***POLL: What is the Quality Condition of your new Envy 14?***

is the quality a hit or miss? because i dont wanna return it, if i buy it now. cuz i have school in 3-4 weeks

 

Yes! I'm on #3 and it's the best I'll get. I have walked into local stores and looked at $400 notebooks and NONE of them have quality issues like these. Some are worse than others.

There may be gaps, nicks, bent edges and adhesive around the base of the notebook. I've had all those on all three of them although the adhesive can be wiped off. You should not have to do that on any new product. You'll also see misaligned track pads with gaps and incorrect levels. All three units had this. Those are the main quality issues that probably plague all the notebooks but some overlooked it.

Some people had issues with the display having a "rainbow" in it. One unit had it. Rainbows may be fine for mac users and owners of vws but not Envys.

Some users had issues with misaligned hp logos on the cover. I did not.

There are others out there but not as much as the ones above.

Good luck with your tolerance level.

 

I too am having problems. I have a stuck red pixel about a third of the way up and two inches in from the left. I've requested an RMA. (I'm also running UndeadPixel overnight, and if it works, I may keep it.) HP tried to give me $80 instead, and also tried to get me to keep it the 21-days first.

There's also some keyboard flex near the P, as reported by others. That alone would not have been enough for the RMA. The hp logo is fine. I haven't checked anything else.

 

Excellent QC! Fit and finish is fantastic. I was concerned after reading this forum and was pleasantly surprised to find the build quality was better than all my previous Dell laptops. I am running an i7-740 with the 5650 at 550 / 850 with no heat issues. For 1600 bucks they could have squeezed a more robust GPU in there I think. The Radiance display is beautiful, no dead pixels and alignment is perfect. The only thing not perfect about the Radiance was the extra 100 bucks it bumped up by the time I ordered it, from +200 to +300. I think more people with problems are apt to post so I thought I would post my positive experience. Don't hesitate to order if QC was your concern. Happy customers don't surf the forums as much. Free 5-7 day shipping arrived in 2 days from China to Virginia. It is light, bright, very fast but the i7 option will cut your battery life down to 1+30 at best, so if you are a road warrior go for the i5 with embedded GPU for when you are not watching vids or gaming. HP has won me over from Dell / Alienware. 9/10 stars only because the price on the upgraded screen is a little pricey.

Envy 14 i7-740 / radiance 1600X900 / 6G DDR / 5650 1G

 

Glad to hear there are truly quality built ones out there. I will also report my laptop's QC.

 

Just got mine a couple of days ago. Wanted to say I got what expected. The Envy 14 is marvelous. There is a little whine (pretty common I guess) and the touchpad has a slight clack when tapping. There is some very minor flex (that's only when you press REALLY REALLY hard) those are minor issues. I don't see any cosmetic issues. The whine is only noticeable when in a completely quiet room which is never the case for me and it's very random.

I ran some gaming benchmarks which were acceptable. I don't really play games more content creation though. I also did a stress test (BurnInTest) for about 20minutes and all was good with good temperatures too.

Wished I opted for an Intel SSD though, but budget was an issue. The radiance screen had to come in first.

People worried about any build quality issues shouldn't be. If there are any issues just RETURN it before the 21 days. Getting it repaired is mostly done by someone who does repairs for many different kinds of laptops so it will never really look the same when it comes back.

 

My keyboard is funny. The 'O' key I have to press down a little harder than the rest of the keys. And the Volume down key sticks when i press it a certain way. No major problems, loving the laptop otherwise!

 

My first order (with the HDD) came in yesterday and i've been fondling with it all day. It seems to be fabulously built and from what i've seen so far, I cannot agree with you more. The trackpad is nearly flush with the with the palm rest. if you rub your fingers along the transition line you can sometimes feel a slight raise or bump but nothing more than a .5 a mm at most. You can barely tell. As you can see the ruler is thicker than any off alignment. IMHO its pretty damn flush for a trackpad that is designed to flex a little entirely when you click it.



The Hp sign on the back is evenly illuminated which is a sigh of relief.

The keyboard flex is more than acceptable considering the fact that you have to press down PRETTY DAMN HARD [10-15lbs of force] to get it to flex. Also if you want a direct comparison, I also have a late model HP DV2415nr notebook and its only got a slight bit of flex when i really smash down on the keys; the Envy 14 keyboard has less flex than the late model. (if you feel like you get flex really easily its probably a bad sign to get it sent back in). The one quality thing i notice is the alignment of the palm rest with the side frame of the laptop. It seems to be a common problem everyone seems to have, but its never more than 0.5mm of a gap; due to the location of the bluetooth??? And by no means anything worth sending back for.



