Your Concierge for HDX and Envy products.

 

Will probably only be IPS for about two weeks like the Envy 14 had their 1600x900 screen.

But if it's truly IPS, may be worth looking at.

 

On the topic of ODDs, I also think they are on the way out but HP (and the other vendors) should just go old school with that space and make it a modular bay that can hold:

- ODD
- 2nd HDD (or SSD)
- extra battery
- weightsaver
- or even a fan/cooler module

I understand the engineering for this is probably difficult given everyone one wants lighter/thinner but they did it back in the day... why not bring it back.

 

If you get a 2xHDD config, will it come in a RAID 0 setup?

 

Curious, isn't the AMD HD7670M just a rebadge and not 28nm?

 

I've heard a few times that it is indeed a 28nm, and not larger. I, like you, have no idea what to make of this.

 

Wow. If it's actually 28 nm that'll be quite a steal since Anandtech seemed to be saying that they wouldn't be out till February.

 

Short answer: It has to do with virtualization products like VMWare and Hyper-V. As a programmer, I like having the ability to run different operating systems at the same time, and this helps with that. I didn't realize the 2670QM didn't have this functionality in the first place, or wouldn't have ordered it..

 

Just to be clear, the 2670QM still has hardware based VT-x virtualization. It just doesn't have VT-d, which allows more direct peripheral hardware access.

List of Intel Core i7 microprocessors - Wikipedia

Intel virtualization (VT-x) - Wikipedia

I/O MMU virtualization (AMD-Vi and VT-d) - Wikipedia

 

apart from ESX I don't think there's much that makes use of vt-d. vt-x is what you're after, but cpus from 4 years ago have supported that...