Review: HP Envy 15 1015tx notebook
Tom on December 07, 2009
HP’s latest notebook, the 15.6-inch Envy 15, moves the consumer notebook line from HP into a whole new level of luxury, performance, and design. The Envy 15, along with it’s sibling, the 13-inch Envy 13, is designed to sit above the Pavilion line as the premium consumer notebook in HP’s expansive laptop lineup.
In moving to into the higher sphere of mobile computing, HP has been criticised of implementing design techniques, and features, of other manufacturers – most notably Apple. However, after spending a fortnight with the Envy 15, HP can argue that while their model certainly flatters other makers with similiar, possibly over-engineered characteristics, their model competently holds itself up as a unique, and individual choice in a strongly populated market.
Unboxing & Feature Tour
HP Envy 15 Unboxing & Tour from Tom Baker on Vimeo.
Video unboxing and tour of the Envy 15 premium notebook from HP, released November 2009, from TB Tech Australia. Visit the blog for more!
Specifications as tested
Pros
- Unique, stylish design
- Well built
- Strong performance
- Rich speaker quality
Cons
- No integrated optical drive
- Very poor battery performance
- Large footprint
- Gets hot
Build & Design
The Envy 15 has a fairly unique design compared to its lower Pavilion siblings. The traditional, rather straight-laced HP industrial design is evident in the Envy 15, but due to the positioning of the Envy, a number of hardware features increase the appeal of the notebook.
The notebook is constructed from individual sheets of layered magnesium. Unlike Apple’s MacBook and MacBook Pro lines, the Envy is not built from a unibody style (where one solid metal block is cut into to construct the laptop) – HP says this is because traditional construction actually creates a lighter laptop. The exterior is coated in a two-tone finish of dark grey on the lid and a lighter silver on the side profiles, and bottom of the notebook.
The fact that this notebok has taken on the new 16:9 aspect ratio common to new display panels, and televisions, plus HP has added on even more horizontal space here, means that the HP Envy 15 has a massive footprint. Unlike its relatively compact sibling, the Envy 13, the Envy 15 is a colossal temple to dark-coloured aluminium-magnesium fusion. It’s huge, and it’s difficult to call it ‘really portable’.
On the lid, HP’s trademark Imprint finish is evident. Rather than a simple printed pattern, though, shapes have been laserred into the Envy 15 to create patterns that show and change in different light levels. No pattern in particular is formed; however, this is a unique and luxurious touch that highlight this laptop’s premium stance.
The interior of the laptop is decorated in a fairly similar fashion; the palm rests and keyboard surround are the same dark grey in colour. The palm rests have the same imprinted pattern as the lid, but the deep area surrounding the keyboard is devoid of almost all features, except a raised ‘Power’ button reprieving the slate grey. The keyboard is black with white lettering. While such dark colours certainly serve to create a classy look, from a design perspective we felt that the interior of the Envy was far too dark.
The media controls usually found above the keyboard on traditional HP notebooks have migrated to the Function row of the keyboard, much like the Apple notebooks. HP have reversed the traditional Windows function key operation, so the features found imprinted on the Function row, like brightness or volume, are used by pressing that key, and the function behind it, say F2, is activated by holding Function. Different, and unexpected in a Windows laptop.
The display surround is coated in glossy black plastic to create the illusion of a display that reaches the edges of the lid. HP calls this an Infinity Display. And as far as the exterior of the laptop is unique, the interior of the Envy 15, and the Envy 13, are mind-blowingly similar to the Apple MacBook Pro line.
The Envy features excellent construction and quality, though the unibody construction of the MacBook line from Apple is even more solid. However, the HP is built very well. There is zero flex in the chicklet-style keyboard, and no bend in the display.
All surfaces are flush, but the fact that the Envy 15 is not a unibody laptop means that over time, various pieces of magnesium could become separated from those around it, and pop up. Many users of the previous, non-unibody MacBook Pro from Apple found this problem – including this reviewer.
Screen & Speakers
In international markets, the HP Envy 15 is offered with a full-HD display (1920×1080), commonly known as a 1080p panel. Unfortunately, in Australia, the highest resolution available is 1366 x 768, which is known as 720p. It’s cerainly high-definition, but it’s not a really high resolution, which is really deceptive of the intensely good specifications found in this laptop.
What’s more, the panel is not particularly sharp, or even clear; it’s also not nearly bright enough. I found myself trying to crank up the brightness, thinking it only around medium, but finding myself at the maximum possible light. When viewed straight on, the screen offers good colour and contrast, but from side angles, pixellation of the screen becomes obvious – an effect that puzzled friends and onlookers.
Another extreme issue is the fact that the screen on the Envy 15 does not tilt back far at all. Without getting into scientific terms, it opens maybe 110 degrees; fine for working straight on at the laptop, but if you’re standing giving a presentation off the Envy and need to tilt the screen back further to read, you are out of luck completely. The tilt was completely abysmal. Apple notebooks are infamous for not tilting far enough (ThinkPads for example tilt flat with the keyboard) but my two MacBooks tilted further than the Envy.
