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HP Envy 15

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Verdict

HP's Envy 15 takes on Apple at its own game, but proves sinful in all the wrong ways

Review Date: 20 Nov 2009

Price when reviewed: £1,043 (£1,199 inc VAT)

Overall Rating
3 stars out of 6

Features & Design
3 stars out of 6

Value for Money
3 stars out of 6

Performance
5 stars out of 6

With the arrival of its new high-end range of laptops, one manufacturer would have us believe that imitation truly is the most sincere form of flattery. Lightweight, slender and sheathed in aluminium – no, we’re not talking about Apple’s metal-framed MacBooks - HP’s Envy range comes dressed to impress.

And just like Apple’s own, the Envy seeks to weave its magic before you’ve even laid eyes on the laptop itself. The black cardboard box is bare, aside from the silver Envy logo at the very centre, the tight-fitting lid sliding off with agonising slowness. In the box the laptop, external DVD writer and power supply nestle in their own perfectly moulded compartments.

If all this effort is designed to set the stage for a truly dramatic entrance then, initially at least, it works. For a 15.6in laptop, the cold, metal chassis of the Envy 15 feels uncommonly light. Shirking an integrated optical drive has certainly helped trim the fat: at just 2.38kg this HP is as light as desktop replacement notebooks get. It’s thin, too, at a mere 28mm tall.

But as distracting as the Envy 15s vital statistics might be, there’s something undeniably underwhelming about the whole affair. There’s certainly no attempt to mimic the uncluttered simplicity of the MacBook Pro’s plain, brushed aluminium finish.

Instead, HP has really gone to town. Tiny geometric dimples create the impression of spirals that coat the lid and reach across the wristrest, while the dark grey finish reaches inside and pools between the black Scrabble-tile keys. It all sounds impressive but, in the flesh, it just doesn’t thrill like it should.

So, shallow-minded souls might not warm to the Envy’s visual charms, but the HP definitely punches well above its weight when it comes to performance. The sting in the Envy’s tail is delivered by one of Intel’s new Core i7 processors: the i7-720QM. It’s something we’d expect to find in a heavyweight gaming laptop, such as the Alienware M15x, but to find it in the 2.38kg Envy 15 is something of a surprise.

The i7-720QM is right at home too, thanks to a capable supporting cast: 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 320GB 7,200rpm Seagate hard disk and a 64-bit copy of Windows 7 Home Premium. And, with a result of 1.57 in our application benchmarks, the Envy 15 proves that it’s effortlessly capable of keeping up with the burliest of desktop replacements. What comes as even more of a surprise is that there’s an equally capable graphics chipset in tow. ATI’s Mobility Radeon HD 4830 didn’t run out of breath until taxed with our most demanding Crysis benchmark, and even then emerged with an impressive average of 19fps.

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Comments

User comments

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By Roynorton on 20 Nov 2009

Guys, play fair.

Your pushing this laptop as if its a gaming desktop, then complain when the graphics card gets toasty. I see some advantages with the graphics card heat feedback, far better than a plastic case that does not radiate off any heat and the user is non the wiser for the heat levels.

All graphics cards will get hot when running Crysis on high settings. Especially laptops as they have tiny cooling fans.

No pleasing some.

This laptop is a huge spec upgrade over a MacBookPro .

By Tibbs on 20 Nov 2009

Macbooks run hot too.

Are you even going to show us some benchmarks or just comment on the aesthetics?

By windywoo on 21 Nov 2009

I don't mean the bars on their own

I mean compared to a Mac, the machine you seem to love.

By windywoo on 21 Nov 2009

Hot to trot

Since when were we pushing the Envy 15 as a gaming laptop? We tested it just as we would any other laptop.

We didn't force HP squeeze an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830 alongside a 45nm Core i7. Frankly, I think a less greedy GPU would have been a much better choice. A laptop should not get this hot. There is simply no reasonable excuse.

Instead we're faced with a lightweight laptop with immense power, dreadful battery life, an unpleasant keyboard and a dreadful trackpad. Its priorities are all over the shop.

Designing a good laptop is all about balance, and while the Envy 15 is a specification junkie's dream, it's horrible to use.

By SashaMuller on 21 Nov 2009

Scren resolutions

My biggest issue with this particular laptop is that HP seems to have given UK users a completely different machine to those in the US.

UK based purchasers just have 2 options to choose from on HP's website, whereas in the US, there are a variety of configurations of HDD, Ram etc available. Moreover though, the biggest issue is that the UK only has the screen option with the resolution as detailed in the review here, whereas in the US the standard option is full 1080p resolution (1920x1080). This is almost double the number of pixels of the UK version. Comments on HP's own forumsn indicate that the higher resolution option may become available in the UK, but with no suggestion of whether this is definite or when it will happen.

To me, it just doesn't make sense to purchase a premium level product like this with the screen that is included in the UK & I can't see quite why HP thought that it made sense to downgrade it in this way either.

By mbtaylor on 29 Dec 2009

Good Spec - Terrible Notebook

I purchased this yesterday, installed everything I needed and like most was in amazement about the specification and performance. This is where it all ended very quickly, under light loads the head and noise was unbearable and the screen is a total wash out. The keyboard feels cheap and so ultimately does everything except the box it came in (which is quite nice and apple chic'(ish). Even my girlfriend who isn't computer savvy thought it looked cheap and low budget. I spent another £100 on a MacBook Pro, installed Windows 7 and love it. Alright I can't play MW2 on it but I have a PC for that. If you buy this for a gaming laptop for the power you may want to connect a screen, keyboard and mouse as all are terrible which in my opinion should make to steer clear of this really. Good attempt at a high end laptop but no cigar.. not even a lighter from me.

By Brother_DeeJ on 31 Dec 2009

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