Official Envy 17 discussion thread

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Itchyeyes

Gawd
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Jun 26, 2007
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Hooray! My Envy 17 finally arrived!

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I'll update with a post after I get a chance to play with it a bit on my lunch break, but here are some of my initial impressions.

  • It's huge. I've never had a 17" laptop, this dwarfs what I was expecting.
  • It's surprisingly light for its size. Likely because the bottom half of the machine is plastic, and it only comes with a 6-cell battery.
  • It seems very solid. The finish on the metal is nice and there's very little flex or sign of flimsiness that I've been able to notice so far.
  • The touch pad is very large. Larger than the one on my wife's MBP I think. Unlike the MBP, the top corners don't depress though, just the bottom 2/3rds or so.

Let me know if anyone has any specific questions about it and I'll see if I can answer them.
 
Here are some more pictures and impressions.
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Apologies for the picture quality, they were taken with my phone. For size comparison, the monitors behind are 20" 4:3 displays.

  • As you can see the display is pretty glossy. However, I had the room fairly bright to try and get good pictures and the display itself is bright enough to do away with a lot of glare.
  • The HP logo on the back is pretty cool. It's mirrored when the machine is off, and glows blue when it's turned on.
  • The machine is loaded with junkware, including an HP skin for the standard Windows UI. I suppose it's to be expected, but you'd hope with what should be considered premium hardware they'd give you a break.
  • I tried out some multitouch gestures on the touchpad and it seems to work pretty good. Maybe not MBP good, but good enough for me.
  • I don't have any software on it that would stress the CPU/GPU, but it seems as if all the heat comes out the left side of the machine. The right 2/3rds were downright cool to the touch. The left side did get a little warm, but not unbearably so. Then again, I haven't really put it through its paces yet.
 
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Nice! The fact that the keyboard does not "feature" those pesky shortcut keys that the 15 has along the left side is a welcome change.

I have the Envy 15, and I'm seriously considering jumping ship. I feel that way about 90% of the laptops I've owned though ><
 
iceredwing said:
what are the temps like at idle and gaming? processor and gpu
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I haven't checked the GPU yest, but CPU is about 55 deg C idle and 82 deg C while gaming. As hot as it gets though, the laptop stays pretty cool to the touch. Only the top left corner gets really hot. The left palm rest gets a little warm, but not uncomfortably so, and the right two thirds of the machine stay almost as cool as when it's turned off.
 
Nice buy, I got the dv8 (18.4 inch screen. I love big laptops) and love it.

I dunno about the envy line but with the regular models with time those idle temps will go up espeically in the summer. I NEED a laptop cooler for my laptop since heat is a HUGE problem with HP laptops. That is my biggest gripe with them.
 
Awesome... thanks for posting some pictures! I'm getting one of these or the Envy 14 when it comes out.
 
yeah, i'm more interested in the Envy14 also. But at 14.5" i am curious to see how big it ends up being compared to the envy 13
 
Ok, after spending some more time with the machine I'm considering returning it. The heat is more of an issue than I originally thought. After a 20-30 min session of Crysis today I stopped playing because it was simply too uncomfortable on the left side of the machine. There's a lot I really love about the Envy 17, but the heat is getting to be too much of a nuisance for me to think I'll be happy with it in the long run.
 
I'm thinking about buying one for when I leave for college this year. I'm wondering what your battery life and heat was like when not gaming? Just general internet and word processing use and the like.

I can handle it being hot while gaming, because I really only intend to be gaming in my dorm where I'll have it set up at a monitor and dock and everything and it wouldn't be that hard to just get a cooling pad or something for it.
 
Itchyeyes said:
Ok, after spending some more time with the machine I'm considering returning it. The heat is more of an issue than I originally thought. After a 20-30 min session of Crysis today I stopped playing because it was simply too uncomfortable on the left side of the machine. There's a lot I really love about the Envy 17, but the heat is getting to be too much of a nuisance for me to think I'll be happy with it in the long run.
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Definitely a problem. My Envy 15 idles at 30 C or even lower with i5-540M. Sounds like your fans are turning off. Go into the BIOS and enable "Fans always on.'

I have this option on my Envy 15 and turning it off allows idle temps and thus palm rests to skyrocket. Turn it on and palm rests are cool to touch and CPU dips as low as high 20's Celsius.

The only advantage to to letting the fans turn off is 1.) the laptop obviously goes completely silent when they are off, kinda nice... for the 10 seconds it lasts. The cycling is annoying. 2.) battery life is a little better this way, as the fans use a good amount of power, cycling saves on battery measurably.




I like the Envy 17 and all, but it doesn't impress me compared to the 15. It's like 60% heavier, GPU is better sure, but I can get 10700 3DMARK06 overclocked, compared to the Envy 17 about 11200 at stock. Not a HUGE jump, but worth the weight?

Also it's really thick compared to the 15. The 15 is 1". The 17 goes to like 1.5" in the back. Its a way bigger machine. :(

Once last thing... That damn E2E glass. Screw that, I don't want double the glare, I prefer a direct view glossy... less glare then a glossy panel sandwiched behind another glaring piece of glass which only serves to make it easier to clean (and cooler looking when it's off!)

At least they made it bright. My 15 is super bright as well (and gets super dark, the flexibility is great.)
 
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MightyMouse957 said:
I'm thinking about buying one for when I leave for college this year. I'm wondering what your battery life and heat was like when not gaming? Just general internet and word processing use and the like.
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Not very good. I ordered mine with a 9 cell battery and it only made it about 2.5 hours with some medium usage. I think if you had brightness low and didn't load up any flash, you could probably get 3 or 3:15 but it's nothing great.

I also thought the touchpad was horrid. The touch sensitive keys are truly abysmal, imo, and I cannot understand why they would do that. I mean, at its price point with BCB, it's basically up against the Best Buy Asus G73 and MSI GX740 (I think they have a new cheap gaming laptop too) and for that, given the metal case, backlit keyboard, great speakers, etc. I can see it being worth it.
 
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