In a practical sense then, you’ll be fine if you look straight on, sitting down, at the Envy all day long. But in a corporate or education setting, giving a standing presentation off the screen will be difficult. This is something I do all the time, so it was a real annoyance.
The screen is what lets the Envy 15 down, in many ways, for two reasons. The first is that the Envy 15 has truly blistering specs, including 1GB of dedicated video memory and a very quick Radeon HD video processor. But this screen won’t really serve your games well.
HP have implemented speakers by Beats, a popular American audio specialist.
The speakers are the difference here though: the American rapper Dr. Dre started his own audio line a couple of years ago – it’s called ‘Beats’ – and HP have employed the Beats audio in the Envy 15. The audio quality is excellent over the speakers, and it’s clear that a good sound system has been included. The effect is like being in a car with Harmon Kardon or Bose speakers – you know it’s just ‘better’ in the audio department.
The Envy is absolutely competent with audio over the speakers, but it also includes a 3.5-millimetre headphone jack to use your own headphones (but there’s no standalone microphone jack, for some reason), and the HDMI-out port can pass both video and digital audio over a home theatre system.
Keyboard & Touchpad
The black chicklet keyboard on the HP Envy 15 is by all means ‘quite good’. It’s a little too large, to be honest, probably to fill up the extra horizontal space freed up by not including a number pad. To combat this ‘blank space’, HP have included two columns of shortcut keys to the immediate left and right of the traditional ‘letter’ space on the keyboard. Shortcuts to the media centre, internet, calculator, printers and email can be found on the left; browsing shortcuts are found on the right.
The keys are large, so it was occasionally off-putting to miss the key you wanted because your fingers had not moved quite far enough; however, with enough perseverence, accuracy and speed could be built up quickly.
The keys offered slightly less travel than I would have preferred. This resulted in a lack of feedback from each keypress. This is a personal thing though, but after using hundreds of laptops, you notice and appreciate decent travel and feedback.
The touchpad is, in a word, infuriating. It is very large, which is good, and it includes multi-touch capability. So, you may think, it is simliar to the MacBook trackpad. Well, it tries to be, but in the end, the Envy’s touchpad is neither as good as the Apple touchpad, or like anything else on Windows.
It’s large and black, and it has a slightly slippery textured feel. While you can tap anywhere like on any touchpad from the past ten years, there are no physical buttons on it, much like on the MacBook. But the difference is, while it clicks down anywhere (like Mac), clicks only register in the normal place on a trackpad – the left or right bottom corners. This is completely illogical; if the actual piece of hardware will click down anywhere, it should work anywhere, be it left clicks on the left side of the trackpad, and right clicks on the right.
The trackpad is also not sensitive enough out of the box, but this can be cured easily in the Control Panel. The touchpad is simply not good. It tries to emulate the innovation of the MacBook and MacBook Pro but it does not succeed. Back to the drawing board on this one, HP. It’s difficult to use and very annoying when you’re in a hurry to navigate around the laptop.
Ports and Features
While there were enough ports by definition on the HP Envy for everyday tasks, there was certainly space to accomodate more. The HP Envy 15 offers 2 standard USB ports, 1 combination eSATA / USB port, one 3.5-millimetre headphone / microphone in jack, an HDMI-out port, a Kensington lock, and a gigabit Ethernet input.
What I would have preferred is ditching a USB port in favour of a VGA-video-out port and a standalone microphone-in port; I don’t own a headphone/microphone combo with only one cable, so I had to use a USB cable with dual jacks to make my equipment work. It’s a bit of an oversight. Sure, the Envy Voodoo and MacBook Air have to make do with this; but the Envy 15 is not an ultralight. It’s a 15-inch laptop for goodness’ sake. It has the space, and I expect it.
As previously stated, HP have included a number of shortcut keys around the keyboard for quick access to common features, like the internet browser, emails, and the calculator. Otherwise, there’s not much you wouldn’t expect on the Envy 15.
Perhaps most unfortunately though – there is no integrated optical drive. Unheard of in a 15-inch laptop. Unheard of. I know and understand that HP is trying to make the Envy 15 thin, and all that graphics equipment inside doesn’t allow the space for an integrated optical drive; however, HP are skewing this laptop towards prosumers who have games that will utilise the processor to its ability, and these games use optical discs. To its credit, HP does include an external DVD drive, but it’s just not comparable to having one in the laptop. It should be there, and HP could have made greater effort to minimise the size of the internals to help consumers.
Performance
There’s absolutely no doubt about this one – the HP Envy 15 is blistering. It is very, very fast. It eats mundane tasks – like browsing the web, running Outlook, and using productivity suites like Microsoft Office – for breakfast. The combination of the Intel i7 processor, four gigabytes of memory, and the very competent ATI Radeon HD graphics card make for a hugely well-performing notebook.
More intensive multimedia tasks are simliarly an easy task for the Envy; 1080p video, while not displayed in full resolution due to the 720p screen, is transcoded without trouble. iTunes management, editing in Photoshop, and producing video are all fast.
