When it comes to selecting the favorite mainstream Windows laptops these days a HP Envy 14 is flattering most during the tippy top of a list. (Hey, we don’t only give anything away to our college-bound readers, you know?) But whilst a 14-inch chronicle of a magnesium-alloy laptop may have impressed us with its brand-new backlit keyboard and inner viscera, we’ve still been painful to know how a bigger as well as badder Core i7-powered Envy 17 stands up. With the 1920 x 1080-resolution 17.3-inch display, 1GB of ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 graphics, the USB 3.0 pier as well as Blu-ray drive, can you really censure us? There’s no disbelief that the Envy 17 is a single epic desktop replacement, though for $1,599 (the starting cost is $1,299) we’ve got to discuss it you you’re not purchasing soundness. Just what holds back a Envy 17 from being the be-all end-all multimedia beast? We’ll divulge all in the full review after a mangle. HP Envy 17 examination

Look and feel

Those familiar with a alternative Envy laptops won’t find a 17 to be all which unique in conditions of pattern, though that doesn’t meant we’re sleepy of the line’s magnesium amalgamate framework, etched lid, and aluminum edges. How could we presumably get ill of one of a most appropriate seeking laptops out there? Like the Envy 14, the overall production quality is top notch — a steel hinges keep the screen from wobbling as well as a metal palmrest feels plain to the bone.

Sure, a Envy 17 has the same look and feel as its not as big 14-inch brother, but it could additionally eat a 14 for breakfast in conditions of distance. The laptop’s 17.3-inch arrangement is stunning as well as provides a ton of shade genuine estate (we’ll get behind to which shortly, though it additionally creates it a mother of the system in conditions of pristine measurements. Like many desktop replacements, you suggest keeping the 10.8 x 16.4x 1.5-inch / 7.5-pound appurtenance under a single roof — we dragged it and its 1.5-pound power section home from a bureau and the shoulder sure wasn’t happy about it. If you’re seeking for a thinner as well as lighter 17-incher, the 6.6-pound MacBook Pro 17is really trimmer, though many others float around the same distance as the Envy.

The additional edge space creates for a whopping array of ports — a left side is home to VGA, Ethernet, Mini DisplayPort and HDMI ports along with the combo eSATA / USB 2.0 socket, an even faster USB 3.0 pier as well as dual headphone ports. Two one more USB 2.0 ports live upon a right edge along with a system’s 5-in-1 card reader and slot-loading Blu-ray drive. That should be enough to keep all your peripherals powered during a same time, or you know, energy 3 monitors simultaneously (thanks Eyefinity!).

Keyboard, touchpad, shade

The Envy 17’s far-reaching chiclet keyboard has been kept total and still has the dedicated series pad. As we said in the review of the Envy 14, a keys have the bit of the rubber feel to them and just a right amount of rebound. We typed a entirety of this review on a row during a really sprightly gait with really few typos. The major further to the row is patently a backlight, which can be turned upon as well as off, but not adjusted like on a MacBook Pro line.

Here’s a shocker: we’re not fans of a 17’s touchpad. Come upon, you’re not surprised are you? HP’s still regulating the enlarged ClickPad upon the Envy 17, and you essentially found it to be some-more frustrating to use on this version than on a Envy 14 — even after we updated to latest drivers. If the finger slipped over the left rodent symbol line, it would cause the cursor to jump to another part of a screen, and at times we’d notice a rodent only not relocating when you told it to. Ultimately, the desk pad is vast and smooth, but you wish during this point HP would just go behind to regulating the unchanging touchpad with dedicated right as well as left buttons. Was there unequivocally anything wrong with those? As for the multitouch gestures, pinch-to-zoom was manageable in most applications, though scrolling is still the crapshoot.