Here you can roughly compare the gap along the entire lower edge of the palm rest.



The only thing i'm not satisfied with is the plastic screen (i was under the impression i would be getting a full glass screen but oh well its this or $600+ more for a MBP). A glass screen would have had me SOLD for life! (i don't care for the glare). Sorry if the pictures are a bit hard to see.

Ouch I would definately return that and order a new one before the 21 day refund period.

 

My envy 14 has two imperfections. Nothing crazy. The touchpad sticks up above the palmrest on its bottom left corner a bit. There's a gap about 1/3 of a mm wide below the touchpad where the bottom meets the palmrest but this seems to be a common occurrence so I'm not about to gripe. Overall it's in great condition.

 

Just received my Envy and I'm loving it already. The radiance screen is awesome!

The quality seems to be the same as the user who posted the pictures above. There is a slight gap between the palm rest and the side frame. This gap occurs at two places, below the trackpad and just above the keyboard. If these 'issues' weren't pointed out on this forum I would probably never noticed it, I'm perfectly happy with it. Furthermore there is no keyboard flex (when using normal force, I'm not going to force it to flex, that would be silly). The trackpad is nicely alligned, the logo is evenly lighted and no dead or stuck pixels. Next up: Clean install!

 

So I'm still within my 21 day return period and I think I've finally hit my limit with this thing. I have everything else working pretty good (including the touch pad) and line out.

I just tried to run a high quality line in source to the microphone in port and I'm astounded at the lack of quality and isolation of the input. I can actually hear the input through the headphone jack even with all "recording devices" disabled. It seems there is major interference between the line in and line out. I even get feed back on a direct line in (not a microphone) and listening thorough headphones (internal microphone array muted). This is feedback not from external sound waves but from internal electronic interference between the line in and line out. This is absolutely stunning on a laptop of this quality.

Besides all that, the sound level of the line in is incredibly low even with the 20dB boost which makes a static hiss louder than the input sound.

Perhaps I just have a build quality issue. When I "wiggle" the line in cable near the port I get a lot of change in volume and static. I've tried a number of cables and all do the same, so I know it's the port.

Could others please tell me if they have similar issues. I'm scared to RMA for another one if it's just going to have the same issues. I'm very close to just spending the extra for a MPB 15.

Thanks.

 

I'm pretty sure that's because it's not a line-in jack. It's not even a microphone jack. It's a smartphone headset jack, which is physically different from the former.

And the Macbook Pro 15 doesn't have a line-in jack either, so forget about it.

 

Umm yes it does. Under "Connections and expansion" it lists "Audio Line In". I have a 4 year old macbook pro that has a perfectly working line in. Even if the Envy port is a microphone/headphone combo, it should be able to take a line in signal.

 

Okay, maybe it does (that means the MBP doesn't have a mic jack). In any case, I've never seen a (Windows) laptop with a true line-in jack. And no, a microphone jack cannot handle stereo line-in audio.

 

Great lappy, great condition.

My wife just said, "I wanna lappy like that"

 

Yea, it's a real good lapper. I've only noticed a few issues with HP's dated drivers and crap software. MiniDisplay port to VGA dongle didn't work but I'm hopefully fixing that with ATI drivers. Also, the HDMI to DVI is fine so I'm ok with that. My hotkeys used to be bound to windows + hotkey, now after a driver update it's fn+crl (or fn+alt) + hotkey. Better than the start menu popping up all the time. Other than that no real problems. The finish is nice but it totally gets grease spots, I tried using an alcohol wipe to clean it but didn't seem to work. I hope there's a way to clean it, otherwise i'll have to practice holding my wrists at different locations to even it out Only visible on an angle with the right lighting. I do hope the finish holds up though over the years. The other shiny coated HP laptop cases most definitely did hold up, but didn't feel as nice.

The computer is fast and perfect. You can't buy a better computer for the price really. I mean only if you ditch the IDT/beats audio and backlit keyboard. Totally worth an extra couple hundred for those features though...Which puts it on par with the rest of HPs offerings and far beyond most other manufacturers.

Why buy a MBP for twice the cost? When you get to the 8GB, i7 level...in order to compete that's what it ends up being. Double the cost, half the video card. No way. MBP needs an update they're no longer the best in class.

I'd say ok Sony and Dell but those machines are more expensive. Not sure how HP pulled off such a great machine for such a great price.

 

short battery life..... would return it if I was in town.

