Thread: HP Envy 15 : An Excellent Laptop

Previous year’s Envy laptops were abit of a disappointment. The plan that wowed me in 2010 had growndusty by 2011; at that point, the rest of the world had caught up toand surpassed the Envy’s plan, although HP was content to updatejust the system’s internal constituents. The novel Envy 15 as wellas 17, which HP launched right at the end of 2011, eventually boast acomplete novel plan.


For the most part, it is great, but asome nagging issues hold the system from being an simplerecommendation. First, experience that the novel Envy laptops arrivein 15.6-inch and 17-inch sizes, on the 14-inch version transitioningto the novel Spectre Ultrabook. Our review pertains the 15.6-inchEnvy 15, which is fairly big like everything-aim laptops go. It is 15inches broad, 9.6 inches deep, and 1.2 inches thick.


On a weight of 5.8 pounds, it is not arear-breaker, but it surely does not qualify like “lightweight.”The silver-toned aluminum within deck and edges are evocative of aMacBook Pro, but Apple’s 15-inch laptop is smaller in eachdimension and only a tad lighter.


It boasts a Core i5-2430M processor,6GB of RAM, a Radeon HD 7690M distinct graphics card, and a 500GBhard drive. Convey in mind that while the Radeon HD 7690 may carry7000-series branding, it does not really apply the novelarchitecture, and it is not a product of the 28nm manufacturingprocess that AMD is using for the 7000 series of desktop graphicscards.




Rather, it’s a “rebrand” of theprevious 40nm generation, equivalent to the Radeon HD 6730M.Including all, this selection of hardware was plenty to power thesystem to a decent WorldBench 6 score of 119, as well as toreasonable gaming frame rates, while you would not be capable to playat the highest resolutions and detail settings.


The aluminum keyboard deck looks andfeels all right, but the lid, supposedly also made of aluminum, feelslike cheap plastic, and the bottom is plastic. Overall the aestheticisn't bad, but it pales in comparison to, say, the upcoming Envy 14Spectre. The full-size backlit keyboard is quite easy to type on, butI’m not as enamored of the touchpad. It is large and smooth, and ittracks movement well. It supports all the common modern multi-fingergestures, too. But the bottom quarter or so, where one would click toactivate the left or right buttons, is quite stiff. Worse, the palmrejection is horrible: No matter how I tweaked the touchpad settings,I couldn’t type more than a couple sentences without seeing thecursor jump around.


Our review unit does have one update,and it is a counterfeit deal-breaker. This update not just enhancesresolution, but also greatly improves the panel technology from TN toIPS. The upgraded technology affords the screen bright and brilliantcolor, add very broad considering angles. It changes out that mostusers with the IPS panel upgrade have reported a color-calibrationissue, in which red shades have an orange hue.