*Quasi-Official ENVY 14 discounts, delays, "mine is shipping" lounge*

til it ships.

which is the date they give you.


but then you know it can delay. and the stuff won't change til it ships anyway (won't show the new estimated date either)

 

Still in clearance delay.
original delivery date: July 15th, 2010 by 10:30am EST
current delivery date: ????

They took the fricken delivery date of of my tracking page.... and I'm still in clearance delay.
Screw you fedex, screw you.

 

apparently it's not fedex's fault.


HP forgot to send the paperwork.


...they've been doing this a lot

edit: meaning I've noticed it pop up on the dv6t lounge too

 

screw you hp, screw you... and fedex for not giving me a new date.

 

I think you missed some math, here. Quite a bit actually; this whole question is quite easily proven if you think about it for just a few seconds...

If there are two platters for each drive, then each side of each platter would be 160GB (4 x 160 = 640GB) and 125GB (4 x 125 = 500GB). In terms of platter density, the bits on the 320GB platters (again, two sides to each platter, 160GB each side) platters are packed 28% closer together than the 250GB platters (and again, two sides to each platter, 125GB each side.) This assumes similar sized platters (which they should be) and similar data encoding method (which they're all pretty much identical these days, unless you have one of the new 4K sector drives.)

Conversely, the spin-rate of the 7200RPM drive is 33% faster than the 5400 RPM drive. Meaning, the 28% gain in data density on the 640GB drive isn't enough to meet the 33% gain in higher spindle speed on the 500GB drive.

This is of course only considering raw transfer rate, and is ignoring seek speeds. A 7200RPM drive will also be able to seek data 33% faster than a 5400RPM drive, so not only can the 7200RPM drive FIND the data 33% faster, it can also read the data ~5% faster in the end.

Math is your friend.

 

I can't. Overseas.

 

well, fedex told me that HP sends our laptops in bulk, and that they send only one paperwork for all of them all the time...so fedex has to wait for customs to get the proper paperwork for each item.

 

ummm...Did you make sure that the orders were canceled?

I know HP takes like 3 to 5 days to credit you back after they confirm the order was canceled

 

....

God dammit borders

 

Just to let everyone know, my shipment had a clearance delay in Memphis on the 13th, and my laptop arrived 30 minutes ago in a suburb of KC!

I'm not off work until 1pm central, so I'll update later.

 

Cool.

Enjoy.

 

Have anymore 30% BCBs showed up since 2 days ago? Or any other good deal?

 

So in other words, I should not have went with the 640GB?

 

I just spoke with them and got my 2 day shipping refunded. They seemed to have no explanation for why this happened. After speaking with two agents whom I could barely understand, and almost an hour on the phone, they told me to check again in 24 hours and that it should have cleared customs by then. He did also say at one point "24 to 48 hours" which really ticked me off. They tried to say it wasn't their fault, but I told them I just got off the phone with FedEx who said that they had sent multiple requests to HP over the past few days for the clearance forms (which apparently they can just fax over).

Was really looking forward to getting this laptop today but HP dropped the ball on this. I got my shipping refund but I would rather be typing on my new laptop right now.

 

If speed was your target, then the 500GB drive is (on paper) 5% faster at data transfer and 33% faster at seeks. But if maximum storage capacity is your target, the 640GB is obviously bigger.

I'm guessing you were aiming for highest speed, so the 500GB would be the fastest spindle-based disk they offer.

 

To the person that has had 2500 taken out of their card:

if you have no order confirmation then your money will go back to your card soon. you were never charged, but the money is put on HOLD.

i had the same problem.

 

If we're talking milliseconds, not a big deal, but if it lags my system/CPU, then it might be worthing upgrading.

How noticeable with the difference in speed be?

 

Depends on what you're measuring. If you're measuring the speed of one very large unfragmented file written contiguously to the disk, the difference will be rather insignificant.

But seek time is near-always the reason why spindle drives are considered to be 'so slow' when compared to SSD's. Sure, an SSD might be able to stream 200mb/sec (which is 2-3x faster than most 7200RPM drives), but the REAL gain is crushing the 5.9msec rotational latency of a 7200RPM drive into the <0.1msec row/column lookup latency of an SSD drive -- that's about 50-60x the speed of a 7200RPM drive.

Seek speed is the real killer of OS boot times, and it gets only worse as your files on your disk become fragmented. So, in most cases, the 500GB is going to 'feel' notably faster than the 640GB drive, and you'd likely be best able to measure that speed during OS boot and application load times.