 

I think you'll find that a laptop with the same specs and form factor will have similar battery life.

Unless there's a problem with your particular build (ie, unusually short battery life).

 

Received my envy 14 beats in perfect condition. No keyboard flex, no scratches whatsoever. It really felt premium, compared to my dm4 whose keyboard now feels so cheap for me. Maybe the very little imperfection is that when I don't have the battery inside, the laptop wiggles when put on a hard flat surface. For some reason, it doesn't wiggle when the battery is inside, no matter how much I push on one corner.

 

Got mine a couple days ago. In perfect condition!

 

got mine for christmas. the trackpad isn't flush with the body (IE: the right button corner juts out over the surface of the palmrest.. i picked out a glue spot or two.. the hinges appear misaligned when the laptop is closed.. and one side of the "N" key is unpainted. however this is only noticeable when the backlight is on.
there is keyboard flex, but every HP has SOME keyboard flex.
No dead pixels, no cpu whine, so mechanically, its all there.

as far as premium, 1k+ laptops are concerned, I'm very very disappointed in the build quality.. especially with all the other complaints I'm reading. it seems HP's QA team is the real problem here.

I don't plan to exchange it because from what I've read, you have a slim chance of getting one in perfect condition. especially for someone as OCD as me.

My biggest issue would have to be the misaligned trackpad.. I mean.. come on..

 

does any of you think that poll maybe skewed toward people that have problems with the Envy 14 ?
Honestly, besides geeks like me, who would come to this forum if their Envy 14 had no problems?
I think People that actually have problems tend to research things online and find this forum.
Most people happy with their purchase would probably never come here.
So I think the % of faulty Envy 14 might be overated in this poll ? What do you think ?

Mine came in pristine condition, not a single problem with it (and I am picky). It's too bad i got to return/sell it because I just ordered one with the radiance. I hope the next one is fault free.

Besides that I concur QA/QC is the problem of ANY goods manufactured in China.

 

my compaq stop working. when i press the power it just blink to times

 

Got mine yesterday and it's perfect!

 

got mine 2 days ago and so far everything is great.
the only thing is the lower right side of the trackpad is slightly raised...but honestly, i didnt even notice it, the only way i noticed it is from others pointing it out on these forums.

 

If you have a raised or uneven trackpad, it's relatively simple to fix as posted by another member: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/545816-fixing-my-envy-14-touchpad.html Shouldn't take much more than 30 mins even if you've never opened up a laptop before and about the only "skill" you need is knowing how to disconnect/reconnect a ribbon cable.

 

my envy is FLAWLESS. No clickety touch pad when typing, awesome keyboard, even backlighting, no yellow glue, im in love. The only problem im having is when i type, i don't hit some keys hard enough, so i skip letters. But im used to a ergonomic keyboard..so i have to re adjust.

 

The uneven backlighting on mine didn't bother me at first, but after a while it kinda started to . Anybody figured how to fix this?

 

I voted "horrendous" because my Envy 14 went DEAD (no lights, no power, no nuttin') after 2 months of use. Checked power outlets, adapter, cord, worked fine with another computer. Hard reset no go. Dead with or without battery. TS said probably a motherboard power issue, told me it had to be returned for a motherboard replacement. They didn't even bother trying to boot it up, they just replaced the adapter and sent it back to me, DOA again. Its been plugged in for a week, DEAD. I've been trying to get a refund or replacement for 2 weeks, getting the runaround from "case management."
The computer worked perfectly for 2 months...til it died.

 

My Envy 14 came nearly flawless except for a microscopic nick on the edge of the lid. Still had to send it in twice though.

Haven't had problems since then except for a keyboard that seems to get inactive for 2-3 seconds once a blue moon (as in once a month). Otherwise, my Envy's been a great machine.

 

*glances his envy bit over 8 months in*


Except for a hdd that had to be replaced due to it dying and the new hdd having an annoying whine (damn why am I having hdd problems of all things) everything seems fine.


I mean I broke windows once but that was my own fault.

 

I voted small imperfections no RMA, but I may RMA. I LOVE this laptop save two aspects. First, the clickpad is a pain in the rear, but I think with usage and driver updates I can tweak this to my liking. The deal breaker for me is the speaker quality. My previous laptop (a 5 year old Dell XPS m140) absolutely blows this laptop away. I followed the sound tweaks and that improved things...but not enough. After the tweaks, the volume is almost as high as my Dell but it still sounds like absolute cr@p compared to the Dell. It's a darn shame...I had no idea how much I cared about sound until I had the envy in my hands.