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HP Envy 15 review

in Laptops

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

Reviewed By: Sasha Muller

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

Details
Part Code VJ295EA#ABU
Review Date 20 Nov 2009
Price ex VAT £1,043
Price inc VAT £1,199
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
Warranty
Warranty 1yr collect and return
Physical specifications
Dimensions 381 x 245 x 28mm (WDH)
Weight 2.360kg
Travelling weight 3.2kg
Processor and memory
Processor Intel Core i7-720QM
Motherboard chipset Intel PM55
RAM capacity 4.00GB
Memory type DDR3
SODIMM sockets free 0
SODIMM sockets total 2
Screen and video
Screen size 15.6in
Resolution screen horizontal 1,366
Resolution screen vertical 768
Resolution 1366 x 768
Graphics chipset ATI Mobility Radeon HD4830
Graphics card RAM 1.00GB
VGA (D-SUB) outputs 0
HDMI outputs 1
S-Video outputs 0
DVI-I outputs 0
DVI-D outputs 0
DisplayPort outputs 0
Drives
Capacity 320GB
Hard disk usable capacity 298GB
Spindle speed 7,200RPM
Internal disk interface SATA/300
Hard disk Seagate ST950032AS
Optical disc technology External DVD writer
Optical drive HP
Battery capacity 4,700mAh
Replacement battery price inc VAT £0
Networking
Wired adapter speed 1,000Mbits/sec
802.11a support yes
802.11b support yes
802.11g support yes
802.11 draft-n support yes
Integrated 3G adapter no
Bluetooth support yes
Other Features
Wireless hardware on/off switch yes
Wireless key-combination switch no
Modem no
ExpressCard34 slots 0
ExpressCard54 slots 0
PC Card slots 0
USB ports (downstream) 3
eSATA ports 1
PS/2 mouse port no
9-pin serial ports 0
Parallel ports 0
Optical S/PDIF audio output ports 1
Electrical S/PDIF audio ports 0
3.5mm audio jacks 1
SD card reader yes
Memory Stick reader no
MMC (multimedia card) reader yes
Smart Media reader no
Compact Flash reader no
xD-card reader no
Pointing device type Touchpad
Audio chipset IDT HD Audio
Speaker location Front edge
Hardware volume control? no
Integrated microphone? yes
Integrated webcam? yes
Camera megapixel rating 2.0mp
TPM no
Fingerprint reader no
Smartcard reader no
Carry case no
Operating system and software
Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
OS family Windows 7
Recovery method Recovery partition, burn own recovery discs
Battery and performance tests
Battery life, light use 2hr 32min
Overall application benchmark score 1.55
Office application benchmark score 1.32
2D graphics application benchmark score 1.79
Encoding application benchmark score 1.42
Multitasking application benchmark score 1.69
3D performance (crysis) low settings 102fps
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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

Revised Envy

The HP website reveals a new UK Envy variant is due imminently.

The Envy 15-1110ea appears to of brought the UK model in-line with the US equivalent and confirmed the high performance, innovative nature of the Envy product line.

Improvements include:

- Full HD 1920x1080 screen which is rumoured to be non-glossy.

- ATI Mobility Radeon 5830 (DX11 capable)

- USB 3.0 ports

It is not clear from the US forums whether or not the heat/noise issues have been cured, however they do label the model as being "generation 2". I await a PCPro review with great anticipation.

By dpazz on 13 Feb 2010

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