 

Yeah, that's what I meant.

The problem here is that they haven't taken the hold away after several days, when I need to pay my housing deposit now.

 

Thanks for the insight.

What's your opinion of the i5-450m vs i5-520m?

 

added to PM list:
jasper101
angrygiant
zeth006
fuzzish
drec
Skittlesdfw

note: i can't check 24/7, but pms are forwarded to text on my phone, which will prompt me to run home. (not 100% foolproof...idk why it's glitchy) then i will PM people. would you all kindly add everyone on this list to your PM list for BCB/coupons?

no and no T.T

 

I don't think you're in the right thread.

 

Ok, so my math is wrong, but concept is right. Seek times are affected by an increased areal density because of the same concept. More data travelling in the same amount of space than a smaller density 7200RPM drive, so less time to find that data.

Look at the Western Digital Scorpio Black (7200RPM) vs Blue (5400RPM), seek times are the same: 12.0ms read seek and 2.0ms track-to-track.

In reality I don't think you'll see much difference in performance between the two.

 

Areal density does not affect seek time. Track-to-track seek time always depends on the size of the platter, because maximum track seeks are determined by actuator speed and the 'span' of the arms that hold the read/write heads.

However, random file seek times are entirely driven by rotational speed. Random seeks on a 3-platter 2TB 5400RPM drive will be identical to the seek time of a 3-platter 750GB 5400RPM drive. This is empirically proven through multiple websites that do low-level disk benchmarks; a great place to look would be StorageReview.com. A higher spindle-speed drive will always have faster random seek times, equivalent to the rotational speed increase.

In your example, approximately 33%

How 'big' this difference is will entirely depend on the dataset you're working against; boot times will be the most visible difference for a "normal" user.

 

Simple. Just post your order status phase and expected ship date.

My order is to be built by July 22nd.
I am in the "Order In Production" Phase.

Does anyone know all the order phases... that would be very helpful. I will then add that info to the top of this thread.

 

Are you going to be using virtual machines for high performance tasks? Are you going to be doing full-disk encryption? If the answer to either of these is yes, then the i5-520m is where you want to be.

If both of those answers are no, then (and this may surprise you) my best suggestion would be the i3-370m. Why? Because the 450 and the 370 are the same chip, except the 370 has higher QPI link speed, but doesn't have the turbo boost. In all honestly, I don't see that extra 266Mhz really helping to the tune of the extra money they want for the 450. Really, the 520 is also the same performance, except for the added virtualization support and the AES acceleration pieces -- and a tiny bit more potential turbo clock.

Thinking out loud -- the only time I'd need that extra speed is while playing games. Since the 5650 would be working hard, and the CPU would also be working hard, I have a hard time believing that I'd be getting the FULL turbo boost out of that 450m under the situations where I would actually really need it.

So, eventually when I buy one of these, it will be the i3-370m, the 160GB SSD, 4gb (one stick) of ram, and that's really it. That should be the absolute best bang for your buck, IMO. This combo will give you maximum battery life, with performance equal (give or take) to the 450m or 520m in every one of my personal-use cases.

 

Please add me to you PM list:
Soccerdude

 

Though I'm of n00b status, might I implore upon you to add my name to that list?

 

Not sure how much this would affect performance, but doesn't the 450 have faster-clocked integrated graphics?

This chart (which is linked to on the first page of the owners lounge - a good place to find info) might help:

Compare Intel® Products

Edit: also seems like the 370 is rated for lower temps.

 

It does, and so perhaps I should've listed it. However, why would I (or anyone else) want Intel's IGP sucking up even more power? What are any of us really going to use that for? Hell, 500mhz is probably more than any of us will need for doing our web browsing, flash games, 720P video streaming, and the like.

 

I think its safe to assume we aren't getting our Envy's tomorrow..

 

can my name be added to that bcb 30% list? id appreciate it so much guys. i NEED this soon!

 

Same thing happened to me, they are lucky they dont give a phone number because I would be screaming at someone right now if they did. It is unacceptable for them to completely ignore the service request that clearly stated my problem was wrong cash back amount, amount expected 30%.

 

Mine is still saying "Clearance Delay"....seems kinda Mission Impossible for me to get it tomorrow as I live in Virginia.

 

I just got off the phone with HP regarding the shipping delay in Alaska. At first she was not going to give me anything and said it was out of their control. Then after I insisted 2 times that I spoke to FedEx who stated it was HPs fault, they finallly agreed to refund my 2-day shipping. At this point I just want the machine... . Mine shipped on July 12th.

