Questions about ENVY 15 before I make a purchase

Sorry for posting this in the Owner's lounge. I wasn't aware this forum existed.

Hi guys, I was considering buying either the ENVY 15 or the MBP. While I realize the ENVY 15 is a far superior machine, battery life, build quality and general convenience are more important to me than top of the line specifications.

1. How durable is this laptop? I'm aware it's relatively new but build quality should be apparent after spending a month or so with it.

2. How hot does it get during casual use? Casual use being web browsing, checking email, and IM.

3. Battery life ... I know it's not a strong suit of this machine but I would like to know how much you've been able to squeeze with and without the additional 9 cell slice. While on the issue of battery ... How (in)convenient is the additional 9 cell slice?

4. If I get this machine, first thing I will be doing is installing a clean copy of Windows 7. Have any of you had issues with drivers on the x64 platform? How about the x86?

5. Lastly, while I want to remove the bundled software I would like to keep the Instant On quick boot interface ... How exactly is this handled? Is there a partition on the HDD dedicated to Instant On. How do I preserve it while performing a clean install?

Thanks.

 

1. Appears to be quite durable. Solid construction. I handled one in a store, next to no flex, felt good in the hand. Not quite like the Apple, but close enough.

2. From all the reports I've read, it stays cool during casual use. Has a very efficient cooling system. Quite impressive actually.

3. Again, from everything I've read, i7 without slice, you're looking at around 2 - 2.5 hours of light use with wifi on. i5 seems to be getting around the 2.5 - 3 hours of light use with wifi on.

4 & 5 I can't help you with as I don't have one yet.

You're better off reading the Envy 15 owners lounge. Heaps of info there from people who actually own both models. Alot of testing going on as we speak.

Hope this helped somewhat.

 

I can throw in some more information:

2. For those types of tasks you won't notice much heat from the system. I imagine that the i5 along with the SSD's would run the coolest. Only when I'm putting the HD through it's paces or running a game do I notice the computer getting warm and then the fans will kick into high gear.

3. I have the slice but have not put together a benchmark yet. I imagine you could easily squeeze 6 hours of work out of it by dimming the screen, no external USB items, and not running any intense games. Size-wise the slice is very thin and I think adds 1.5 centimeters to the thickness of the computer. Weight-wise it definitely adds some heft. Without the slice I feel the Envy is incredibly light for its size, with the slice I feel that it is pretty heavy (but the battery life is incredible).

4. No issues here except for the bluetooth. I doesn't like my bluetooth headset and I am still working on a solution. This is on the 64-bit platform.

5. I turned it off on mine and haven't tried to look for it again after reloading the hardware. The computer boots in less than a minute to Win7 so I don't feel I need it. I had the same type of software on my last laptop and used it zero times.

 

The Envy 15 had a swsoftware directory in the root of c:\ , that appears to have all, or most of the origianl s/w & driver install files, including the IOS install.

I just made a copy of this directory before a fresh install of W7 on the laptop, and then restored what I wanted.