shocked at the heat at the bottom from Envy 17 3D at MS Store

Folks,

I happen to visit the MS store today and saw the HP Envy 17 3D in action. Its a really sweet laptop and nicely done but one thing bothered me was that it was really really hot at the bottom.

There was no way for me to tell if it was the latest or the last gen Envy 17. The only hint I had was the processor and its speed. It said i7 720 1.6Ghz quad core. Since the latest series sports at least 2.2 Ghz quad core, I am assuming its the last gen envy 17 that I saw. Also, I hope the heat issue is taken care of in the latest generation. Because if its not, the laptop is going to go back when it arrives here. There is no way you can keep that much heat in your lap for longer than 10 minutes.

I am surprised there is no review of this laptop anywhere...

 

There is no way you saw the new release. For one, that processor isn't offered any more, especially not in the redesign. Another thing is that it was already in store, when our orders haven't even shipped out straight from HP yet.

Also, it's quite easy to tell them apart, they look completely different. The new Envy is shown HERE. The old one is HERE.

Going along with that note, the one you saw wasn't even the second gen, it was the first, which was the one with the heating problems. The second gen fixed that, and the third (the new redesign), has cool-sense technology and the experience of the first and second gen systems, so you can't expect there to be problems with this one.

 

Looks like you are right! I was worried for a little bit after feeling the bottom of that thing!

 

Its amazing that the laptop I got 4.5 yrs ago, cost me almost the same (1100 for Ins 1520 vs. 1200 for the Envy) as the HP Envy 17....

The hardware progress can be seen:

1. RAM is tripled.
2. Hard drive is more than quadrupled in size.
3. CPU speed is almost quadrupled.
4. USB speed is 10x.
5. The screen is bigger and brighter!
6. Battery life is almost doubled.

Of course, comparing Ins 1520 with the latest Envy 17 is foolhardy, but still, it shows the progress made for same amount of money(sans inflation, which would make 1100 of 2007 look expensive).

 

It will still get hot when gaming.... All AMD/Nvidia GPU's produce lots of heat.

Unless you use intel HD GPU.

 

What you saw at the MS store was the FIRST generation Envy 17 3D. The first generation machines had an i7 XXX in it...denoted by three characters. The Sandy Bridge 2nd Gen had i7 2630 / 2720 / 2820 and now 2670 and more. As you can see...SB has XXXX digits. The first generation Envy's were horrible with thermals. Many people complained about burning their hands and more. 2nd Generation did NOT have that problem. If you ordered a Sandy Bridge model...no worries...it gets warm...but not to burn