Thinking of selling my Envy

I'm fed up with taking out the charger after the laptop is on for an hour and I'm considering selling it for a Vaio Z i5 or MBP i5. The thing is I would use W7 exclusively on MBP and Vaio Z is only available in 13" and with SSD only. Can anyone recommend me one out of these two and give me a reason ? And what is a reasonable price I could sell the Envy for. Mine is 1050nr

 

Save yourself some trouble and just buy the battery slice

 

In his sig, it shows he has a slice already.

One hour with a slice is pretty bad, I would suggest playing with power options to drop power consumption. Try downclocking the gpu if you are not doing any intense stuff.

 

I did everything I could lol, I set maximum power state to 25% on power saving mode ( using most of the time when on battery ) underclocked gpu to 150/250. The heat and battery life are just not acceptable, I would get 3h with the slice surfing flash sites but it adds another 1 and a half kg, then I stop bring the slice to school since the charger itself is even lighter but still giant.
I have been reading reviews about the Sony Z11 and I think it's worth the money, is it hard to use 13" laptop ? I wonder

 

this really isn't the best model if you need more than 2 hours on battery... maybe the MBP is a better fit for you.

edit: i forgot but the MBP gets significantly less running time on Win 7 than OSX, from what I've read.

 

There is something wrong with your system to be true, because I run VirtualDub, Wifi-On, Bright at 80% and doing surfing on Chrome while running music on VLC Player and I get around 3.5 hours with slice. (Power mode is Balanced)

Some quickies.
- Shut of paging file as you already have enough RAM.
- Stop stupid Win7 features like Search Indexing.
- Do not run background processes which are of no use.

And I sincerely hope that you have cleaned up the HP Junk from the system.

 

I see... Well if you want the kind of performance you have in your envy AND good battery life then the only thing close is the MBP.

Or you could switch the i7 for an i5 possibly?

 

I get around 5 hours with the slice attached, wifi on and 70% brightness, but that is with a clean Windows 7 install, but no underclocking the GPU.
BTW with powerplay enabled, shouldn't your GPU should underclock itself to something like 100/200 when in powersaving mode? Don't know if it's different with the 4830, though.

If still no luck i would also advice you to look at the newly refreshed MBP, but keep in mind that battery life under Windows is reduced severely.

 

Nope its not any different.

 

The i7 is going to draw a LOT more power than the i5 as well, for people commenting with relative battery lives.

It's like asking a NASCAR racer to drive his car to the 7-11 and get you a slurpee. It's still going to cost him $50 in gas to get there, even if it's just for a slurpee.

Replace gas with battery life, and slurpee with MS paint.

 

I get 7-8 hours with the slice under moderate usage (music, browsing).

You're going to take a pretty big hit selling a 1st gen Envy, particularly given that there are a bunch of 2nd gens on Ebay right now for good prices (maybe people who bought them with the $450 coupon and are trying to make a buck).

1st gen reviews weren't very good and battery life on the i7 isn't all that great as you've identified, though it should be better than what you're getting.

You'd probably be lucky to break $1000 for your machine with all the other choices out there now.

 

Looks like you have a first gen...

The i7 quad cores do use quite alot more power then the i5 arrandale's. The arrandale chips are 32nm vs 45nm for the quads. I believe they also have a few other enhancements in regards to power effiency like improved power transistors for shutting off cores and even sections of an individual core. Also a number of tests have shown they use much more power especially under light load and more under load as well. The overall difference is more significant then the TDP numbers might suggest.

The 5830 when compared to the 4830 also has some internal enhancements for using less power under under light load and idle scenarios as well...

Add on 2 extra RAM slots, the "external" USB 3.0 controller and a not spectacularly big 52.9 W-HR battery and you have a recipe for not so good battery life.

If you do not want to consider trying to trade up to an Envy 15 2nd gen, then the MBP is honestly your next best alternative if the 15-16" screen size is important to you.