That brings us to the favorite partial of a Envy 17: its edge-to-edge glass, 1920 x 1080-resolution, 17.3-inch BrightView display. Maybe it’s that we’ve gotten so used to 13- as well as 15-inch laptops, though the extra shade space is much appreciated for gripping multiple windows scattered around whilst operative as well as then shutting them down to watch a movie in loyal HD upon Blu-ray. Speaking of that, which high clarification experience upon this rig is zero reduced of pretentious — you queued up Sweeny Todd on the large shade as well as we were enthralled in a crisp quality of the Tim Burton’s universe. The visible knowledge is met with an similarly impressive audio a single; a two speakers on a front mouth of a appurtenance blasted out a single of a movie’s musical numbers — “By The Sea” to be precise — utterly loudly. HP’s makes a system’s Beats Audio no secret — there have been logos on the front lip as well as a top bezel — however, you’ll unequivocally usually reap a benefits of the enhanced audio when you block in an outmost set of speakers or headphones. We should also note here that this is one of the first laptops in the prolonged time which we didn’t totally kick up upon for carrying distressing viewing angles; a row is incredibly silken, but a quality is really the notch above many out there.

Performance, graphics, as well as battery life

The Envy 17 which landed in our “lab” was configured with the 1.60GHz Intel Core i7 Q720 processor, 6GB of RAM, the 500GB 7,200rpm tough drive, and 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 graphics. It’s a powerhouse of the appurtenance, and it can be built with even more muscle as it can be spec’d out with up to 8GB of RAM and faster Core i7-740QM or Core i7-840QM processors. Obviously, the complete package supposing more than sufficient energy for our bland computing activities as well as afterwards a little. No matter what we threw at it, it seemed to keep up — for instance, simultaneously running Photoshop, a Blu-ray front in Roxio, and Batman: Arkham Asylum didn’t even handicap the system.

Graphics-wise, it was similarly nimble. We do wish there was a more discerning approach to turn on and off a dissimilar graphics (eh hem, NVIDIA Optimus!), though the opening numbers just verbalize for themselves. Besides pulling along HD content flawlessly, it rocked Batman at 37fps as well as a demo chronicle of Mafia II at 34fps. We wish you could put a gaming knowledge into difference, but it’s roughly too enthralling to describe. You really just have to glow up Mafia II as well as drive over the Brooklyn Bridge in the Smith Thunderbolt to meet alternative high-res Italian mobsters yourself to assimilate it. Our usually censure about a experience was that the palmrest / core of the keyboard exhilarated up utterly the bit after about 5 minutes of personification, but the comfortable wrist wasn’t sufficient to stop us from reuniting Vito with his mobster buddies.

 PCMarkVantage 3DMark06
 Battery Life 

HP Envy 17 (Core i7-740QM, ATI HD 5850) 6153 10787 2:10 

HP Envy 14 (Core i5-450M, ATI HD 5650) 6038 6899/1928 3:51 

Sony VAIO Z (Core i5-450M, NVIDIA 330M) 9949 6193 4:25 

Sony VAIO EC (Core i3, ATI HD 5470) 5308 4094 2:33 

ASUS U33Jc (Core i3-370M, NVIDIA 310M) 5574 1860/3403 5:10 

Toshiba Portege R705 (Intel Core i3-350M) 5024 1759 4:25 

Those complicated performance parts as well as a vast screen take a critical, and we mean critical, fee on battery holdup. The six-cell battery lasted only dual hours and 10 minutes upon our battery rundown exam, which loops a same standard clarification video. Now, you do assume you won’t be moving around with a rig all that often as well as you can always pick up the nine-cell battery for an extra $75, but we’re still unhappy which you won’t be means to finish a full film before having to string a rather large AC adapter across a room.

As for preloaded program, HP’s finished the stand up job keeping the desktop purify, though a Envy 17 still comes installed with HP’s Dock as well as an collection of alternative program, including Hulu Desktop, Adobe Premiere Elements, Barnes & Noble’s Desktop eReader, as well as Roxio’s CinemaNow. Like many HP machines, Internet Explorer 8 is wallpapered with toolbars, yet you commissioned IE9 Beta early on in the contrast. You can additionally foot a complement directly into HP’s QuickWeb OS, but because you’d ever want to do which on the desktop deputy that takes an additional 25 seconds to foot into a 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium is severely over us.

Wrap-up

Nope, HP’s Envy 17 still isn’t the perfect desktop deputy — the touchpad is still the bit fussy as well as it can get the bit warm during graphics intensive activities — but like the Envy 14, it comes pretty darn close to it. If you can live with those shortcomings, as well as the theory is that you can by picking up an external rodent, a 17.3-inch rig is bound to keep you procrastinating — whether with games, glorious sounding tunes or overwhelming HD cinema — for the very long time. Obviously, we verbalize from experience.

Via Engadget