 

Estimated ship date: July 23

Order in production (just switched from "order dropped to factory" this morning)

 

Alrighties. Time for my nap. If BCB pops up and disappears anytime between 10am and 12pm, I am going to kick a bunny.

 

@harpwned
added to PM list:
jasper101
angrygiant
zeth006
fuzzish
drec
Skittlesdfw
Soccerdude
js2393

Please add me to the PM list as well:
js2393

 

Yeah I don't think anyone will be getting an Envy tomorrow. Guess we only have HP to thank for that.

 

You should realize that while performance difference between 370 & 450 is virtually the same, it's the resale value of the notebook that would be affected. A lot of people are clueless about i3 vs i5 thinking that by getting i5 they get better performance, so I would rather pay the extra $50 because I will be selling it at some point.

 

Anyone know if Fedex delivers on Saturday if you have 2-day shipping?

 

They do not. They will deliver if you have Next Day with Saturday delivery paid extra for.

 

And when you sell it, will it net you more than $50? Really? Especially when people start realizing that the best cost/performance ratio isn't in paying more for the same performance? I guess you can always count on someone to be stupid I guess (sorry, meant this as the person who would buy it used -- not you.)

Here's a thought: why would you buy computer parts for their resale value? What other non-consumable $2000 purchase will you happily make that loses 50% (or more) of it's value in 18 months?

 

This sucks! I was supposed to get my machine tomorrow and now the tracking status shows that its in "CLEARANCE DELAY". I've been told this customs process can take as short as a day to weeks! Anyone else in the same situation?

 

Well HP better step it up and pay for us then. This puts quite the damper on my weekend. I guess Monday in the morning is acceptable. Bleh.

 

What I'm saying though if you have 28% more data in a given area flowing at a slower speed is akin to a larger pipe at a slower flow rate than a smaller pipe at a higher flow rate, you can effectively have more "water" out of the slower moving pipe because of its increased sectional area.

If the density is the same though then the 7200RPM will be by far much faster.

 

this is Envy specific. Upgrading to 450 especially when it basically was a $20 upgrade with BCB and discounts is a smart choice if you need to resell it at some point, if I would be buying without discounts and/or planning to keep it long term I would probably not bother with the upgrade. Personally, I don't keep computers long term and rarely more then a year. I purchased m11x with heavy discounts and maxed out cpu option and sold it at no loss after 3 month easily. If I had a base system I would've lost a few bucks. When you buy/sell a lot of computers in a year even small savings make a big difference.

 

sorry to be a bother, but I would love to be added to the list as well
thanks in advance

 

I think you're confusing yourself.

Seeking to a new file requires you to wait at least one disk rotation from where you are -- because the seek head isn't likely fast enough to grab data that isn't in the current track within the time constraint of the current 360* rotation of the disk. Think about it: a 5400 disk rotates once every ~5.4 milliseconds, and even moving just ONE single track over takes 2 milliseconds from the data you provided earlier. Just moving one track has cost you missing all the data for nearly one-half revolution. You will (very likely) have to wait for the next revolution to get your requested data 'lined up' with the read/write heads.

So, random seek time can only be (and IS only) dependent on two things: how fast the little arms can go back and forth, and how fast the disk spins around so that the data needed can be UNDER the read/write head. That's it. It doesn't matter how tightly packed the data is, because in actuality, the tighter it is, the more likely you WILL need to wait for the next disk revolution to grab the data as it goes flying by.

Your pipes analogy doesn't do anything for seek time.

Edit: Are you still trying to talk about total transfer rate capacity? Because if you are, I already showed you the math. The greater areal density can account for a maximum of 28% additional speed on the 5400RPM drive -- but it's still going to lose to the greater rotational speed (33%, to be precise) of the 7200RPM drive. This is just talking about transfer rate...

 

er... HT, I think your logic would work when applying it to processing, however for storage I think Albuquerque has it right. Having a larger disk drive with slower RPM would be lower than say velociraptor drive at 10k rpm seeking on a 160 gb disk drive. I think what's a more accurate analogy is think of it as an indexed warehouse. It's organized in a place where the the seeker can find it but it just takes longer to find because the seeker isn't that fast. If you have Usain Bolt as the seeker then yes speed will increase. Other factors include the memory cache as well. Size of the hard drive doesn't increase performance though. Perhaps manufacturers provide additional tech to help speed those up (such as larger caches).