Honestly if you look at it from this persepctive HP kinda screwed the 1st gen Envy owners with the quick refresh, but that would be unfair as it would be silly to say it would have been better for HP NOT to refresh it.

My only cons to the MBP vs. the Envy are the 1.) much weaker graphics 2.) limited upgrade-ability (no CPU upgrades here, while I expect to be able to slap in a refreshed 32nm quad core CPU in my Envy when they are available) 3.) funky keyboard with apple specific keys instead of windows keys 4.) the stigma 4.) possibly lackluster support for Win7 5.) COST (in my case, I'd have to pay triple the cost to get as close to possible to comparable, but still inferior) 6.) Inferior screen (resolution, cost) 7.) eSATA, support for two 1.8" SATA drive in main bay (or USB 3.0)

If don't mind the 13.3" screen and it's in your budget, the new Sony Z blows both the Envy and MBP out of the water, IMO. It's an amazing machine. The only thing the Envy has on the Sony is faster graphics, the Sony is just "better" at everything else, lol. Hell even the bios is hackable for all kinds of cool stuff. The Sony will also wipe the floor with the MBP in batt life (I am talking Win 7 vs Win 7 here, comparing MBP OSX batt life to PC Win7 battery life is stupid, IMO.)

In regards to Envy vs. MBP Battery life, honestly the MBP derives all of its advantage from its physically larger / built in battery.
Envy 2nd gen web browsing: 2.5. 2.5 hour * 77.5 WHr / 52.9 WHr = 3.7 hours, approx what the mac gets in Win7. There's also the added effect you get in that a laptop with double the battery capacity of another will in real use result in MORE then double usable life. (booting, shutting down, certain tasks, charging to 90-98% percent, shut down @ 10% all take a set amount of battery, leaving the end result greater then the capacity differences suggest)

I would like to see HP take a nod from Apple on this feature and move to a built in battery. (and the backlight keyboard as well for you whiners... )

 

get an i7-620m, power and battery friendly. but i like my 820qm more.

 

MBP getting really hot(100C) with i7-620 . You can use it as a kettle

 

If you don't get at least 5 hours with the slice battery in, your unit is defective and you should be able to return it to HP if you are within your 1 year warranty.

When my slice battery is in, I get around 4-6 hours for the slice plus another 60-90 minutes for the regular battery, for a total of 5-8 hours. And this is using graphics intensive apps, playing videos, etc., with high brightness setting. On low performance setting with brightness at minimum it lasts much longer. I have SSD which I understand drains battery less, but I have the i7-820QM and extra RAM, which I believe drains the battery more than the 720QM. If USB 3.0 is important to you or you plan to buy any USB 3.0 external drives, I would recommend to keep the Envy once it is repaired or they have replaced the slice battery for you.

If you are dead set on switching to something completely different, I would return the unit to HP anyways, as you will get more from reselling a repaired unit or at least they might replace the defective slice battery.

It depends on what kinds of applications you need to use and whether you will play many Windows games or not, but of the Vaio Z or the MBP I would go with the MBP. Much higher resell value and I have had a little bit of time to test them as a few of my colleagues have the 2010 models at work and they are pretty fast as well, even with HDD instead of SSD. If you are considering the 13" MBP, buy the 2009 model - it's cheaper and the 2010 model is only negligably faster than the 2009 model 13"

 

don't buy a Mac if your sole plan is to run Windows. it's "sufficient" at that, but you lose a lot of the benefits. like the multitouch and battery life.

 

I think I may go with Vaio Z : Intel® Core™ i5-520M Processor 2.40GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.93GHz, 4GB, 500GB (7200rpm), 13.1” premium LED backlight, NVIDIA® GeForce® GT330M 1GB GDDR3, camera, microphone, bluetooth, windows 7® Home premium 64bit. All these for 2199$

The Macbook Pro 15" with the same specs costs 1949$ in my area.