Gaming is a pleasure on the Envy 15. The one gigabyte of dedicated video memory is still an unusual feature in a notebook, so it makes the Envy 15 that much better with 3D gaming and multimedia editing alike. ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2′ performed at full resolution at high frame rates.
Heat & Noise Output
The Envy 15 gets hot, and noisy, when placed under stress. The underside is raised slightly thanks to the four rubber stands on the bottom, and while this increases noise and heat offput, it’s worth it, because at least it won’t overheat. The Envy 15 crams a lot of high-performance features into a small space, and these generate a lot of heat. You won’t want to game with the Envy on your lap, that’s for sure. Also, the fans put off quite a lot of noise, but it’s liveable.
Battery Life
Bad. The sheer performance ability of the Envy 15 absolutely takes its toll on the battery life. We couldn’t best 90 minutes while web browsing and using Office Word 2007, on WiFi, at 75% brightness. This is abysmal. A 9-cell battery may have fit into the shell, maybe it wouldn’t have. But something should have been done about the battery life. Even switching the laptop into the Windows Power Saver mode didn’t change things much, but using the Windows Classic theme, without the Aero Glass battery suck helped slightly.
Conclusion
The HP Envy 15 is an enormous, fast premium notebook that unfortunately misses some things that even bargain laptops include. The exclusion of an integrated DVD drive, the less-than-impressive screen, the incompetent battery… these all work against the premium character (and price!) of the Envy 15. They really beg the question of why you would want to splash down $2,800 on this, when high-end HP Pavilion notebooks offer better feature sets, or significant savings could be made buying a high-performance, thinner and more featured Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch.
The Envy 15 is a surprising fusion of the very good and the very poor. The performance is great. You’ll kill day to day tasks, but you will be chained to the power adapter most of the time because the battery might not last you to the coffee shop – forget the transcontinental plane flight. It’s got a unique design, but it’s not unibody, it’s only an inch-thin, and it doesn’t have a built-in DVD drive.
This is a premium notebook, yes; and luxury consumers know that sometimes sacrifices have to be made to get the best aesthetics or performance. That’s what’s going on here. The Envy 15 makes you lay down a lot. But you get the best of other things. It’s expensive, but it looks great, and it’s very fast. For many people, this will be enough to satisfy. But there are other options that should be considered, both more inexpensive, and better featured options. But for some, the Envy 15 will be exactly what they have been looking for.
This review is so badly off that I had to say something. First, the flat out errors… The i7 version has 4 DIMMS, not 2. That is why it can support 16 gig. The i5 has only 2 DIMMS. Having a QUAD core laptop with 16 gigs of ram in a slim 15 inch configuration is a first. If you want power without killing your back, this machine is the ONLY solution for you. It’s incredibly well engineered. The screen is gorgeous if you have the high res 1920×1080 version. The battery life is great if you get the 12 cell slice battery. So, what’s the problem? Nothing. It’s the best laptop money can buy. It has options for DUAL hard drives and a new patch will be out to fix an intel issue with the cpu not idling properly. Once they get that resolved, the heat and battery life will be significantly improved. Every new product has it’s quirks. That’s this ones.
Comment by Paul on January 20, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Hi Paul!
Thanks for taking the time to read through and make some necessary corrections and comments. I’ll do my best to answer what I can.
With regards to the specifications, I totally understand why you are concerned. It’s our mistake with the incorrect DIMM rating – although this certainly wasn’t criticism on our part for the Envy 15. This graphic will be updated shortly.
With regards to your other comments, I appreciate your feedback and personal thoughts. Unfortunately, though, we can only comment on what we are given – and in this country, at this point in time, it’s the Envy 15-1015tx variant. The HP Australia store does not allow customisation to the higher specifications you speak of. In fact, at the moment this store is unavailable, so hopefully this will be made available.
I agree with you that the Envy is very well engineered – it’s got that great premium feel. Despite this, the review unit we were provided with was a letdown in a number of areas, including the display, which was the low-res version, the battery, which was the standard 6-cell version, and out-of-the-box processor usage controls (no patches were available).
So while you’re absolutely correct that this laptop is one of the best choices mobile engineers, designers, videographers and other users with performance needs, it needs to be upgraded from this configuration that we were provided with from HP.
I’d be happy to reevaluate with the higher specifications you mentioned. I’ve emailed my contact at HP to discuss requesting a maxed-out version.
I can’t agree that this is the best laptop money can buy, as it’s never wise to make such an absolute statement, as something better is just around the corner. Plus, for the same money, either now or in the near future, other manufacturers, including HP with their EliteBook range, are providing better value with greater specifications. Aesthetics, on the other hand, are a subjective thing. The Envy may or may not be to each of our tastes.
Thank you, though, once again for taking some time to comment. It’s greatly appreciated. You can contact me at contact (at) tbtech.info for a more personal followup if you wish.
-Tom
Editor
Comment by Tom on January 20, 2010 at 6:48 pm