I kind of don't get along with Mac OSX and I like to tweaking my computer in Windows, but I have heard that there are 2 people on Youtube have successfully run OSX Snow Leo 10.6. Is this possible because the bios is hackable and there are drivers as new MBP has the same configuration.
I intend to use laptop for surfing, listening to music , word processing, downloading stuff, IM, thats pretty much of the usage. The only game I play is GTA series, Ill miss 40 fps on high setting on this Envy though
By the way I'm kinda used to 6GB of ram on Envy, is it okay if I go with 4GB on the Z ( I mostly use about 25 - 40% of the 6GB ram I have ) Would it make any difference ?

 

Sounds like you originally bought more laptop than you needed initially. The i5 alone will consume about 10W less power at idle than your i7 does. However, if you're interested in battery life first (which clearly you must be, as you're complaining about the hour long battery life of the Envy) then go with a laptop that supports "Optimus" or some other switchable Graphics Technology. Apple's scheme that they use to get that "8 hours of battery life" is simultaneously superior and inferior (but only works in OSX)

I wouldn't expect you to be able to get Apple's GPU switching scheme on their MBP working in Windows 7 (not their default market - so they're not going to write proper drivers to get it working). That having been said, the best machine I've seen that plays games very well, plus has very good battery life is the Alienware 11x. It's only 11" (a plus or minus depending on what you want), and it only has the older Core2Duo based CPU (which is quite a bit slower in some tasks than the i5's), but it has a significantly superior GPU to the other laptops you're looking at. Battery life when not playing games is also quite good on it. However, again, it's based on the previous generation CPU architecture, so ...

You may also be interested in one of the Lenovo Thinkpad T410 models. It has a "reasonable" dGPU (the NVS 3100 should be a reasonable GPU for what you want - not as powerful as the 330m), but its build quality at least as good as (and in many respects, better than) the MBP would be).

Also, if you're only using 25-40% of 6 GB, that means that you're using about 1.5-2.40 GB of RAM, which means that anything over 3 gigs will suit your needs fine.

 

In the vaio z discussion section,they claim that optimus on vaio z is very possible atm, they just need drivers and some other thing.
I personally think MBP is great, however I just don't really get along with osx.
Erple, ty for suggest other models but I prefer Vaio ,it has a premium touch

 

Note that the Lenovo Thinkpad line pretty much defines "premium laptop" in the business world. Not too much of a looker, but all it takes is a quick spin with it for you to realize that it has it, and has it in spades where it counts.

 

I have the Vaio Z. I got it after returning my Envy 15 for it.

It is the greatest machine I have ever owned.

For battery, I get 4.5-5 hours on the standard battery on power saver, and about 8-9 hours with the extended. If I really want, I could get 10+ with it. I went with the Signature Z, as I need the resolution. It's unbelievable; I liked the Envy, but the Z is a whole other beast. I couldn't be happier.

 

Wow, 1920 x 1080 resolution on the 13" screen is insane. That's just about up there in density with the legendary 2048x1536 (QXGA) 15" screen in the R series IBM Thinkpad back in the day. I heard the 1600x900 on the Z is a little better for contrast and view angle, however.

How do the SSD's work? are they 1.8" disks? integrated to motherboard? I'd like to be able to run some Intel SSD's... hope the Vaio supports regular 1.8" disks...

How's the SSD 4K QD = 1 random performance (can you run CrystalDiskMark?)

 

Just did a bit of reading on the Sony Vaio Z, wow that is an incredible little machine! Never mind 1080p on 13", I can't imagine 900p on it. I'd love to go see it in person. Is it sold in stores anywhere? Not that I'm even thinking about it - it was a bit of a leap to go with 1080p on the 15.6" screen, glad I did, I love the space but it's right at the edge of my vision.

 

4 to 5 hours is decent enough right ?

 

That's up to you and your standards.

 

wow, 1080p at 13". i bet that's not cheap. i have a blackberry tour with similar PPI, it's 480x360 on a 2.5" screen. can't even see pixels anymore.

 

Do you use a magnifying glass to check your email?